La Fortuna to Mal Pais

We were scheduled to leave La Fortuna on Friday, Decembeer 21, headed for Mal Pais.  Because it is Christmastime, and we'd heard a lot of Ticos head for the Nicoya Peninsula for the holiday, we wanted to get on the road at 8:00 am for the drive to Puntarenas and the ferry to Paquera.  We almost met the goal.  After the car was packed up with the luggage and goodbyes said to David and his father and mother, George and CiCi, I noticed the left rear tire on WeGo the Bego was going flat.  There was enough air in the tire to drive to the service station, and David led us there in his Frontier pickup.  The tire got changed quickly and we found the end of what looked like a small screw that had caused it to start going flat.  Better to have noticed it before we left than half-way down the road to San Ramon (think very twisty 40 km/hr road with no shoulder in most places).

Thank you David, George and Cici for your wonderful hospitality!!!

It rained steadily on the drive to San Ramon, and there was fog at the top of the mountains on the drive to San Ramon.  There is no way around the city,  so we followed the road through town to Highway 1.  Once there, we saw what appeared to be an accident with multiple police vehicles and a lot of people standing by the roadside watching.  No accident.  It was a bicycle race.  The Transito cop at the intersection waived us on and we started on the road to San Ramon.  We got maybe 1/2 km. down the road before a motorcycle cop came roaring up on the left with siren and lights flashing.  He waved us to the side.  What the hell?  I hadn't done anything wrong.  I started steeling myself for an interaction with Costa Rican law enforcement with my limited Spanish.  Turned out he wasn't stopping me but just clearing the road for ... a bicycle race.

After the bicycles and their chase cars passed, we were allowed to go on.  As we were starting off again, an American expat on the other side of the road yelled, "Welcome to Costa Rica!"  No kidding.  During the drive to Puntarenas, there were several places where Transito had stopped the San Jose bound traffic, with it lined up for quite a distance.  We were glad there were no similar roadblocks going our way, since we were concerned about not missing the ferry.  As it worked out, we made it to the ferry dock in plenty of time and eventually were loaded on the half-empty ferry for the trip across the Gulf of Nicoya.  It was a beautiful nearly cloudless day and the water was calm.  The 70 minute ride was a real pleasure, and I see the SPOT GPS tracked us across the gulf.

Once we reached Paquera, we headed for Cobano and then on to Mal Pais.  Along the way we had a chance to get acquainted with the famous Costa Rican potholes.  The road was paved to Cobano, but we had to go slow to dodge the frequent deep potholes.  In Cobano we stopped at a MegaSuper grocery for supplies, then it was on to Mal Pais.  The 14 or so km from Cobano were on rough gravel and rock.  It was clear we weren't heading to a vacation in a place like Kihei or Kailua.