After La Fortuna and the volcano, our holiday certainly felt like it was over. But there was one more sleep! We left La Fortuna at a leisurely time and hit the road once again toward San Jose.
The drive took us over a mountain pass, so for some time we climbed 5000ft toward the clouds... and then into them. There was a spunky little truck we got to follow up the slopes and through the fog.
We stopped at the town of Zarcero, which has a beautiful church with a topiary garden. In fact, it seems every town has a fancy church as a centrepiece.
Nearer San Jose, we headed off the highway to hit up a few artsy towns, including Sarchí and Grecia. Sarchí boasts the world's largest oxcart. It certainly is big, and the paint job is quite something.
The church in Sarchí.
Sarchí is known for furniture and traditional oxcart production. Along some stretches of the road almost every store was a furniture place.
Mini oxcarts for your pantry.
In Grecia we had our final "vest guy" experience. A phenomenon we'd seen a few times, guys make work for themselves by wearing a traffic vest (to look official) and try to get paid by tourists (and maybe by ticos too; I don't know). They'll work their magic while you, obviously a useless driver who needs his assistance, park your car on a busy street; this magic may include directing you by gesticulating wildly, or even by holding up traffic since you obviously need the entire road space to complete your amateurish parking job.
So anyway, the local vest guy eyed us coming and made a beeline for our car as we quickly parked before he got there. Then he pointed at us, then at the car, then at himself, indicating that we'd hired him to kindly watch our car for us while we were out and about. We did our best not to acknowledge him other than to glare discouragingly at him. We were, after all, getting out just to stretch our legs and check out the goings-on in the park across the street.
When we got back to the car not long afterward, vest guy got in our way trying to close the door after the girls as they got in. I did my best to get in his way. Once we were all piled in he waited near the driver's door, standing in the way until we paid him for his wonderful services. Reuben was at the wheel this time, and I suggested that we all just sit tight for a minute or two until vest guy got distracted. Sure enough, when other cars started showing up and parking nearby, vest guy was visibly torn between getting paid by us and moving on to potentially easier game. After a car or two he took off to gesticulate wildly to his next clients. I told Reuben to take off, which we did successfully. Vest guy noticed and tried to run our way for his paycheque, but we got away clean! Woohoo, saved another 25 cents! Looking back, it's less about the money than the thrill (and the principle of course); I suppose we should feel bad for the guy, but useless services are useless services.
We got to our final stop (a one-night stay), a B&B in Atenas, which is a town 20km west of the airport. Atenas is widely held to be one of the best weather spots in the world. The B&B was high on a hillside and overlooked Costa Rica's Central Valley. The view was certainly phenomenal.
There was a pool from which to enjoy the view; we went for a quick dip, but we arrived pretty late, and at this altitude late afternoon isn't exactly sweltering.
After enjoying a nice sunset, it was again time for a cigar.
And then the fair happened :(.
Quite a ways below us was a bustling fairground, and things were in full swing before too long. The noises in general weren't too bad; the problem was the guy on the megaphone! Some contest was being held, and the commentator was very VERY LOUD. Amazing how sound travels in a valley. After a couple hours the yelling stopped, which was great...
...until they replaced the voice with music. Also very loud. This lasted not quite as long, until finally the fair was over. And then came a pleasant surprise: they had a great fireworks display! Obviously just for us, as an apology for being so annoying. Watching fireworks from above is pretty cool, and the show definitely improved our evening.
The next morning we were off to a fairly slow start. Our flight was at 1pm, except Carrie's which was a couple hours later. Of course being on time and dawdling eventually turns into not being on time and wishing you hadn't wasted time on this or that. Our half-hour drive, plus an attempt to find a gas station, plus some time spent returning the rental car, put us at the airport a little later than we wanted to be. We lined up to pay the tourist exit tax (!) of $28 (Carrie's diplomatic passport exempted her). Then a short wait at the ticket counter; we were down to three souls then as we lost Carrie while she chased around for that exemption. Then a longer wait in line to get to security; after at least 20 minutes of waiting in that line we finally got to the front... at which time Carrie the diplomat waltzed right by the queue, and we were all together again!
Irene got randomly selected to have her laundry aired out in public, as it were. They went through her (and three other people's) stuff in plain sight. Fortunately they found no contraband.
Finally, boarding. I hate standing in line so I like to sit and wait until the last moment, preferably so late that my name gets called on the PA. Then wait a couple more minutes. At that point almost everyone in the plane should be seated and there's not a huge lineup still in the jet bridge.
The air is quite turbulent above San Jose, so flying can be quite bumpy above the valley. It can also get quite warm, as our pilot explained: "Sorry the cabin got a little warm folks; we had to turn off the air conditioning for max takeoff power." Apparently not that uncommon. Our three seats happened to be together on this flight so we endured enjoyed a few more hours together. Our return trip went through Newark again, and en route we saw New York City lit up in the dark... a pretty cool sight!
Anyway, got safely back to Ottawa at 11pm and took a cab home; Carrie flew in two hours later so I still had to pick her up.
It wasn't that wintry when we got back, but enough to take some getting used to. That's all changed now, with temperatures this past week reaching 27 degrees and the snow pretty much gone. Kind of reminds me of the weather in Tamarindo...
Which then reminds me of driving around at 50 km/h. For 1100 km.
And of not worrying about gas prices when you buy (it's the same price across the country)... (okay, still worrisome, as the price per litre is higher than in Canada... sigh).
And of muertos (that's what they call speed bumps; literally, "dead people").
And of oodles of stray dogs and too many roadkill dogs.
And of lost stuff (each couple lost a camera case; could be worse I guess).
And of fences, fences everywhere (theft deterrents obviously... they're certainly not for looks).
(Even around the churches... how welcoming is that??)
And of deliciously fresh and tasty fruit.
And of Reuben wanting to jump in the back of every off-road vehicle to go for a ride.
Sorry Reub; wanna burn around in my sweet Corolla instead?
Good times. Pura vida!
