CHAPTER 14
We pulled up to the ferry landing point in Punta Arenas just as our boat cast off its lines and headed out of the harbor. Luckily, there was another one at 5pm, so we took a nap and were the first in line for the next boat. The Nicoya Peninsula is a thumb of land sticking down from the north-west coast of Costa Rica, and though the northern shores of the peninsula have good road access and are starting to become developed, there is a long stretch of pristine beaches wrapped around the southern tip of the thumb, largely undiscovered by tourists, and mostly frequented by laid back hippies, surfers, and backpackers who helped establish the small coastal villages starting in the 60’s. That being said, the road from Paquera where the ferry let us off, to Montezuma where we had picked as our slice of paradise, was understandably horrible. One enormous pothole that almost swallowed the truck actually caused a slight mechanical problem for us, though we wouldn’t know it for another few hundred miles when we reached the Panama border. A nut on the left swaybar linkage was jarred loose, and after a few more days of vibrating down the highway almost fell off. Because it had unscrewed itself, every time the front left tire went up and down, the threads of the linkage bolt rubbed back and forth in their bracket, causing an alarming grinding sound whenever we went over the slightest bump. The day was getting late when we heard this sound, and thinking the wheel was about to fall off, we decided that it was probably better to just take her into a shop. We limped into the first mechanic we saw, and unluckily for us, no parts shop in town had a new linkage, but lucky for us, the guy under our truck was pretty resourceful, and just put some spacer washers on the worn bolt so that the nut could still be torqued correctly. Dave and Kacey: 1, Giant car-eating-pothole: 0.
Montezuma did turn out to be our slice of paradise, but we didn’t have it all to our selves. The morning after we arrived we were standing on our balcony, and in what was at least the third random time since we had met them in El Salvador, we saw our friends Tim and Amy lounging by the pool of their hotel, which happened to be right next to ours. To celebrate our apparently fated companionship, we made a pasta salad in our hotel room using the small electric tea kettle that we brought with us to boil the noodles, and added a bunch of chopped veggies and spices. With a few of the best $5 boxed wines Costa Rica has to offer, we set out for a sunset picnic on the beach. The sunset was beautiful as expected, but the billowing clouds above that had just recently been painted all colors of red and orange by the setting sun, began to let fall a light drizzle. We moved our blanket and food to the cover of a grove of palm trees, and continued to eat with hope that the storm would lighten, but every minute that passed the rain drops became bigger and more frequent. Before we knew it, the skies had opened up, and we were in the middle of a full fledged tropical storm. Our pasta salad turned into some sort of pasta soup but was still very delicious, and the cheap wine wasn’t getting any worse either. It was actually a lot of fun sitting there laughing together in the pouring rain, and aside from our waterlogged camera bag, we didn’t have a worry in the world.
Our friends Erik and Noah had invited us to come visit them further south on the Costa Rican coast where they had rented a house for a week to accommodate them and Erik’s wife Shelly, and Noah’s girlfriend Heidi, who had come down to visit. I’m not sure if they actually expected us to show up (considering they didn’t give us an address) but we figured that a few days spent together in Nicaragua on a volcanic island justified us dropping in unannounced and bringing the party with us. Tim and Amy were down with the plan, so we piled into the truck once again, caught the ferry back to the mainland, and headed towards the little town that we had heard Noah mention. To our credit, we did send them an email before we left Montezuma, saying that we were on our way, but it was only a couple hour drive, and they didn’t end up getting it till we were already standing on their door step. The fact that we found their house at all was a complete miracle- after driving down the main (and only) road, next to the beach, we had pretty much given up hope and were resigned to finding a hotel for the night. As I was in the middle of saying “this is like trying to find a needle in a…” by pure chance we looked over and spotted their van in the drive way of nice new house in a gated community off on a side street. The guard let us in the gate, rather easily I might add, and we stood on their porch for a second trying to decide what to say. But before we could ring the bell, they had come to the door and with cheers and laughter invited us in. After a fresh batch of tuna ceviche, and chicken fajitas for dinner, we spent the evening catching up and having a few rounds of cold beer to wash it all down. It was shaping up to be a perfect night, but then I had to go to the bathroom… Now, I will be the first to admit that I have clogged my fair share of toilets in my day, but this was a record even for me. After relieving myself from all the beers I had consumed- no solids, no paper, only liquid- I pushed the toilet handle, and not only did the bowl not drain, it started overflowing at an alarming rate. I called out for help, but by that time the bathroom was flooded, and the water was making its way for the kitchen. We started mopping things up when one of the girls had to go to the bathroom too, so we told her it would probably be better to use the one up stairs. A minute later we heard her flush, and blub blub blub, the toilet down stairs started over flowing again! In one fell swoop, I had clogged the plumbing for the entire house. And the award for being ‘That Guy’ at the party goes to… Dave! I can’t tell you how embarrassed I was, but luckily for me, there were a few more cold drinks in the fridge which helped take the edge off the situation. Not wanting to test my luck with any other appliances in their rented house, the next morning we headed out early, with Panama in our sights.
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