Last week I had some business to do in Jaco so we headed out of San Jose via Puriscal on a beautiful winding road that usually has great views. Somewhere along the way we took a left instead of a right, and decided to follow our noses (and the very-vague GPS) to figure out a back roads route instead of back tracking to the way we knew was correct. One of the advantages of living in country with a crazy road network is that you can take seemingly random roads with some degree of confidence that they will eventually hook up to something that eventually hooks up to a road that eventually gets you back to where you were headed originally. Though it can take a few "stop and ask" sessions.

We cruised through the city of Puriscal (approx 30,000 people) and snapped a few pictures of the old church. Really neat building, in total disrepair, and ugly power lines not withstanding. It would be fun to go inside and poke around, but the fencing and our interest in arriving in Jaco prevented us from exploring more. If we had known that we were about to take a two-hour detour through all-over, we may have gone ahead and taken some time to poke around.

Fortuitously, we did stop to fill up the tank with fuel. It wouldn't have been much of an issue as we had about 400 Km worth of diesel in the tank already, but as we got further and further from "I know where we are", it was reassuring to have a full tank.

Shortly after leaving Puriscal, we came upon a bit of a problem. The road was gone. Fortunately, it did have signs (not always the case) so we didn't plummet to our deaths in the chasm below.* Also fortunate was the nearby (unmarked) detour, from which we got a great view of the bucolic valley below while mist rose from the surrounding mountains. This is a part of Costa Rica that we just don't see very often and it was a refreshing reminder of how amazingly diverse the country is, both in terms of geography and also flora and fauna.
*Ok, it wasn't such a deep chasm, and it was daylight, and pretty easy to see. No real danger there at all. Regardless, it isn't uncommon to mark something like this with a broken twig and a grocery bag. Seriously. Drive carefully in this country.

We managed to take a wrong turn, perhaps several wrong turns, and ended up on a good-quality but very muddy narrow mountain road that winds from the mountains through more mountains, with views of mountains before winding along towards more mountains, then finally dropping down along a river (you just have to turn right on the unmarked lane by Super Gloria) to some unmarked turns by various bridges along more muddy lanes and eventually you'll hit Jaco. In a nutshell, that is how it was described to us. After we accepted our fate, the drive was beautiful! There were flowers galore nested into little farms in various valleys, sweeping views of the misty mountains, the always exciting "two huge dumptrucks passing each other on a washout". Who could ask for more? The dumptrucks were there trying to repair the fairly small but serious looking landslides that were alarmingly frequent along this route. No less than eight times we drove through what was probably less than two days-old road re-construction. Had we tried to do the same route a few days before, it wouldn't have been possible, I think.

Pretty fence and flowers in the middle of nowhere	Great views	Dumptrucks, they always seem to pass each other at the narrow, washed out part of the road.	More impressive, misty, beautiful, mountain views

In addition to the impressive vistas to which we were treated, the generally gray and rainy weather was pleasantly cool. One of the downsides to exploring around here can be that you are either stewing in your own juices, or suffering through an interminable-seeming day of air conditioning blasting in your face. If you grant it nothing else, you've got to hand it to the Central Valley on weather. Most of the day was in the low 70s, with high humidity, but occasional sunshine. Pretty darn pleasant.

Also very pleasant were the delicious chorizo sandwiches that we made, almost as if we had planned to be out in the middle of naught all day. I can't post the picture of Jocelyn snarging down on the handful of pork and bread (she vetoed it) but take my word, yummy sandwiches were the order of the day and in the interest of helping myself remember yet another happy aspect of the day, I felt obliged to mention it.

Along the way we drove through the edge of (or at least very very close to the edge of) a little town called Salitral. I was excited because I was pretty sure that I remember reading about a Woman's Association of Salitral that is using methane-producing digesters to convert pig manure into cooking gas. We didn't stop because A) we were starting to worry about just how far out of the way we had diverged, B) We were already over an hour late for a business meeting in Jaco, and had no cell phone coverage, C) It was raining pretty hard at that point, and D) checking out a biogas production facility isn't the type of thing that takes 15 minutes.

Turned out that not stopping was a good call as I was totally mistaken in my recollection of the location. The place that I was thinking of is Santa Fe which isn't even close to where we were. Go figure. Of course, that isn't to say that Salitral isn't a worthwhile place to stop. It may have something wonderful to offer. In fact, if I end up on this random road again some day, I'm stopping in Salitral just to find out what is there.

After asking directions a few more times, and taking some wild guesses that proved to work out in our favor, we hit a big river that we basically followed towards the ocean, where we knew that there would be a highway that would take us to Jaco. The roads got less winding, though they had less gravel, more mud, and deeper potholes. Now, like several other times on the day's journey, we were feeling pretty glad to be in a Land Cruiser, and even more glad that we had put it in 4wd prior to getting stuck in some of the unexpectedly deep wallows. I should take a second to point out that, of course, the gnarliest sections of the drive were the ones that we didn't take pictures on because Jocelyn (and I) weren't willing to wade through knee-deep soupy mud just to snap a photo of our truck slogging through knee-deep soupy mud. Maybe next time.

The rest of the drive was fairly run-of-the-mill Costa Rica: great views of everything from soaring hardwood trees to horses in lime-green fields to swollen creeks and smiling children perched impossibly on bundles in the back of rickety pickup trucks. Since we were so horribly late, we gave up on the time table completely and just enjoyed the drive. Something we used to do all the time but have gotten too busy to enjoy in recent months.

At the risk of sounding too hokey- it was almost as if the events of the day were arranged by someone else, call it divine intervention, call it our subconscience, call it the Universe, call it happenstance... but whatever it was, a bunch of little things all lined up nicely for us to have a really pleasant, unexpected, four-hour backroads adventure.

Our very late arrival even turned out to be no problem at all as Jaco was without electricity and my business contact had moved out to a nearby town seeking internet, where he didn't realize that he didn't have cellphone coverage, so we would not have been able to find him anyway had we arrived in Jaco on time. Go figure.

Labels: 4wd, Costa Rica, day trip, fuel, landcruiser, mud, photo

We found out that there would be no power on Thursday, so we decided to go to Avellanas for the day. Just to make life interesting, we decided to take the "back road", which is an easy (albeit bumpy) ride in the dry season. It took us a little over three hours to travel to Playa Avellanas. That's only about 3 miles away along the beach, and about a 20 minute drive on the main road. Totally worth it.

Note: one of the many benefits of getting muddy with good friends who just so happen to be professional photographers is that you end up with better-than-average pictures for the site. For more of Michael's work, check out MichaelPisarri.com.

When Costa Rican maps define roads as "seasonal", that probably means that there isn't a road there in the wet season. We've taken this road hundreds of times in the dry months, and thought we would see just how bad it is this time of year. It's pretty bad.

The day's first casualty was Steve's flip flop.	Having fun in the muck. Note the front tire: completely encased in clay	We spent a lot of time facing in a direction other than the one we were moving- back tires stuck in a rut, spinning, front tires pulling us along the trail	"Sure... we can make it through this!"
Notice the size of the ruts in relation to the dog (she's about 50lbs, by the way, not tall, but not tiny)	Winching through the first soft patch		The girls ran ahead to scout out routes.
The ultimate offroad vehicles. They would have made it through the road without incident, but no A/C nor stereo either	Not just muddy, but the occasional fallen tree added some variety	Knowing that the water and muddy riverbank would be a challenge, we decided to set up the winch before we got into trouble this time. Caly was very helpful	Neither of the large trees in the foreground was any help to getting up the bank. Michael did the walking while Steve pays out more line
The river was easy, but we only made it a few feet up the bank, which appears to be made entirely of slimy, grimy, claylike muck	This may not look very deep, but it is	Winching uphill through sloppy mud. The ruts were about 30 inches deep when we were done	Made it to the top of the bank, spinning wheels and pushing piles of mud. Finally got a little bit of traction and drove out from here
Michael the winch monster	Mike and Bb scouting out a "difficult" section ahead, this little puddle in front didn't look like much (note where the stick is located on the right).	Oops. I guess the puddle was deeper than it looked! (again, note the stick on the left this time)
"C'mon Guys! Let's get that winch line hooked up and running!" This water eventually pooched my EDIC relay, which is an expensive part. Fortunately there was no permanent damage.	Here's another angle. This stuck had what I like to call a high pucker-factor. Not exactly a relaxing position.	After that last puddle, we took the scouting a little more seriously	Sitting under a swaying coconut palm, relaxing with good friends after the run
Good food. Good friends (who thought we were a little crazy to take the back road in August).	Nothing like a dip in the ocean to get the mud off	beach. stick. Happy Dog.

Photo Credits: Michael Pisarri and Steve Broyles

Labels: 4wd, Costa Rica, day trip, landcruiser, mud, photo, weather

Had a great time driving an almost-impassable road this weekend. More pictures coming soon, I promise. Unfortunately, a very important part on the cruiser (the EDIC system) spent a lot of time underwater so I had to take it apart and fix it. Fortunately, the cruiser was perfectly driveable without this very important system... it just wouldn't turn off, which is rather important. Got it fixed, all is well. If you have any interest in some pictures... follow this link.

Labels: landcruiser, mud, photo, weather

Business took me back to Santa Cruz again yesterday (Monday), which would have been mildly inconvenient except for the fact that we've had rain of almost-biblical proportions all weekend. The last estimate I had heard was somewhere between three and five inches in three days. Regardless, it was a LOT of rain. The upside is that rain is good, it recharges aquifers. The downside is that too much rain is bad, it makes rivers flood their banks, washes out roads, gets backhoes stuck... and generally makes your day less pleasant if you've got to be out and about.

Note that this bridge is under construction, and the river is about seven feet deep in this photo. That's about 20 minutes of extra driving just to get to the other side.	Here I am rolling through about 6 inches of water on the highway.	But just when I thought I was having a bad day...
At least the clouds made for pretty green fields with misty mountains	Two more backhoes come to rescue the first	These are all the people stopping along the highway to watch the floundering backhoe

By the time I drove by a couple of hours later, the buried backhoe had made a lot of progress towards being free, the other two backhoes seemed to have avoided getting themselves stuck, and I was too tired/lazy to take more photos. Right after I passed the scene, the rain hit with a vengeance, I won't be surprised if I see one or more backhoes stuck there when I drive by tomorrow!

Labels: Costa Rica, landcruiser, mud, weather

Got up at 5:30 this morning to grab my buddy Brian and go surf Avellanas. We've been working really hard and needed a little time to blow of some steam, but had a busy day planned, so we headed down early.

Along the way, we decided to go "the back way", as it is more fun and scenic. Okay, truth is, Steve decided and Brian quietly accepted with minor reservations. See, "the back way" is a low-quality dirt road that is under construction. It has been raining. A+B=Mud but... we're in a lifted cruiser with mud-terrain tires, a rear locking differential and a good driver behind the wheel... a little mud? No worries!

Right. No worries. No forward progress, either. It probably would have been a good idea to engage 4wd prior to entering the wallow.

I did at least try to winch out, despite the total lack of nearby trees/stumps/rocks upon which to winch. But I haven't finished the winch install (lacking just one cable) and the jumper cable field repair just wasn't cutting it-- they kept grounding out on.... everything. Of course it didn't help any that the solenoids were entirely under water (as was most of the winch). And when I say "water", I mean "mud".

Brian's sweet wife Carrie came to bail us out. Amazing that something so difficult with one vehicle is suddenly made easy with two vehicles.

Adding insult to injury, we ended up surfing in Langosta instead of Avellanas, at low tide, when Langy just doesn't work very well. So we had pretty lousy surfing but at least we washed the layer of filth off and got a little time in the water.

The rest of the morning didn't go a lot better- the power cut off at 11:00 am. Right after we had an hour or so of meetings (which benefit from AC, but otherwise don't require power). So as soon as the meetings cleared out, there wasn't anything to do as the internet and printer and all that stuff was off. Talk about a grumpy office...

A breezy seaside lunch with great new clients improved the day greatly. A deal that has been headed sideways for a few days also looks to be back on track, which also makes us happy. So in the end, another day in paradise (with minor hiccups).

Labels: 4wd, landcruiser, mud, photo, tamarindo, weather

So after a long day of slogging through chest high mud (we had horses, very unhappy horses, but at least we had horses) I came back to Tamarindo at about 3pm to check on the progress on the suspension swap that we are doing for Louie-- Sandy is losing her legs, Louie is getting them-- and much to my expectation, they hadn't done just about anything.

Despite really wanting to go home, shower and move on with my day, I decided to crawl under the truck(s) and help the mechanic to the job... At 10:20 Louie pulled out from the mechanic's shop with a near rear end. I'm guessing that the mechanic's estimate of "finished by tomorrow morning" might have been optimistic in light of the fact that with him AND me working on it, it still took seven hours to complete.

I intend to backfill the details sooner or later but in essence- the job was rough. Had to do a few extra things that we didn't expect. With minimal tools. And mosquitos.

But now Louie has about six inches of lift in the rear end and very saggy front end. Think "Scooby Doo Van" that's how I feel when I'm driving. Fun. Actually.... kinda fun.

Labels: Costa Rica, landcruiser, mud, travel

While chatting about a great new listing of his (Joya de Lagarto) Steve's buddy Mike suggested that we road trip down to check it out. So we did. After a quick stop to stock up on some sodas, fruit juice and cookies, Steve, Mike, Sawyer (Mike's 3.5 yr old son) and Casey (spelling?) headed down the muddy road looking for a little adventure, some real estate information, and maybe even some surf.
We found all of the above, but by the time we managed to wrap up the important business aspects of the trip, the wind had shifted onshore, so we just sat and watched some house-sized waves come mackin into the beach. Wow. Big day. I would say "Gee, to bad about the wind" but in reality, had the wind been offshore, I probably would have been too frightened to paddle out anyway. I like surfing. I may even love surfing. But drowning.... I'm pretty sure that's something I would rather avoid!
So after watching waves in Lagarto for a bit, we headed down one muddy road/trail after another and ended up on one of Bb's favorite beaches anywhere (playa frijolar) where we threw sand in the estuary (having a 3.5 yr old along adds flavor) and generally enjoyed a beautiful day.

Pretty blue church along the road on the way south	State of Mind: driving through mud to go to the store is a drag, driving through mud to go to the beach is fun	Sawyer and Mike striking a pose by Joya de Lagarto

Labels: 4wd, Costa Rica, day trip, landcruiser, mud, photo, surf

	the journal is updated
View from one of the lots in Joya de Lagarto		Did you take your cruiser out to play today?

Labels: day trip, landcruiser, mud, real estate