For better or worse, man has tamed Mother Nature in many countries. My general impression is this isnt the case in Costa Rica.
San Jose to Carrillo
Roughly ten of us had decided to head to Costa Rica for a week to stay at a friends place just outside the beach town of Carrillo on the west coast. We flew into San Jose and were supposed to be met by a rental company representative that had two new VW vans for us.
As often happens in such situations, we werent met by anyone much less a person with vans. Calls were made but not answered. Lunch was had. Calls were made again and finally answered. After a bit of intense conversation, we were told the vans would be at the airport in 15 minutes. Roughly two hours later, two VW vans apparently stolen from Woodstock rolled into parking lot. The trip had certainly started on a sour note, but we decided to cut our losses and take the vans.
As we rolled out of San Jose, it was starting to get dark. Unaware that a new highway had been opened, we followed the old route which wound through the mountains and added two hours to the trip. Two hours that would haunt us for days.
As the hours passed, we...