I woke up and wished her a happy birthday, as yesterday didn’t work out 100%, with her not feeling well for most of the day. We got up and had breakfast in the inn.

I haven’t written about the Pato Loco Inn much. I wasn’t super impressed when we got there, but my estimation changed a lot. It’s a swelteringly hot 10 minute walk to the beach, which is a big downside. And our room was a little small, but not uncomfortably so. There was a pool in the back which was cold (YES) and the proprietor Mary really had a chance to shine while we were there. I left super early to go diving, and with about 10 minutes notice she whipped me up some breakfast, which I had asked about, but had not expected to get. When I bought Miranda’s cake she was instantly offering plates and cutlery and a fridge to store it in, which I figured I was going to have to ask her for.

We went back to our room and packed, took one last dip in the pool and then came back to the restaurant part for some breakfast dessert — birthday cake! Mary took it out of the fridge, turned the fans off and put a candle in it so we could sing happy birthday to Miranda, which was totally unasked for and really sweet. There was another group of 4 in the restaurant while this happened, and we offered everyone including Mary and the kitchen staff cake to celebrate. We had a lot of cake for 2 people. 😛

Finished packing up, and off we went. Within an hour, we were on a gravel road. No problem, can still do 50km/h since it was regularly leveled Within a half hour, we were on a 4×4 only back road with huge rocks, pits, and rivers. An hour later we emerged from this to a little town that was having a football game (soccer) game. We were looked at a lot. We left town onto another road that quickly became the exact same thing.

We drove, crossing river after river, for 2.5 hours. We were both keeping our anxieties to ourselves, as we both knew that if anything went wrong with the car, that this would quickly turn into a massive hassle. Mercifully, the car took us through it with no troubles at all.

At one point near the end of our trip, we came out onto a paved road and I sang out in praise. Minutes later we were back on a gravel road…I think the Google Maps route we’d chosen was “most direct” and so it was taking us across paved roads in favour of awful ones.

I had a good time, since nothing went wrong. Miranda says the real question is “would you do it again” and my answer is “hells no”, but I enjoyed it anyway. 🙂

We got into Santa Teresa and found our place for the next few days. This town is filled with shirtless surfer “dudes” and ladies wearing only bikinis. We walked to a restaurant, had some excellent dinner and walked back to hang out by our pool for a bit. Back inside, we played a few games, and are considering whether we actually want to stay here for another 2 days or not. Outlook is not good. I proposed going to Monteverde. We had to miss it, as it was a 3-4 hour drive from La Fortuna where we were planning to go to it. But our trip from Santa Teresa to Quepos takes us within an hour drive of it, so I wondered if we wanted to leave here, stay there for the next two nights then go to Quepos as planned. We’ll see what the evening holds, I think we’re going to give the beach a try tomorrow and make a decision from there.

There are some photos that Miranda took on our harrowing journey, but she’s busy looking up things in Monteverde and I don’t want to disturb her for photos. Maybe later. 🙂