The Costa Rican Massage

I have never heard this term before last week, have you? And no, I'm not referring to the amazing beachfront massages my husband got under a tree by some random lady (and you think I could make this stuff up!). No, this one refers to the freebie you get riding on most roads in Costa Rica.

  Our first day we landed in San Jose, and headed out for a three hour trip on a basic Costa Rican "highway". Since San Jose is the capital of the country, I'm assuming this was about as good as it gets. It's not good folks! Two lane country road (to us); there are lots of potholes.  Along the side of the road and quite close to where cars, trucks and buses are travelling are people, dogs, and cattle.  At times there was no pavement for a bit.

We travelled through the town of La Fortuna, where we had a nice banos break, and met a lovely gentleman selling local coffee (it was amazing, more on that later). Our drivers were awesome, and we discovered that this 'banos break' was always at a nice stop, and a lovely spot that offered free coffee. People were nice, but we realized it was customary to buy something. We did, two times got an amazing education on local coffee along with it!

Back to the roads: I was so grateful to have that break before we hit the "road" that would take us to our hotel. We turned off pavement, and saw a sign that said "11 km" to the hotel....we were almost there after a long day (and unexpected overnight in Miami) of travel. It was a gravel road....no, that's not a good description for it. It was a bad gravel road with big rocks. I guess the best description for it was like riding in a creekbed. We thought the first trip took about an hour; it felt like it. Later I timed it, and it only took about 15 minutes, but it was the longest 15 minutes of our lives! Enter the phrase our driver said "Congratulations on your first Costa Rican Massage!" It wasn't our last massage, or the longest.

The trip from Arenal to Monteverde (the rainforest on top of the continental divide in CR) was 1.5 hours long: straight up a road that was much worse. I wish I had more pictures, but I didn't want to stop. I wanted to make it stop. I kept thinking some type of pavement must be around the next corner, but I was wrong.

This photo courtesy of TripAdvisor.com

 We didn't see pavement until we arrived in town. I've estimated this trip to be about 30 miles: yes, 30 miles in almost 2 hours, so you can get a feel for how fast (not) we were going. I should have known when our driver said in the beginning "this is a bumpy road" with hand guestures to make sure I understood!!....and I was beginning to get it.  We travelled this road 500 mts high in the mountains to the top of the continental divide; steep mountains on one side, steep dropoffs to the other. 
There is no other way in or our of Monteverde that is any better. 

In our final stop on the Pacific coast, we stayed on a lovely hotel just outside of town. Here is the view heading out of town:

and the view back into town:

These were pretty nice roads by this time of our trip! From here to the Liberia Airport was a fairly nice 2 lane paved road.  The driver still did have to keep an eye out for oxen on the road, but it otherwise was fairly quiet. 

So why talk about roads? Well, it was a huge surprise to me on this trip.  I hear "bad roads", and I wast thinking bad roads in my part of the country.  I think "reputable resort destination", even though it is in a third world county, and I'm not expected rock roads for 2 hours.  I learned my lesson. 

As I talked to the front desk receptionist after our arrival in Monteverde, I told her it had been a rough trip.  She smiled nicely, and said "I understand that has to be very hard on you."  She didn't say "I know, isn't is aweful? " but "this has to be hard on you."  Why? Because this is where she lives.  Except for the bit of pavement in the small center of town, rock roads are the only way in and the only way out.  These people are tough.  If you want to go to town? Walk they told us.  And we did.  Want to travel? Travel on these roads.  It's just a part of life there, and they don't think twice about it.

Many times during out time in Costa Rica I had a flash of a lot of things: having too much, being spoiled (I mean I expect there to not be potholes in my roads, not to mention I just assumed they would be paved!); I want to get where I want to go quickly; on a road system like this you just take your time and go slowly, and you get there when you get there.  And if you have to stop or an ox team in the road, oh well.  And when you see people leave their jobs in your lush hotel and start the walk home, or hop a ride with you and your driver so they don't have to walk so far?

 Reality. 

Next: Arenal Volcano, La Fortana, zipline tours and more!