Bad girls just don't listen

Ok, before deciding that renting a car for our trip to Costa Rica I did some serious planning...
I sat down with a map and measured the roads with my finger than looked at the little ruler on the bottom of the map and measured my finger to see how many kilometers we would be driving. Simple? Yes. Effective. NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

Fine, fine, it wasn't EXACTLY like that, I'm not THAT blonde. I did check out various websites and articles about driving and roads and such. I did read the warnings and the horror stories on other blogs about the potholes and bad roads, and conditions and traffic, etc, etc, etc. What did I do?? I laughed, sometimes rolled my eyes... laughed some more, shrugged my shoulders... than "just to be on the safe side" added about half an hour driving time to each of the legs of the trip and that was it! BAD ALE!!!! BAAAAAD!!!!!! Now if you are reading this, and you are yourself planning a trip to Costa Rica, and you are planning to drive... listen closely... NO, GET closer... CLOSER, I want you sooo close that you are kissing the screen.... good... now listen....







THE ROADS ARE HOOOOORRRIBLEE!!!!!!!!!



You got that!?
If you think you will be driving for 2 hours, you will be driving for 4! Some stretches of the road are just so bad with potholes that you will be driving at the rate of 2km/hour. Drive early in the morning just in case you run late. And remember it gets dark promptly at 6pm, and you DO NOT want to be driving in the dark.

Now sure, you can be like me, and kinda laugh and shrug your shoulders, but honestly you really don't need the aggravation on your trip. Do you need a 4-wheel drive? Yes if you plan on getting of the main highway. We didn't have a 4WD and we got by ok since we only drove to main areas, but even so, the extra $200 would have been spent very well to have the security. Even on the best stretches of roads there are little holes and dents that if you are not careful can damage the wheels in a little car, while in a bigger 4WD would be hardly noticeable. Plus your butt won't get wet as you're fording rivers (OK just kidding, no river fording on highways.)

Under NO circumstances, and I mean that, should you ever take the highway that goes to Liberia. If you are driving to Nicoya (Tamarindo and such) take the Amistad con Taiwan bridge. Also I hear that the highway around the Arenal Lake is terrible, we have not been on it but fellow travelers have given some tearful accounts.

Basically we leisurely left the hotel at 11.30. We had the AUDACITY to stop for a nice sit-down lunch at this place called "White Horse". Which is overpriced and overrated, stopping at any "SODA" of the highway would have been just fine as well. Anyway, after that we basically spent the next 5 horse swerving to avoid potholes. And its not like you swerve, or go slowly, you kinda sverve into ON COMING TRAFFIC!! Or they're swerving right into you!!! If you slow down too much, you run the risk of cars behind you ramming into you, which would be especially unpleasant if the car behind you is a CEMENT TRUCK!!!!! We actually would just pull over and let trucks and cars pass us if we felt we were holding them up. Of course within minutes we would see those hot shots on the side of the road calling their mommies to come change the tires for them... but hey, pura vida...

We did make it to Tamarindo. FINALLY we pulled into town just as the sun definitively set...

to be continued...