After three amazing days in La Fortuna we smashed all of our bags and bodies into our three cars and drove on to Manuel Antonio/ Quepos on the central Pacific of Costa Rica. Our friend at Kokoro told us the best road to take- since there are so many options. What looks like a fairly straight line can really be a road with huge potholes or missing road pieces or that twists and turns and leads to car sickness. Even with that, what we thought would be a 5 hour drive really was more like maybe 7. As we passed through the outer area of Monteverde, a beautiful cloud forest area, Rory called us on our cell (each car had a cell phone) and told us they needed to pull over. We were the lead car with the GPS so we pulled over to the side of the road on a shoulder. After they had a quick potty break they were back on the road, but by then we realized we were stuck. Sunk into the mud. We tried all sorts of ways to get out-- I even jumped out and ran to the opposite side of the road (because I was wearing bright orange) to make sure any oncoming car will know we have a problem. Soon a car pulled over and pulled out a tow strap. We hooked that up and pulled out. This must be fairly common occurrence in Costa Rica. After about 3-4 hours on the road I realized we better stop for a potty break and just get the kids out of the cars for a minute. We found a little town - it was bout 1PM Many of the towns people were walking around the town center park. This park had a big gazebo. After realizing that the kids cant play on the grass because there is broken glass shards throughout it -- and that there are no public bathrooms to be found AND that we better not leave the cars-- too much possibility of having everything stolen, we were ready to pack up when one of the local police officers starting pointing to us to look up in the trees. There were 2 sloths, I think a 2 toed sloth and a 3 toed sloth. And 2-3 different types of huge iguanas roaming around. It was great fun to see our first sloths-- right there in the middle of this little town. It is a lesson that even though things can be tough and a little trying (for many of us still looking for the potty) but that if you just look up there it can be worth it. So finally back into the cars and driving a little further down the road when I finally said-- we have to stop!!. We pulled into a little soda-- a road side food stop-- and had the best fajitas ever!! Once again -- taking joy in the journey! As we got close to the Pacific the landscape started looking drier. But still tropical. It is amazing to drive through acres of palm tree plantations. Kristi had pre-arranged for us to take items to a branch in one of the little towns that we were passing through. And finally we all arrived at dinner time in Quepos. JR had found Villa La Macha online. (Rebekah posted pictures from the Villa La Macha web site) It is a wonderful vacation villa down a dirt road that you really need a 4 wheel drive to access. It is perched atop the hill above the ocean. The main house has a swimming pool, kitchen a great front deck and pool deck, 3 bedrooms -- one of which was an amazing master bedroom. The guest house has a wonderful guest apartment and a 5th bedroom by the garage. There is a house manager- Joda, his mother and wife who came everyday to cook and clean and do our laundry. And at night we had a night guard who would stand just out side the garage for the entire night with a flash lite and at times a machete. I dont have a lot of pictures as my camera always was misplaced-- please view Kristi, Jennine, Rebekah's and Rachael's to the side of my blog. I do plan to pull some of Rod's pics to post on here soon-- but there are 100000000's to go through. My next post will be about the wonders of Manuel Antonio.
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