Lost & Found in Costa Rica

So far we’ve been exploring small towns in Costa Rica’s Central Valley, ones we might like to settle in one day. Of course, getting lost is part of the fun. Sometimes.

Last week on our hunt for the quickest way to Puriscal, Google maps took us on a mountainous route through the little town of Pablo. Though the road looked windy, it also looked like the most direct way. We’d safely depended on Google for other outings but when the road changed from pavement to rock-strewn dirt (at a 30% downward angle no less) with a cliff edge on my side, I wanted to find another way. Keene, as usual, wanted to press on. We had our little 4-wheel drive SUV for just this kind of road he said.

We hadn’t gone a quarter of a mile when we encountered a gorge traversed by a one-lane bridge that didn’t look like it could support the weight of a pedestrian, never mind a car. But the sign said max load two tons, so we pressed onward. I took deep breaths to reduce my anxiety, pulled my arms in (like that would help keep me away from the edge of oblivion), and half way across I said I was never going to drive across this bridge again. Uh-huh.

For the next twenty minutes we drove (more correctly bumped and pitched) along on this imitation of a road that angled steeply up and down with hairpin turns.  About two miles from the rickety bridge we came to a fork. I asked Keene which way and we both looked down at our silent Google map. She had abandoned us! The battery on the tablet was dead and our phones had no service. Keene pulled the car under a tree to get us out of the sun while he studied the paper map we had kept in the car. I got out of the car to calm my stomach and stretch my legs.

Soon Keene realized there was no route to Puriscal on this mountain. The road we were on was a huge circle. We had only one option: to backtrack, returning the way we came in. True to my word, I did not cross that bridge again in the car. However, walking across it didn’t feel particularly safe either since the metal plates that served as roadway would shift even under my solo weight walking. I wanted to take a photo of the gorge but instead I held in my arms again as if that would once again keep me safe from the edge (hey, it worked in the car). Keene didn’t argue when I said I’d walk. He knows that my lack of depth perception causes me to do things others think are unreasonable. He just waited patiently with the car on the other side.

Finally we returned to the paved road and continued on our journey. However, even paved roads here in Costa Rica’s Central Valley aren’t quite like roads in the States. They are narrow, have deep uncovered sluices for water runoff (they use slabs of concrete to span them for driveways), and contain enough hairpin turns–and the elevation changes that go along with them–to make a whirling dervish dizzy.

And bridges that span the many gorges or rivers that are a part of this beautiful countryside are often one lane affairs that make for a constant game of chicken with oncoming traffic. It turns out that the normally laid-back-Pura-Vida Ticos are lunatics behind the wheel. Luckily only a million of the four-million Ticos own cars so sometimes you can cross the bridge without a bus, truck, car, or motorcycle bearing down on you and asking in the most Clint Eastwood way if you feel lucky.

We finally made it to Puriscal late that afternoon. It was the saddest town we’ve seen so far. The old church in the center of town’s central plaza was fenced off, vandalized, and the very definition of a ruin. Broken windows. Falling cornices. Trees growing out of the roof.

The central plaza also reflected an unkempt appearance. There wasn’t even a little coffee shop to stop and have something to eat. It was hardly a town to risk death on a rickety old bridge over a gorge.

 

 

Luckily, the other towns we visited that day, and the sunset that awaited us that evening, saved the day. And our ever-so-adventuresome drive also convinced us that Grecia (accessible by all paved roads) was a town worth a second look in the week to come. More on Grecia next time.