I left Uvita sometime around 9:30 to meander down the road towards Dominical. I had thoughts of leaving for Quepos first thing this morning, but just wasn’t up in time to make the journey. I want to do that trip in the early morning when it is still cool, as I know it will take a while because the road is terrible. Doable, but terrible.

So, here I am, in the middle of hippie-central, chillin’ with my tent on top of the roof looking over the beach. Well, it looks through some trees, but for 2 buks, who can complain?

They gave me a mattress to put under the tent. I am comfy like a bug in a rug, without the bugs.

As I was sitting watching people surf, cheating by eaves-dropping on a surfing lesson, out of the surf came some guy hopping on one foot. It turns out he had been stung by a manta-ray. The puncture wasn’t too bad. Deep, maybe, but he couldn’t drive his car to the doc, neither could any of the members of his family (because it was a standard), so I drove him in his car down to the doc. It was only a half a mile.

So, I guess they are serious when they say to shuffle your feet as you enter the water so as not to piss off any manta-rays laying peacefully nearby. The sting got hot as hell, and they gave him some anti=bacterial ointment to put on it. Nuff said.

That…….was the highlight of the day.

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To Quepos

Well, the road to Quepos was terrible, as expected. I set out in the morning, with my tires hitting the road at 7:40. One hour later I had made 20 km. That was about as good as could be expected, and I remarked to myself several times along the way how glad I was that I actually dragged my ass out of the tent that morning. The road was bad up until “Quepos 22 km”…then it got worse. There is a long section where there is nothing but palm oil trees as crops, and the traffic mostly consisted of large trucks. Windows rolled up, I had to stop twice along the way to wipe the dust of the wind-screen.

The second time I stopped was to pick up two guys hitching a ride to Quepos to look for work. I thought it would break my souring mood, and it did. Just imagine those two guys walking the rest of that distance in the baking hot sun!!! Yeeech.

Anyways, I made it to Quepos at 10:30ish. I didn’t mark the time as I had passengers. Thanks to them, the minutes passed by a little quicker.

Quepos itself is a nasty little shit-hole of a town. Tourist-trap written all over it, complete with all the beggars on the street and in the stores. I spent a little time looking for the Wide Mouth Frog, only to find they didn’t take campers. I really didn’t want to stay there anyways. There wasn’t anything to do but book yourself for this or that tour. Sport-fishing seems to be the big draw there, that, and acting like an ass from the states. It really wasn’t my bag.

So I decided to go out to Parque Manuel Antonio and look for a place there. Good thing I did, too.

On the way was this CIA plane they had shot down once upon a time. Something to do with Regan and some illegal guns… otherwise known as the Iran Contra Affair.  The plane was actually shot down in Nicaragua but imported here, to capitalize on of course.  It is now a restaurant.

Also from there, I played “I I also found this place, Cabinas Ramirez, where you can camp a mere 15 second walk from the beach for 1500 C a night (3 buks). It is at the end of a long winding road, littered with high-end hotels and packed with tourists. You wouldn’t know it from where I am camped. I am next-door-neighbors with this guy carving 8 foot long teak logs into sculptures, using chainsaws, grinders, hammer, and chisel.

He only does it from 9-2 every day, so noise wasn’t an issue. He has offered me a chair a number of times already. Suffice it to say, he knows most of the locals around here who stop by and visit throughout the day, so a chair in his camp is an entertaining place to be. Nice work, nice job, nice life. But I still wouldn’t trade him.

Right next to me in a tent, is a HUGE lady with what is now the smallest dog I’ve ever seen.  Yes, that is my hand I am holding it in… trembling.  

This morning, up early, I made my way down towards the park. It is a tiny little park, packed to the gills with tourists by 10 AM, but surprisingly clean and worth the visit. 7 buks to get in the gate, nice shaded paths through low-hanging trees and vines, with monkeys, ocelots, and all kinds of animals I can’t even name. All you had to do was stop, stand still, listen for a little while, and you would spot something you had never seen before.

The park had some amazing beaches as well, not the least of which was at the tail end of the road. It is just like me to go right to the end of the trail to see what is there. I came this far, why bail without seeing everything.

There was a mirador (look-out) that just about killed me getting to it. Hot, humid, and devastatingly steep, it pulled you onward to a spectacular view of the coast.

 

From there, as you looked straight down, “I Spy With My Little Eye” a beach with no one one it.

Well, the hunt was on.

To find this place beat the crap out of me. Up, down, up, down, all along this tight little trail through the jungle. Hot, humid, spider webs across the face, and at the end all that remained was a rope to hang onto and the sound of the beach, as yet, unseen. When I finally made it to the shore, it wasn’t the one I was looking for, but….theeeeeere it was over there.