Day 4 - Drive to Montezuma

In the morning we had our "breakfast" delivered to our room and were disappointed to see that it only consisted of a few pieces of toast with jam and some coffee. We loaded the car and found that another of the hotel's guests were also heading to Puntarenas to catch the ferry to Mal Pais. We left Jaco at about 10am and arrived at the Puntarenas ferry launch at 11:30 right behind the other guest we met from the hotel. Also behind us was Luis, one of the drivers from Orquedias Inn, that had taken us to the airport on a few previous visits. He was taking some surfers to Mal Pais and we talked with him for a bit as we had an hour to kill before they started loading the ferry. While waiting we got some beers and some tasty chicken kebabs($1.50 each) from a street vendor.


The ferry arrived at 12:30 and I went to get our tickets. All the cars and passengers were quickly loaded and we were on our way by 1pm.









Once in Paquera it took a bit to get off the ferry as we were towards the back. Once on the road it was a smooth drive to Cobano where we took the dirt road turn off to montezuma

Arriving in Montezuma, we found the town was packed - we were fortunate to get the last room at El Jardin which is probably the nicest hotel in town - with a pool but the rooms are pretty dark with crappy lighting (seems that everywhere in CR is switching to the fluorescent light bulbs). We were looking forward to getting something to eat at El Parque but were disappointed to find that it was no longer there and instead settled on a late lunch at Cafe Mocezuma. Next was a refreshing dip in the hotel pool. Later we spent the beginning of of the evening at Chico's bar alternating between beers and shots of guaro. At about 9pm we were a little drunk and hungry and Pizza Net right next door was looking pretty tempting so we stumbled over there for a delicious pizza and then back to our hotel and to bed

Day 3 - Following the sun to Jaco

I woke up at about 7am and it was still raining hard. I also found that we had no water in our room. I couldn't even flush the toilet! There wasn't anybody at the front desk yet so I headed to Tortilla Flats to get some coffee and figure out where we were going to go next. We had originally planned on continuing south to Puerto Jimenez and then Zancudo but since the rain wasn't showing signs of letting up (and locals said it had been raining for several days) I decided it might be best to head north to the Nicoya Peninsula where it is hopefully going to be sunny.

At about 8:30am someone came into Tortilla Flats and said there was a landslide blocking the road back to San Isidro and some trees were down on the road that heads south out of town. The road to Quepos was still open so that made up my mind to head north.

I went back to the room to wake up Kat so we could get on the road. There was still no water in the room and when I asked someone they just shrugged and had no idea when there was going to be water. I found this strange since there was running water at Tortilla Flats just 100' away. We packed the car back up, got some pasteries at the bakery and headed north towards Jaco where we would spend the night before continuing to Montezuma the following day.

The road between Dominical and Quepos is 44km of bone shaking gravel taking about 90 minutes to traverse. We learned that the road is in such poor condition because it is owned by the Quepos regional government and the last thing they want is to give tourists a reason to travel beyond Manuel Antonio. None the less the road is still traveled by cars, buses and 18 wheelers.

Once in Quepos was returned to the land of paved roads and found that one of the narrow railway bridges north of Quepos had been replaced by a modern 2 lane bridge and another was being built.



Once in Jaco it was still raining. We drove around town a bit until we found Villas Creole which was recommended in the Moon guide. The rooms were modern and and a good value ($55/night) with a big pool, a/c, hot water, cable TV, kitchen, and breakfast included. The hotel is located on a quiet dead end street a few blocks off the main drag. Since we never got to clean up earlier in the day we took showers and then headed into town to find something to eat.

It had stopped raining and the sun was peeking out from some clouds - we found ourselves at Clarita's bar/restaurant on the beach where we got some cold beers and quesadillas and watched some American football on their high definition TV. Unfortunately our good time was ruined by some very LOUD (and I do mean L-O-U-D) fat gringos who had their hookers in tow.



Back on the main drag we found an Internet cafe to check email and then headed back to the hotel to rest a bit before finding somewhere to eat dinner.



Later, we took a walk along the main drag of Jaco finally settling on grabbing a few beers at Jaco Taco. With our beers we got some free chips and salsa and since we were both still full from eating at Clarita's earlier decided that we didn't need dinner and walked back down the main street to Villas Creole.



Once at the hotel we had a few beers and conversation with the owner and her son who was visiting from San Jose. At about 10pm we retired to our room and went to bed - needing a good night sleep for our drive to Montezuma the next morning