After Toad Hall, the drive started out pleasant enough. Karen even managed to get our first Howler Monkey sighting, “Monkey, monkey! Stop!” she shouted. I pulled over and we got out to peer in the tree above, and there he was… just hanging out, watching nothing in particular, doing nothing in particular. We took pictures and video for about 10 minutes, and then climbed back into the car and continued.
After the monkey sighting, the drive took a turn. You see until now, all the roads we had driven on were paved… there were various quality of pavement, but still all paved. The “turn” occurred when we exited pavement. Apparently rock (not gravel, but large chunks of rock) is used to “pave” un-paved roads in order to give them some resilience from the rain. So this was not a “dirt road” it was Rocky Road. To put it anther way, the forest service roads int eh mountains are like superhighways compared to this road. I couldn’t drive more than 30kph (about 17mph) on the road. At first I assumed this would be a small stretch of road before pavement resumed… HA! Was I mistaken. The GPS showed 19km until the next turn, so as I drove I realized we would be on this road for 19 km. If you do the math, it would be about 45 minutes on this road. Ok, I can deal with that, but… HA! was I mistaken.
We got to the next turn and oh the shock, the horror! It was another Rocky Road! This time the GPS said I’d be on this road for 16km… I had a full bladder and a bouncy road in a foreign country, and I do not have off-road driving experience. So what does one do in this situation? The only thing I could do… I laughed! Karen and I made it in to all sorts of funny for the next 20 minutes… and then the pain in my bladder was too great to ignore and laughter turned to wincing and moans as I hit each bump.
We finally arrived in Santa Elena and were greeted by asphalt! Oh glorious asphalt how I missed you! Never again will I take you for granted! We arrived at our hotel… I ran in and relived myself, and then went to check in. Oops this wasn’t our hotel. We were staying at the Monteverde Country Lodge, and we had arrived at the Monteverde Lodge and Gardens. Apparently about half the hotels inn the area have the words “Moteverde” and “Lodge” in their name. I got directions to our actual hotel, and shortly thereafter, we arrived.