Day 7 Monday 1st October: More than expected!

Chris writes:

Well, who would have thought that when we woke up in La Fortuna and hit the road early this morning for what seemed a routine drive of around 150 miles through the land of Volcanos to the Caribbean coast, it wouldn’t be a ‘routine’ drive.

Routes 4 and 32, neither of which are dual carriageway are two of the busiest trucking routes in Cost Rica and hence the four hour estimate for the journey is well justified !

Maintaining any speed and overtaking at all is restricted by oncoming convoys of some of the largest trucks in the world normally found on major highways but today intent on restricting our progress.

As we approached Puerto Limon, a port similar to Liverpool being full of containers and scallywags, which is only some 5 miles from our destination, we were confronted with a major demonstration by general workers  who regularly close roads, s they are furious that new President is increasing taxes considerably.

We thought that we may try and talk our way though with promises of support in our home countries through mass readership of our America’s Challenge blog. But then we thought better of it,  backed away and found an alternative route .

Eventually arriving at our ‘hotel’, which is not how I will describe it my forthcoming  Booking.com review [going for another fridge magnet], we were too early to book in so set off for lunch and found a five star roadside purveyor of fine cuisine.

Heading back to the hotel, John was on the maps and found us a short inland detour of some 10 miles on what looked to be a tarmac road [on the map]. It was an interesting start over a bridge equivalent to the new Queensferry crossing over the fourth.

Chris, now at the wheel now,  was delighted when it turned out to be a shale, gravel and sand road though forest style land and gave John and Mike a lesson  of how to drive n the loose [will announce when this is on Youtube as part off it was captured by our Go Pro].

We stopped off at the ‘Cool Running Bar’ a Jamaican style beach bar with all of four people in it but some some good Reggae music that at least John liked.

Finally we booked in to the hotel, similar to many in Eastern Europe hotels that were shut down many years ago, where we are sharing a room along with Mosquitos, but at least we are now on the Caribbean Coast a popular holiday destination for big Trucks!

Join us tomorrow [Day 8] for more stories from the Caribbean Coast.