Costa Rica Journal - Friday, 5-8-09

The alarm sounded at 5:00 am, but we had an hour before departure so the snooze function on the iphone was used twice. This phone has many fancy features, but from our location, most of them are useless. The sleek, little machine has gone from pseudo-crackberry to alarm clock. Still, it fulfills its purpose.

Joe and I fumbled our way out of bed around 5:30, giving us a nice 1/2 hour for coffee and whatever breakfast we could manage. At 5:40, we were barely making a dent in our cups when we heard a faint knocking at the door. Joaquin had arrived 20 minutes early! Putting ourselves together in a daze, we quickly got ready for the long day ahead of us and we knew we were in for quite an ordeal. Joaquin was taking us car shopping.

I painfully poured out the remainder of our cups into the sink, wishing desperately that we had travel cups. The extra stimulation would have been extremely useful today, especially so early in the morning, which tends not to be my best time of day. Adding heat and mugginess to the air makes the activity even more difficult, but this morning we had the weather on our side. The air was cool and the sun still hid below the horizon. It was a nice time to get started, if only we could wake up this early every day.

Our destination was the San Jose area of the Central Valley, which was a good 3 1/2 hour drive away. Our transportation was a rickety Suzuki Sidekick that barely held itself together. I'm glad we were riding with a professional mechanic, in case the car didn't make it, however I did wish that there was a better seat to sit on for the long journey. As I climbed into the back of the car, I saw that the foam in the seat was worn down, and the whole thing was falling apart. Rusted iron and springs peaked through and when I first sat down, I had to rearrange myself a few times before I could sit without being poked into by some kind of mechanism that was, no doubt, meant to be padded and covered.

I finally found a spot that would work with my body and I braced myself with my hands to insure the position as we slowly made our way down the rocky dirt road of Cabanga. Once we got to the nearby town of Guatoso, we hit pavement which made our travel much smoother and faster. In about an hour, we had made it to Fortuna. Joe spotted a Toyota Land Cruiser and said "Me gusta" to Joaquin to give him a feel of what kind of cars we like. He acknowledged quietly and we went along our way.

Perhaps another hour passed and we found ourselves in a small town called La Tigra. As we drove down the main street, Joaquin stopped and backed the car up. He began talking to some men sitting nearby in their driveway, next to a beautiful, blue Land Cruiser. The dialogue ended swiftly and Joaquin said "No se vende". The care was not for sale.

About a block further, we came across another Land Cruiser, this time yellow in color and for sale as well. Joaquin inspected the car meticulously and seemed to think it was the best car of this type for our money. We took it for a test drive and it had a few problems, one of the biggest was that the seat would not move back therefore Joe didn't fit behind the steering wheel. Joaquin said that the problems could be fixed easily, but I told him that we wanted to keep looking around. As nice as a Land Cruiser would be, we weren't really set on actually having one as our vehicle.

So on we drove and in about another hour we had made it to San Ramon. Here we found a number of dealerships and we walked through many lots looking for cars as Joaquin did most of the talking. We finally found a nice diesel Izuzu pickup that looked good and decided to get that. There were a few minor problems with it, and Joaquin talked the owner of the lot into fixing the problems for us. However, that meant we couldn't take it home that day and we'd have to make the journey again on Monday.

It was about 4:30 when we got home and we were both extremely tired and worn out. I hope that Joaquin can take us back again on Monday as I know we'll need the help again. In buying the car as well as finding the place again.