Travel With Phie

Day 3: Thank you Carlos

Side Note: I promise the title will make a lot more sense as you continue to read our adventure of today.

Good morning! We woke up inside of our beautiful treehouse in the middle of the rain forrest. I would like to say woke up loosely cause it involved me moving from the bed to laying in a hammock outside and being half asleep for the first 30 minutes of the morning. However, once we all had our morning coffee and peaceful time, we decided to go on a little run to the panadería.

It was slightly raining on our run which honestly felt amazing and kept us all in high spirits. We ran for maybe 1.5-2 miles before stopping at the backery and picking up a couple sweet treats (a chocolate crossiant & sausage crossiant – which was pretty much just a corndog lol). We also stopped by a coffee shop, which may have been the best coffee on the entire trip. While we were waiting for our coffees it started pouring rain, so we took a seat and worked on the Wordle.

There was a slight break in the rain, so we decided to make the journey back to the Airbnb. Once we arrived we all quickly showered and went on our way to our scheduled coffee, sugar cane, and chocolate tour. We were of course a little late to the tour but it was very interesting to learn about each of those aspects and try different parts of each process.

The tour walked us through the process of making coffee from start to finish as well as had us make some sugar candy out of sugar cane. The tour was very informational and fun to walk through a local family coffee production.

After the tour we got some coffee and chocolate, the chocolate was delicious and the coffee was okay. We chatted with a couple girls who were spending 2 months in Costa Rica before heading out for our real journey of the day – The drive from Monteverde to Santa Teresa.

Let me start off by saying we were told by quite a few people to drive the extra time to take the ferry across to Santa Teresa, but it would have added an hour to the treck, so we of course, did not listen. We decided to go up and through the literally jungle to get to Santa Teresa.

The drive was supposed to take around 4.5 to 5 hours, and the first two hours were smooth sailing. We were living our best lives. We were complaining about the lack of an aux cord in the car and decided to find a Walmart to grab a speaker. Sure enough, we drove through the smallest town, looked to our right, and believe it or not, there was an electronics store. Of course, we stopped and bought a $10 speaker to use as our aux, and it worked great.

There were beautiful views and we were jamming! However, right around the 2 hour mark we hit a big of a snag in the road, literally. This is part we were warned about of “absolutely do not cross a river in the rental car.” The river looked decently big, but we weren’t going to turn around, now that would be crazy.

**Hindsight is 20/20** this was probably a bad idea, given the huge flash flood warning signs posted all around the river. But I decided to get out of the car and walk through the river to gauge how deep it was and whether our car could make it across. I switched from my tennis shoes to my Chacos and waded in. The water was only shin-high, so we felt confident that our mid-size SUV could handle it. We cautiously crossed and continued on our journey.

The thought that there might be more rivers crossed our minds for maybe half a second, but honestly, we were just jamming and chatting, not thinking too much about it.

We had a minor slowdown when someone’s dogs stood their ground in the middle of the road and refused to move. We tried telling them to move in both English and Spanish before realizing their owners were right nearby and called them over.

We continued on and crossed about three more ‘little’ rivers before the real adventure began. We turned a corner and suddenly found ourselves facing a river roughly 100 feet across, definitely too deep for our ‘small’ SUV. At this point, we’d been driving for about three hours, and turning back to follow the route others had recommended would take at least seven more hours. That just wasn’t an option.

We all got out of the car and tried to map a route across the river by hopping from sand patch to sand patch. As we stood there, we noticed a local man washing his motorcycle in the river. We asked if he spoke English, he didn’t, so Zoe took control and began speaking in broken Spanish. Grace and I stood by, catching a few words here and there. After some negotiation, we agreed to pay him \$20 to guide us around the river. It would require some backtracking, but only about 30 minutes.

With no cell service and minimal gas, we followed him through jungle roads in search of a safer crossing. After about 30 minutes, we reached a small town, took a right turn, and five minutes later, we were at another river. This one, as the man had promised, was smaller, and we were able to cross it.

We asked if there were any more rivers. He said yes, two more, but the last one had a bridge. We were a bit hesitant, so we agreed to pay him an extra \$10 to take us to the next one. He agreed, and we continued on.

Eventually, we arrived at the river he mentioned and crossed it with no issues. We chatted with the man for a bit, well, Zoe did most of the talking in her broken Spanish, and Grace and I chimed in where we could. We learned his name was Carlos. He told us the next town was a little dangerous and gave us one last piece of advice: as three girls, we should never pay random men. He said we were beautiful, and we went on our merry way.

Looking at the maps, we could see one more large river ahead. Carlos said there was a bridge, but we weren’t confident. Still, we pressed on, hoping to make it to Santa Teresa. Zoe and I were a little nervous, while Grace drove like she didn’t have a care in the world, flying down the road and hitting every pothole along the way. Zoe cracked open a beer, and about 15 minutes later, we reached the last river. And sure enough… it had a bridge.

We crossed, celebrated, and were just 30 minutes from our final destination. Eventually, we saw the beach and I think we all shed a little tear, overwhelmed by the drive and excited to have finally arrived.

We headed straight to the Airbnb, took in the views of the amazing open-air space, quickly changed, and went out to get some food. That night we kept it simple and went to a nearby Eat Street. We all ordered tacos, which were delicious. We got beers, toasted to Carlos, and talked about the journey we’d just had.

As we were leaving, a dog, who Zoe and Grace named Dobbie, followed us out of the restaurant.

He continued to follow us as we made a quick stop at a little bar on the way home. We planned on just one shot and then heading back, but ended up chatting with the bartender and staying for another round. Dobbie stayed with us the entire time. The infamous trip “veto” was born when Zoe and Grace casually brought up the idea of bringing Dobbie home. That’s when I declared: every person gets two vetoes, and my first one would be **veto: bringing Dobbie back to the Airbnb.”* Haha!

After our drinks, we walked back to the Airbnb and got ready for the full day ahead of us.

**¡Buenas noches!**