Sunday, May 22, 2011

Manzanillo, Costa Rica Part I: Journey from San Jose.


San Jose, Costa Rica from our room at Hotel Presidente.

Our lucky Pigeon hangs out under our hotel window in San Jose. Our trip goes nearly without a hitch from day one.

We piled into the short bus, aka the Golden Egg, for our journey through the mountainous jungles of inland Costa Rica, to the white sands of Manzanillo. We took the direct route to the coast (HWY 32) which was not recommended by the hotel staff in San Jose due to frequent mud slides and adverse driving conditions. The rainy season tends to make traveling over the passes difficult. They warned it was unsafe and recommended a route that added another hour to the drive.

We made the call to push ahead on the direct route, our original plan, after checking the weather forecast and researching recent trip reports from the blog-o-sphere. Making great driving time with maps, a travel guide, a GPS, Colorado tested drivers, and a little luck we were relieved to make it over the passes safe and with no problems.

Their mountain driving conditions have nothing on ours in Colorado at least on this trip. We did see evidence of massive mud slides and mangled guardrails from accidents just like at home from our own mud slides or avalanches and douche-bags in SUV's.


Captain Dave with first lieutenant McCracken as navigator.
Along the way we passed a local going extremely slow on the highway. He gave us the "you should be slowing down" look after we flew by him with disgust . We realized why he was driving so slow after getting the Golden Egg completely airborne on a road-seam at a bridge junction. I'm sure that was a sight to see.


Our first morning at Congo Bongo felt like waking up on another planet.


One of three videos I'll be posting. With each one I learn a little more about filming, editing and story telling.