It was moving on day – time to leave the northern lowland jungle for some hilltop forest on our way to the Caribbean coast.
We had a few hours drive which Jenny was keen to do. From the nearby main town of Puerto Viejo, we took the Ruta 4, mostly dual carriageway, fairly empty but with the annoyance of a constantly disapparing fast lane. Big concrete blocks would close it off with minimal signage. Was it to protect damaged road? Was it to narrow the road before a junction? Was it to kill off drivers who fell asleep at the wheel? Waze kept going “complex interchange ahead” which meant things were about to get tricky.
After joining the main highway, the Ruta 32, to Limon (Costa Rica’s main Atlantic facing port) there were lots more trucks and continual roadworks where they were still building much of the road. There were no extensive cone-marked lanes like in the UK, just sudden arrows on concrete blocks, closing off your side of the dual carriageway, forcing you across a bumpy contraflow into the oncoming traffic. The other side of the dual-carriageway became a normal single-carriageway again.
Jenny had to keep her wits about her – or follow a big truck which knew where to go.
Just before Siquirres was our turn off. We were supposed to go from busy, contraflow section of roadworks straight onto a steep, stony, untarmacked road. We missed it.
It was my fault for doubting the navigation. Exactly this sort of “No, surely it can’t be that junction, let’s go past and see, we can always turn back” thought process had resulted in our car crash in South Africa. What it meant was a simple right turn, now became a tricky turn off, then left-turn back onto the road, then left turn across the traffic all in the middle of these roadworks. This tried Jenny’s patience. My lesson learnt was: trust Waze and concentrate on its junction countdowns.
Anyway after Siquirres we didn’t have far to go. We drove up into the hills on simple, ordinary roads – quieter but still with lots of big trucks. We parked the car at Tres Equis where it would stay for a few days. From there we were collected in a proper four-wheel drive vehicle. Nothing else was going to get us down the road to where we were staying.
This view is from just before the turning off the proper road near where the track started. Down there somewhere is our destination: Pacuare River Lodge.
Getting down to the lodge was a proper off-road driving experience. There was authentic throwing from side to side as the Land Cruiser lurched about over the rocks in low gear. I took some dash-cam footage to try to capture the moment but it doesn’t do it justice.
Pacuare River Lodge was in a lovely setting, beautifully constructed and elegantly landscape. Note: those red roof tiles are all plastic (recycled I hope) – a lot more attractive than the usual corrugated tin roofs, quieter in the rain and probably lighter too.
There was a communal area for sitting, eating and cooking, with individual cabins, instead of rooms, to sleep in.
This was one of the cabins. They all had big roofs to keep off the rain.
This was our cabin with a lovely view over the river.
And this was the view from the communal area.
Everything was inclusive here, traditional food served help-yourself style; coffee in the morning, water the rest of the time. If you were brave you could try to operate the giant kettle, with broken handle, on the catering-grade burner to make a cup of tea. There was no alcohol, no WiFi and no phone coverage. We brought our own beer with us, but couldn’t do much about the connectivity.
In the afternoon we were taken down a short trail for a waterfall swim. This is the last photo I was allowed to take. As you can spot, the guide is carrying our orange rucksack at this point. Immediately after crossing this stream I was told to take no more pictures in case I dropped my phone. As if! I put it in the bag so the guide could carry it but he thought it best to leave the bag behind in a safe spot. So no waterfall swimming pictures.
It was a nice place to swim, just catching the sunshine, the water cold and deep. If you could swim into the current you could just about manage to get underneath the waterfall before being pounded away.
After the swim, there wasn’t much to do for the rest of the day, but there were people to talk to, beer to drink, and nachos to crunch. Dinner was soon after dark – chicken stew with salad and vegetables – perfectly fine but no dessert.
I’d just begun blog posting at the last place, days behind schedule. Now, with no connectivity, I resorted to putting the words together and collecting the photos. This was tricky because some of the photos like the rafting ones had to be downloaded, and others like the wildlife ones were on Jenny’s camera.
Anyway, I stayed up very late (until 10 pm) doing this before heading back to our cabin to sleep. When I plugged my depleted laptop’s charger into the electricity all the power went dead. I thought I’d overloaded the circuit. So now, no electricity.
It was a coincidence – unfortunate timing The solar power had chosen that precise moment to run out for the day.