Last weekend I got the opportunity to go on a 4x4 outing with Rodrigo, Claudia, and Thiago and their friends. What a blast! We left on Friday afternoon after they all got off of work, and headed into the mountains between San Jose and the Pacific Coast driving along steep-sided ridges until it was time to drop down the mountains to the Rio Tulin. At that point the track became quite narrow, bumpy, and rutted. And dark. I was happy I had such good flood lights to see ahead. At one point, Eduard, who was leading us, dropped a tire off the side of the road when the road gave way a bit. I was following and so I had the opportunity to use my winch for the first time. It was quite a challenging recovery. I used my line to pull him backwards. But we were worried that the Land Cruiser might roll over down the mountain. So we hitched the line from his winch to a tree up the side of the mountain, and rigged a pulley to a tree perpendicular to his rig. While I winched him back, we tightened the pulley and loosened his front line to make sure he did not roll. It was quite a learning experience for me. Got down to the river about 10 pm and after four river crossings, set up camp.
What a beautiful campsite! Right next to the river on the river bed in a beautiful valley. Lots of natur - including a large cicada that got into my tent and decided to loudly land on me in the middle of the night. Startled me and I woke up screaming and waking everybody else up. Had a good laugh about that the next morning.
We enjoyed the day camping by the river and eating some delicious arepas stuffed with egg, cheese, and chicharron for breakfast and BBQ steak and chirizo for lunch. Victor parked his rig in the river where we enjoyed the BBQ and the cool water. Such a great group of people. Eduard is from Venezula, earned graduate degrees from University of Colorado and Colorado State University in economics, and after a couple years working in the finance ministry under Chavez, moved to Costa Rica for better opportunities (and to avoid the rampant corruption). Victor and his family, wife Cheny and kids Karin and David, live in Santa Ana near Carlos. Victor and Eduard met due to mutual interest in fishing. Cheny was a great spotter helping me navigate my way through the ruts on the trail in the night. Such a nice family. David, Eduard and I played spike ball. Afterwards I gave the game to David and he was so appreciative (thanks, Matt, for giving it to me). Victor and family left in the afternoon since Cheny had to work the next day. We also went swimming in a great swimming hole.
On Sunday we hung out at camp most of the day and ate more delicious food. After packing up and going for another swim, we headed downriver. It was fun navigating all the river crossings, probably about 20 and an hour and half of driving. After arriving at a bridge, we climbed up to some dirt roads and headed back throught the mountains on back roads to Santa Ana.
I cannot express how much I appreciated our adventure to Rio Tulin and meeting this great group of folks. Such good people. I gave some "Dirt Road Brewing" hats (from Philomath) to Rodrigo and Edward, and another hat to Victor. Victor gave me his Costa Rica cap. The next day I had dinner with Eduard and we stopped by Victor and Cheny's place to say goodbye. Lots of hugs. I hope I can come visit with them again, and bring Sheri with me. Sorry she missed this great trip. She would of enjoyed it (except the road down to the river).
Looks like quite an adventure, glad it ended well! But poor little cicada, she may have been scared too when you woke up screaming :-)