Driving in an unfamiliar environment is always fun and full of challenges. While most of the roads were paved and in good working order, from time to time there were challenges.

In driving from San Jose to San Gerrardo De Dota, we got stuck behind a pineapple truck on a narrow foggy mountain road.  Occasionally pineapples would fall off.  Locals who knew the road did not hesitate to pass.  I was more apprehensive.  I didn’t learn until later, that when truck was signaling left, they were actually telling me to pass and the coast was clear.

Driving south we passed through large portions of agricultural land.  Plantations of sugar cane, cacao, papaya lined the roads, along with large pastures full of dairy and beef cattle.

Driving off the major arteries, roads became dirt roads.   In the road from Puerto Jimenez to Cabo Matapalo varied between easy dirt stretches, to mucky pot-holed sections, to river crossings.    This video below, is the driveway to our guest house in Cabo Matapalo.  It is about a 30-40 minute dive from the city center…a very long walk.  We picked up a hitch hiker and her son and had a great conversation along the way.

We hit some more dirt roads just outside of Nosara on our way to Ostenial.  We dodged another bullet on a creek crossing.  We crossed where we shouldn’t have.  We didn’t know that if we had taken a five mile detour we could have avoided that creek.  It was nerve racking to cross, but we made it, and surprised our local family that we actually made it through.

The roads were rough in Monteverde region as they were a mix of cobblestone, dirt, and asphalt.

Road signs differed from region to region.  My favorite was:

 

Our non-delux simple four wheel drive rental got us everywhere safely.