Frankfurt, Germany

Today I packed up and stuffed my bag into Erin’s trunk, and the three of us set off for sunny Frankfurt. Okay, okay, it wasn’t sunny. Not even close. It was cold and overcast until about 4 or 5 pm, when the sun inexplicably chose to come out and warm the place up for an hour or so before it was time for sunset. No problem… we had our coats and gloves. (Or, at least, I had my coat and
*Charlotte’s* gloves, since she was nice enough to loan me her spare pair, seeing as I forgot mine.)

Frankfurt was smaller than I had expected, but an intriguing mix of old-school German architecture and modern steel-and-glass skyscrapers. We wandered around the streets in search of the elusive walk-platz, and finally had to resort to asking directions from this cute German twenty-something in a suit. We didn’t approach him just because he was handsome (No, really! I swear!) but because Erin figured that since Frankfurt is a hub for international businessmen, chances were good that men in suits would be mulilingual. (She was right.)

We strolled up and down the tree-lined street, sight-seeing and people-watching… the two primary walk-platz activities, next to shopping, eating, and sipping coffee/wine/beer, the latter of which we also did. When my cafe au lait arrived, to my surprise it arrived in a glass cup (the kind you’d serve milk in). Like Erin always says, you never know what you’re going to get when you order food & drink in another country. At least I didn’t get runny egg on my pizza.

For dinner, we went to a German restaurant (for pretty much the first time since I’d been in Germany) and I ordered the Spinach Pancake (called the vegetarisch Panierter Schafskase mit Preiselbereren) figuring it was a different spin on the traditional potato pancake. Wrong again. It turned out to be something more like a crepe wrapped around a massive pile of cooked spinach and smothered with cheese. Even *better* than what I’d imagined!

Tags: food, lost

Miesenbach, Germany & Kusel, Germany

This morning I wake up, get around, do some work, and head outside to go hiking. Erin told me about a lake with trails about a 7 minute walk from her house, just past an apple orchard. So, I head off in the direction she’d pointed out with my backpack and a bottle of cranberry juice (I didn’t have bottled water) and set out on my merry way.

Seven minutes go by as I traverse the winding road, followed by another seven. No lake. The twisting road forks. Twice.

Erin hadn’t mentioned any forking going on, so I randomly pick a path and continue walking. Another seven minutes of no lake tick by, and I begin to suspect that the lake was really a “lake”, a trick designed to be rid of me forever, a la Hansel and Gretel.

Wandering on the edge of a dense cabbage patch, I hear a strange sound, kind of a metallic rattle, and double-check my camera (which hangs around my neck in true tourist fashion.) The camera was off, but I might have left it on, since it turns itself off automatically.

Shrugging, I continue on and in a few more steps… again, the mechanical rattling. I realize the sound is not coming from me or my camera, but from the tall, tangled grass alongside the muddy pathway. Another five or six feet later, the rattle is accompanied by movement within the underbrush.

At this point, I’m convinced that rattle snakes run rampant throughout the path to the “lake”. Robotic ones. Vicious, evil, snakebots.

Then up ahead I see the edges of what could conceivably be called an apple orchard, although there were only a couple rows of sparse trees. Assuming the lake is on the other side and that Erin merely counts to seven in some weird new way, I stride resolutely down the dirt trail, doing my best to ignore the warning rattle of the animatronic snakes hiding in the overgrowth alongside the path.

Seven minutes later, I’m past the apple trees and into the woods. No more mechanical snakes, but still no lake. Curiouser and curiouser.

A watery trail snakes into the woods, and I roll up my pant legs before sloshing down the spongy dirt path. The lake must be on the other side of the woods, I tell myself. I’ll just follow the trail to the lake, and *then* I’ll be seven minutes from Erin’s house. No problem.

Seven minutes later, the trail forks, one path climbing up the hill, the other curving around below. Deciding I’d be better off taking the high road (ach, Loch Lomond) so I’d have more of a bird’s eye view, I tromp gaily along the path until it, well, ends. Not to be deterred, I continue making my way through the trees until I rediscover the path. Or, “a” path, since I cannot be sure whether this continues the trail I’d already been on or was part of a different trajectory altogether.

Another, oh, say, seven minutes go by. No lake (of course) but what I do stumble upon (thank goodness not literally) is a fly-laden pile of animal excrement, so massive that it covers the whole trail and I have to pick my way through the moss and the grass to get around it.

Snakebots are the least of my concern, now that I realize the woods contains elephants, or maybe dinosaurs. Erin totally didn’t mention that the trails led through the original site for Jurassic Park and that I ought to watch my back for the occasional Tyrannosaur.

The next few times the trail twists and forks, I pick a path completely at random because hey–if there are velociraptors gadding about, what does it really matter?

So now I continue along, marching to an internal recitation of Frost (the woods are lovely, dark and deep) and wondering if maybe I should’ve chosen a different path on one of the many forks I’d passed.

But at the foot of a cluster of trees, I come across a giant marker, affixed with a poster of woodland critters and their names. The whole thing was in German (of which I mostly know words like “und”, “grosse/kliene”, and the conjugation of “to be”) but based on the pictures, there are neither robotic snakes nor ankylosaurs.

(Allegedly.)

Luckily, in another seven minutes or so, a break in the trees affords a view of houses and a horse farm, and once the path leads out of the trees I do in fact come across water. Yay!

A bridge bisects the picturesque lake, and various people walk around its circumference, jogging, pushing strollers, walking dogs, smoking cigarettes, etc.

One corner of the lake even has a paved road, which a quick peek determines that it leads to a four-way (paved) intersection. One of those streets must lead back to Erin’s house. But which one?

A quick glance at my watch tells me I have 25 minutes until Erin gets off work and heads home. If the seven minute trail truly exists, that should be plenty of time to return before she has a chance to worry about where I might be. Of course, since I didn’t *arrive* via the correct path, I had absolutely no idea which road I should take. And as I walk around the lake, I realize that almost all of its “corners” lead to roads with further intersections. If I took one, I’d either get back quickly… or get really, really, lost.

So, since I’m of the “always be prepared” mentality when travelling alone, I fish in my backpack for the sticky note on which I’d written the name of her street before leaving the house. All I had to do was ask someone which direction to go, and I’d be home free.

However. (You knew there’d be a however, didn’t you?)

Not only had no one by the lake even heard of Erin’s street, the question I most frequently got in return was, “Well, what town is it in?”

???

“What town?” I manage. “What do you mean, ‘what town’? What town are we in right now?”

Come to find out, we weren’t exactly in a town right now. The lake occurs at the intersection between various towns and is shared by them all. Depending on if I wanted to go to this town or that town, I should head up this hill or down that hill or around that corner or along that field.

Since I, in my infinite wisdom, had utterly failed to write down more than the street name, I had no idea how to get back except… back through Jurassic Park, up the hill, past the cabbage patch and the snakebots, and through the serpentine neighborhood streets to Erin’s house.

According to my watch, I wouldn’t make it in time. As it turned out, my watch was right.

Erin was home and changed by the time I got there. (I, at that time, learned that we were in Miesenbach. Good to know.) She said she was going to give me another 15 minutes before driving around looking for me, which would have done neither of us any good since I was nowhere near any paved streets.

All’s well that ends well, of course, so we piled into the car and headed to Kusel to visit the castle. (The Kusel Castle? I sound like Dr. Seuss.) This castle is cool for several reasons beyond the basic all-castles-are-cool foundation. First, it’s right in the middle of a semi-residential area (unlike, say, Neuschwanstein) so there’s an intriguing vista of old and new mixing together. Secondly, it houses a restaurant in which you can (and we did!) eat dinner.

We had a great time exploring the grounds and climbing up the winding steps to the top of the tallest tower and looking out the windows at the panorama below. Castle towers always have such amazing views. Since I like to read books set in Medieval times (OK, I read novels set in basically any time period) I had fun imagining how it would’ve been like to live there, with the people bustling about and rushes covering the floors and so on. (I’m pretty sure that the view from the top at that time did *not* include a two-lane highway.)

Fun photos attached of our adventures in the Kusel castle (later discovered to be called Lichtenburg castle). Link to more info: http://www.burglichtenberg.de/en/index.htm

Tags: animals, castles & palaces, hiking, lost, travel tips

Richmond, Virginia to Williamsburg, Virginia

Today we woke up and went to the hotel continental breakfast. Allegedly, it was open until 9, but at 5 minutes til the hour, the hotel employee ran around locking things in cabinets and blocking access to the microwave. She even scowled over my shoulder, key in hand, while I refilled my apple juice, and lurked around the rest of the (crowded) breakfast area.

We packed up the car and checked out (semi-full) and headed out for our first destination – the Science Museum of Virginia (Rob’s pick). Outside the entrance way was a 70-ton granite sculpture of the earth, soon to be rolled on its correct orbit by the boys. The museum was exceptionally interactive, and we spent a couple hours wandering around, playing with all the experiments. One of my faves was the special chamber where you could watch unstable atoms exploding. That was pretty cool.

Afterwards, we headed to downtown Richmond for the Edgar Allan Poe museum. I jabbed at the doorbell before I realized the sign said closed on Mondays (oops) but the caretaker happened to be home and gave us a mini-private tour of the gardens and one of the buildings. We got to see several original documents as well as several pairs of Poe’s fashionable stockings.

We next set to wandering downtown, heading past the St. Paul Church, Capitol Square Park, the (old) Governor’s Mansion, and several historical buildings. (The boys pointed out the secret symbol hidden in the FedEx logo and discovered another in the DHL truck… photos attached.) We also snacked at City Hall (Andy got a massive Dr Pepper, Rob got cookies, and I got a Ghirardelli square because I know what’s good) before taking the elevator all the way up to the Observation Deck for a look around the city skyline.

Last but not least, we managed to get ourselves horribly lost (followed by wonderfully un-lost) and randomly in front of the Confederacy Museum (which is what we were looking for in the first place when we got lost.) True to form, when we finally broke down and asked directions for it, we were 30 yards from it.

One of the stranger things about the Civil War (to me) was the black soldiers in the military, fighting for the South. The white soldiers didn’t want to fight next to black soldiers because they were uppity bigots and all, so I get that part, but why would black soldiers want to fight for the side that perpetuated slavery???

After that, we piled into the car and headed for Williamsburg, about an hour or so away. Our hotel (the Historic York Street Inn) is conveniently located within walking distance of the main colonial section, and we headed right over to eat dinner and see the sights.

Colonial Williamsburg is filled with 88 of the original early 1700’s homes and buildings, and many more restored ones. Costumed, in-character people man the apothecaries and foundries, give tours of the estates, and so on. However… we did eat dinner just outside the colonial district in an Italian joint, featuring throughly modern pizza, grinders, and Coca-Cola.

Tags: food, lost, museums

Maryland & Washington, D.C.

Today we headed out to Six Flags D.C. 

Well… actually, it took us almost 2 hours to leave the hotel room and another 3+ to show up at the theme park in Maryland, due to various factors, including: 3 people + 1 bathroom = slow morning, trying to find a breakfast cafe, finding the right metro, spending 30+minutes riding said Metro, finding the right bus, waiting nearly an hour for said bus, riding 1+ hour on said bus, walking up the car entranceway to the themepark gates, and so on… as usual, an adventure.

The breakfast cafe was a little bizarre… Andy ordered milk. They asked, “Chocolate milk?” No, he wanted plain milk. Well, there was a 50 cent surcharge for chococlate-less milk. (Did we have “tourist” stamped on our foreheads or what?) Next, they asked us if we wanted to eat outside. “Yes!” we answer emphatically. It took a while for us to realize that just because they *asked* where we planned to eat, didn’t mean *they* planned to bring it out to us. Live and learn.

Six Flags was lots of fun (once we finally showed up) because the park was nearly empty and we got to do everything we wanted, in many cases multiple times. Rob and I rode all the coasters pictured here, both Andy and Rob consumed vast quantities of Dippin’ Dots, and all three of us watched the suprisingly funny wild west show.

We left early and headed back to the hotel, where the boys watched some T.V. (but not the Speaker of the House, as Andy initially wanted) and I turned on my laptop to get some work done.

Tomorrow we’re off again!

Tags: food, lost, theme parks

Washington, D.C.

Our 9 day adventure begins! My younger brothers and I are off…

05:00 Wakey, wakey!

Joy of joys, we got to wake up at 5am this morning. Well, most of us did. Everyone except Andy. He was already up – he had to work the night shift and technically was supposed to be there until 6… but he cut out at breaktime so he could come home and join the fun.

06:00 On the road

We piled into the van – my brothers (Andy & Rob), my parents, and I, and we hit the road for Chicago.

07:00 Chicago Skyway

Because the Dan Ryan Expressway was under construction, we had to use some creative avoidance tactics.

08:00 Midway Airport

We arrived about 4 hours early (yikes!) and discovered that the food court was past the security check-in, so my parents (who, like us, had not yet breakfasted) had to turn around and go home without eating with us.

09:00 Haray Carey’s

Andy, Rob and I grabbed some grub at Haray Carey’s. I opted to drink water instead of coffee, planning to hit Starbucks after we ate.

10:00 Waiting at the Terminal

At Starbucks, Andy and Rob ordered the Chocolate Creme Frappucinos and I ordered a Caramel Latte. They were out of both Chocolate and Caramel, which meant *we* were out of luck. We plopped into some seats at the terminal next to an outlet, so I could plug in my laptop and get some work done. Some guy walked by and gave me a hard time about it, but it was all in hillbonics, so we’re not really sure what he said. <>

11:00 – 14:00 Plane

The plane ride was much less eventful than I had feared, except for the landing, which freaked out not only the passengers but also the flight crew and the pilot himself, who joked, “Well!… *That* was easy.” when we clattered onto the runway.

14:00-19:00 Intro to D.C.

We find our hotel (the Beacon, on 17th street, walking distance from the White House) and wander around the city, checking out the White House, the Washington Monument, and the World War II Memorial. We also ate some pizza at Uno’s (a D.C. staple… hahaha) We ordered the Muchos Nachos appetizer (which, when they say muchos, they’re not kidding) not realizing it came with meat. Even though it was completely our fault (for being illiterate and not reading the menu more closely) they ran right back and whipped up a veggie version. We were stuffed before the pizza even came.

ANDY QUOTE: “Well, so far this vacation is turning out terrible. Too many nachos!!!”

20:00-23:30 D.C. Night Tour

We left Union Station for a 3+ hour night tour and it turned out to be a great time. Our tour guide was animated and knowledgeable and we only got lost once. (”We” meaning Andy, Rob and I, not the tour guide. He was a D.C. native who’d given these tours twice a week for 21 years.)

Tags: airplanes, airports, food, lost

Puerto Banus, Spain & Ronda, Spain

If you’ll recall, today is the day that instead of going to class, I am going to visit Ronda, home of Spain’s oldest bullring. (FYI: “Ro” like “row your boat”, not like “rah”.) When I arrived in Ronda, I met a girl (from my same excursion, though not from my hotel) named Eliana. She is from Argentina and was visiting a friend who had a summer house here in the Málaga area. Eliana is really nice and we hit it off right away. Apparently, we became fast friends a little too quickly, because the next thing we know, our tour guide is gone and the group disappeared right along with him.

We picked up a couple maps at the tourist information office and ended up making our own sightseeing tour, trying to follow the route the guide had indicated, but never quite catching up with him. What we *did* find was an absolutely breathtaking panoramic view of the area.

Ronda is an old city, perched atop a nest of mountains, overlooking an incredibly deep but beautiful gorge. An ancient Roman bridge snakes up the mountainside, made of stone blocks over a row of repeating arches. Old and new buildings balance on the edge of the gorge, and the people line the perimeter, enjoying the view of the bridge, the rocks, the cathedral, the mountains…

We came across the Plaza de Toros just in time to see the tour group! Unfortumately,they were scattering because it was the last guided stop before free time, but luckily the guilde was still there and we did not have to pay for admission. The bullring was massive. I could just imagine the thousands of spectators crowding each level, hundreds of years ago.

After this, Eliana and I stopped for lunch and I ordered a vegi pizza. Spanish vegi pizza is nothing like American vegi pizza. First of all, you don’t pick what goes on it. You don’t even get to know in advance. Secondly, what does come on it is different at each restaurant and always appears a bit random. For example, the most abundant vegi on this particular pizza was corn. You heard me. Corn.

Naturally, we couldn’t find the bus stop when it was time to pile back in, but at least this time we were not alone. We had met up with half a dozen or so travellers from England, who were also very lost, and took turns asking us if we knew where we were going. Finally, I said I’d ask someone, walked up to the nearest local, and asked him if he knew where the tourist buses typically picked up. Sure, he said, and gave some easy directions.

The British woman turned to me and said, “I didn’t know you were from Spain!” “I’m not,” I answered. Her eyes got round and she exclaimed, “But you speak Spanish so *well*!” (Apparently my English is a little sketchy, however.)

So we get back on the bus, which makes a stop at Puerto Banus on the way back. Eliana tells me that Puerto Banus is a famous, rich Spanish port, with an impressive array of yachts and a large statue that appears in lots of Spanish movies. We walked along the port, saw lots of yachts, several fish and even a ray before it was time to head back to our hotels.

Back at the hotel, I was just in time for dinner and the nightly entertainment. As usual, it was Mario, the hotel singer who sings to karaoke CDs (without the lyric screen) and plays along on an electric keyboard, although one time he stopped to answer his cell phone mid-song and the music mysteriously kept playing. He “plays” a short set, but he plays the set three times a night, and you can bank on hearing Shakira, Every Step You Take, Pretty Woman (which he mumbles through since he doesn’t know the words except to the chorus) and this undulating, bouncy yodel tune, to which he yodels his name (”Mario-hee, Mario-hoo”, etc.) At first, we believed he invented that particular ditty himself, but we were to later learn that it is in fact a real song.

Tags: animals, cathedrals, lost, lost in translation, music & concerts, road trip

Málaga, Spain & Torremolinos, Spain

My first views of Spain were of deserts and mountains. Málaga is a city on the coast, with desert, mountains, and beach. We are in a hotel (Hotel Parasol) in Torremolinos, on the beach, just outside of Málaga.

Class began today, and the first adventure was the textbook. Apparently, the professor had told Elvira (the coordinator) that we should buy our books ahead of time and bring them with us. She, however, did not tell us the names of them, and said we should just get them when we got to Málaga. Naturally, they did not have them in Málaga. So, we had to make Xerox copies of the entire textbook. This is not only unwieldy, but also super-costly, so we only made two copies and are sharing them between us, which is a hassle, but what do you do.

Before I forget, let me tell you about the elevators in the hotel. Yes! Actual elevators! But before you get too excited, let me clarify. These elevators are phone booth sized, and go in order of which button was pressed first, not in numeric/spatial order. So, if you are on floor one and call the elevator and before you press floor three, someone on floor 10 calls the elevator, guess where you’re going. Yep, from 1 to 10 to 3. (And if he pressed 8, he goes from 10 to 3 to 8.) And so on.

I ended up rooming with Ula, and we got up around 7:15 this morning and headed downstairs for breakfast at 8 before class at 8:30. Unfortunately, the 8:00 breakfast didn’t start until around 8:15 (I guess we’re on Spanish time) and we were worried about being late to class. The professor rolled in to the classroom a good 10 minutes after we did (he’s from Spain, so I guess he’s *really* on Spanish time) so it wasn’t a problem after all.

After class, Ula and I took the cercanías (local metro-style train) to downtown Málaga so I could reserve my train seats for my post-semester travels. As Murphy prophesized, this did not go down as planned.

First of all, I was transferred from cashier to cashier until someone could help at all. Next, they said they could only reserve tickets to/from Spain, so only 3 out of 20 tickets were reserved. Next, the fee for those 3 reservations was $170. Yikes! Finally, after all this, they don’t take credit cards, so I had to dash to the ATM in order to complete the transaction.

After this adventure, we went and got ice cream and cappucinos at an outdoor cafe. Ordering the cappucino was a little bizarre, because the waitress asked, “With or without milk?” Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought a cappucino was an espresso with milk. So if I got it *without* milk, it wouldn’t be a cappucino anymore, it would be an espresso, right? Maybe it’s different here. In any case, I smiled and said, “With, please” and dug into my ice cream, which may very well be the best ice cream I’ve had in my life. I ordered caramel, and it actually came with lots of tiny cubes of real caramel embedded in caramel ice cream! (Not the goopy processed “carmel-flavored syrup” in your average US cone.) Way yum.

After this nutritious and delicious lunch, we wandered around downtown for a bit, then got on the return train. At one stop, a woman got on with her daughter, intending to go to downtown Málaga. I told her that she had gotten on the wrong train, as this one was heading *away* from Málaga. She thanked me profusely and got off at the next stop. It wasn’t until the following stop when we realized that *our* stop was the one where the woman had gotten on, and we missed it because we were being helpful. So, we got off at the *next* stop, only to find out that the return train had just passed, and it would be another half hour until the next one. We decided to hoof it back, which turned out to be an exceptionally bad idea. Our plan was to walk to the beach and follow the coast back to the hotel, but none of the twisty residential streets seemed to lead to the beach, and anyone we asked for directions just said, “Wow! You’re really far away!”

An hour and a half later, (yes, we should have just waited for the next train), we finally catch sight of our hotel, just in time for the last 10 minutes of dinner. I had gazpacho for the first time (cold veggie soup) which turned out to be pretty good!

After dinner, Ula and I went to the beach, where I waded in the water of the Meditteranean Sea and saw lots of breasts. (Yes, breasts.) Spain is apparenttly very clothing-optional, because when we were at the outdoor cafe tables, the woman next to us spontaneously began to breastfeed her baby. As for the hotel pool, all I’ll say is that I saw a man with an extremely sunburned rear end.

Tags: food, lost, lost in translation, trains, travel tips

Liberia to Arenal, Costa Rica

While waiting to board the flight from Orlando to Miami, I met these two Costa Rican guys who said they were from San Ramon. I, in my infinite wisdom, said I had no idea where that was, but was going to Arenal. (Turns out it’s right next to each other.) I also said to Bri, “Don’t worry about Costa Rican money – we’ll get some from the ATM once we land, like I did when I went to Europe.” (More on my naivete later.)

The flight from Miami to Liberia was interesting. I had a window seat (half view, half wing) and it was pretty cool to fly from North America to Central America. The pilot would let us know what country we were flying by (”On your right is Nicaragua”) and it was pretty wild. From the air, Costa Rica is lush, green, and mountainous. From the ground, Costa Rica is lush, green, and mountainous.

Of course, once we got to the ground, I peered out the window, straining for a glimpse of the Liberia International Airport. To my right, I saw some sort of hangar – really a narrow, open building with a roof over two parallel walls and a couple planes in front of it. Come to find out, that was the Liberia International Airport.

There was a single rope separating the deplaning passengers from the people milling about, waiting to pick up friends and family or there to offer taxi services. We followed the queue inside where there were three podiums manned by three customs agents. We stood in line, got our passports stamped, and wandered out the other side of the building.

If there was electricity, I didn’t see it. If there was an ATM, it would have had to be magical.

So, we get to the taxi area and there’s dozens of Costa Ricans holding up signs for rental car agencies. We recognize our names, and head to the Alamo driver. (That’s right, there’s Alamo in Costa Rica. There’s also Dollar, Payless and Hertz.)

One of the guys opens the van door for us, loads in our bags, then looks at Brian expectantly. Bri looks at me. I look at the guy. “Si?” I ask tentatively. “Propina?” he answers. Oh. A tip. Good thing we thought ahead and had absolutely no colones (CR money). Naturally, all I had was two US twenties. Turns out Bri had the same. We figured $20 was a bit steep for throwing bags in the trunk, but we didn’t want to be rude to the locals two seconds off the plane. We scrounged in our pockets and managed to come up with $1 in change, and that seemed to work.

Fast forward to the rental car place. There was nothing fast about it, lemme tell ya. It took us 45 minutes to get the car that we had rented ahead of time. A lot of tapping on the computer. No clue why. Then Brian’s American Express didn’t go throuh. No clue why. Luckily he had a MasterCard. So then we get our car, our requested four-wheel-drive SUV…

Oh boy. First off, it is a tiny thing. SUV shaped, yes, but in length… not sure if it’s longer than a Dodge Neon. Secondly, it’s stick. Bri + stick = disaster. Thirdly, it’s a Toyota No Brand. Features, nil. Amenities, nil. Anything it can do (lights, wipers, radio, etc) the choices are either On or Off. The back is a hatch type thing that you cannot open without turning off the car, getting out, and unlocking it with your key. Likewise, once all your stuff is in the back, the door will not latch unless you physically lock it with the key. (Yes, we found this out the hard way.)

So Bri gets behind the wheel (he was just as nervous about that as me) and heads toward the exit. He manages to drive to the exit without killing the engine or us (for which we were both proud and relieved) and shows his paperwork to the armed guard before he will open the gate to let us out. That’s right, armed. Later, we have come to the conclusion that they were not just guards, but actual police officers. At the time, however, we just thought that Alamo meant business.

So Bri drives maybe 100 yards, pulls over, and has me get behind the wheel for the rest of the week. We glance at the packet of papers I brought and flip to the page with the directions to our rental home. Only a couple turns and mostly highway, so we should get there in no time.

Wrong again. The “highway” is barely two lanes wide, and is covered with pot holes the size and depth of bath tubs. The road is mountainous, therefore lots of ups and downs with sudden sharp turns. I’m going between 20-30 kmh (I have no idea what that translates to – the dash does not have mph, rpms, or anything else that might be construed as useful). Our teeth are rattling, our heads are banging against the seat backs, our backs are jostled against the sides of the car – and the locals are passing us, around curves, going easily twice as fast.

We found out later that the speed limit is 80-100 kph on the highway. Not me, brotha. The highway was dotted with bridges, all of which were one lane wide with sheer drops on either side. Some had whole sections that had fallen down the mountainside. We also found out later that a friend of ours’ sister actually broke a rib just driving on the road. Our conversations went something like:

“Slow down!”
“I’m in first gear.”
“Watch out!”
“Bri, the road is covered in pot holes.”
“I see them! They’re everywhere!”
“I’m going as slow as I can.”
“The bridge is only one lane!”
“Yes, yes it is.”
“We’re on the side of a cliff!”
“Looks that way.”
“Slow down!”
“I’m still in first gear.”
And so on.

Come to find out, the house was not around the corner from the airport. The house was not around the corner from anything. Had we known this, we’d have looked for lunch and a bathroom before leaving the airport. As it turns out, a neighbor says it takes her two and a half hours to get from her house to the airport. Oh yeah. So hours of the windy road and Brian’s interminable exclamations ensue before I finally pull into the road the rental house is on. And I use “road” lightly – we were told it was gravel, and I guess it is, if by “gravel” you mean dirt, pot holes, and rocks ranging in size from fists to bowling balls. Thank *God* we got four wheel drive.

I pull through the gate onto the circular driveway and wow. Amazing. Beautiful landscaping, gorgeous house, breathtaking view of the countryside and lake Arenal. Suddenly the long drive is completly worth it. We step out of the car wide-eyed, and Alex the caretaker steps out of the house to greet us. He’s young and personable and gives us a general tour, shows us how to work the hot tub, and rings up Michelle (the afore-mentioned neighbor.) She drops by, and gives us lots of great advice regarding area attractions, where to find the important phone numbers, and shows us food that was prepared for us and waiting in the refrigerator for our arrival. Mmmm.

We ate, and wandered around outside excitedly taking pictures and video. We tried (and failed) to remember how the hot tub worked, gave up, went back inside once night fell, and fell sound asleep until morning.

Tags: airports, lost, road trip, travel tips