46 Dollar Experience . . .

So, like all trips here in Costa Rica, the plan to go to Rancho Margo was made one day, and we were leaving the next. Literally I learned of this self-sustaining resort and the next we were arriving. But let me back track for a moment . . .

Our car, as Titus likes to say, has it's own personality - meaning it acts up when we don't want it to. That's every time we drive it. It is a 1992 Trooper, I call it the beast since is roars to life when you turn it on, but some times it coughs and sputters like it has allergies or isn't quiet awake. So traveling long distances with the Trooper are an adventure all their own. Not wanting such excitement for our spontaneous trip, we rented a car.

- Side note on renting cars in Costa Rica. They are hard to rent. You can't call up a rental and say "I need a car this morning what do you have?" Nope, you need to say "I need a car, do you have any?" Natalie probably called ten, and only three had an actual car. Not like the states. Cars here are limited and renting them requires advance notice. We went to two in Liberia and both had small compact rentals that could squeeze four, but smash five. Finally the last one, a rental in what appeared to be an old airport hanger, had one. Now every where in Costa Rica needs a 4x4, even though roads are getting paved daily. Titus asked the Ranch if he needed a 4x4, and they told here there was one stretch that was pretty rough, but a car could do it. So we rented a little Nissan Sentra for $46 a day and off we went.

Rancho Margo is a about four hours from Playa Grande, but the road is beautiful, passing by wind generators, lush vegetation, and all sorts of interesting sights. I even saw a monkey walking along the power lines at one point. Once you reach Lake Arenal, everything gets green and cools down. It's so different then the dry, burnt landscape here at the coast. The weather is even ten to twenty degrees cooler due to the rain forest and the mist that constantly hangs in the air.

So the stretch they mentioned . . . .

Is a long stretch of road, perhaps twenty miles. Everything here is in kilometers or meters (or as Titus will joke and say "mountains" because a sign will say 50 mts. ) so I'm still learning distance. The road was all muddy dirt with huge pools for pot holes and a rocks like riverbeds round and numerous. We slowed to a crawl and prayed that the car would not die, get stuck, or bottom out. At one point there were four cars behind us, all SUVs, following our weaving and dipping pattern like we were the locals. We had to be, because only locals drove small compact cars on a road designed as a Range Rover test track. Amazingly blessed, we turned into the dirt drive of the Ranch Margot and all cheered (some of us sighed with relief) and pulled into a parking lot with only two other cars and ten SUVs. Who ever said we could use a car had to drive one of the other two there. I nicknamed the whole adventure the "$46 experience" because if we had up graded to the SUV it would not have been nearly as fun.

So Rancho Margot is an amazing oasis in nature with lush rain forest on one side, a cloud forest on another, and a volcano at the back. Peter Pan eat your heart out, we've reached our own Neverland . . . .