On Sunday (August 10), we had the pleasure of seeing the macaws we missed at Carara on the trees right across our cabin’s yard. After a relaxing day, we took an afternoon drive to a nearby beach (the road to which was a rather challenging and steep 4×4 trail).
We returned near sunset, wet and full of sand, and headed straight for a restaurant on the beach. While trying to park close to the restaurant, I drove onto a large rock hidden in the tall grass, which made a sickening sound of metal scraping on rock and caused everyone sitting on the open-air porch of the restaurant to stare at the strange guests announcing their arrival in such a way. After the nice meal, we leisurely made our way back to the cabin on the dark dirt roads, trying to deal with the fog that had built up on the front windshield and refused to clear no matter what we tried. That’s when we suddenly noticed the car’s temperature gauge had climbed and started flashing red, with a message to stop immediately. I continued for a few dozen meters because we were on a narrow, steep dirt road that I didn’t want to block, and then it turned out we had taken a wrong turn and arrived at a place where the road ended at a shallow stream. What a great place to get stuck with the engine heating up!
When we finally got to the cabin (which was actually pretty close), after a couple of stops to cool the engine with water, I texted our landlords, and they gave me the number of a local mechanic who opens his garage at seven in the morning. Unfortunately, we were supposed to be in the village, a few kilometers down the road, by eight am to leave on a boat for a tour in the park. We went to sleep uncertain about how the next day would unfold.
At 5am Lilach woke me up and let me know that the cabin has had no running water for the last few hours, during which Tamar was awake and used up almost all of our water reserves for cooking. In particular, there was no water to flush the toilets. I found a faucet with running water next to an unused hut in the complex, and brought ~12 liters back to the cabin in an assortment of plastic bottles of all sizes. Around 6am I messaged our landlord Mauricio, and he came, apologizing, and turned on the water pump, which was apparently turned off during the night, when they had tried to fix some plumbing problem (the ambiguity about the cause is partly due to my less-than-perfect Spanish).
Mau and I examined the car and discovered that the radiator, as I had feared, was damaged and leaking. We left the car with the mechanic in the hope that he would manage to fix it at least temporarily, and Daniel, Lilach, and I arrived on time for the tour, after a 45-minute walk. Tamar stayed behind at the cabin to sleep in and relax a bit on her own. The tour in the park was amazing, with tons of interesting animals and plants, and a guide — Ayder — who was nice, knowledgeable, and made a real effort to find the animals for us.
On the boat to Corcovado National Park
Upon returning from the park to Drake’s bay we learned that the mechanic who examined the car concluded it couldn’t be fixed there. We contacted the customer support of Payless Rent a Car by WhatsApp (remember we were forced to rent from them after Budget failed us?), and after an hour and a half of correspondence they told us that a replacement car will be sent to us, and we should get it around 8am the next morning! Having driven that way a couple of days earlier, I couldn’t believe that could be true, but hey – even if they get the car to us around midday we would still be able to get out before dark and get to our next and final destination in Costa Rica – the high cloud forests of San Gerardo de Dota. We were utterly surprised by the excellent customer service, and very grateful for it, as we had already imagined spending the last couple of days of our trip dealing with getting out of the Osa peninsula and to our flight without the car…
Family Trips 