Costa Rica

I had always assumed that a place like Costa Rica, which is incredibly developed for tourism, would be fairly predictable to travel. It is good to know that a place like this can still surprise you. Costa Rica has wild and inaccessible sections like any of the other Central American countries we’ve traveled. We beat up our truck pretty hard on the Osa peninsula, floating it through a river once, almost getting stuck another time, and enjoying (almost) every minute of it. We headed down the Pacific coast from Alajuela, enjoying camping in incredibly hot and wet weather. We are still very much in the midst of the rainy season. No matter the weather, we are stoked to be back on the road having spontaneous surprises and enjoying the company of quirky people.

Last week, Paul and I arrived in a small town called Puerto Jimenez. We drove around a bit looking for a place to stay and eventually pulled into a campground run by a very friendly man named Adonis. Upon checking in he informed us that “hay crocodillos”. Ok… there are crocodiles. I didn’t know what to make of that. Is it a warning? A threat? The price was right, so we decided to stay. We settled in and visited a local mechanic trying to source a new pin for our brakes (the mechanics in Alajuela, though cheap and fast, were a little bit smashy breaking an integral piece of our braking system and doing a very poor job of repairing it. Phyllis was now creaking and whining over every little bump in the road). We got the part for fairly inexpensive and decided to chill out and celebrate with a beer. Just as it started to get dark, Adonis came over to our campsite and informed us that it was time to feed the crocodiles. Another German roadtripper (also camping at Adonis’ site) had bought a large bag of meat, and we were told to follow them into the woods… with flashlights. A little nervous, I decided to follow expecting to find crocodiles in cages. Nope. Adonis started calling out to the crocodiles (both Cayman and American) and called them by names. “que linda” he says (how beautiful). All I am thinking now is- there are 20 odd live crocodiles five feet away from me. I am most definitely out of my comfort zone. Adonis starts breaking off chunks of meat and feeding the crocs, he tells us to stand back since the American and the Caymans fight over the meat sometimes. I wanted to climb a tree. In the end I was relieved to be back at the campsite, surprised at the turn of events that evening, and fairly impressed that I didn’t crap my pants.