Rental car

I woke up and checked online for car rentals. I wanted something cheap. I didn’t even care about the size. I figured a 4x4 would be out of the question, though it would be ideal for the bad roads here.

Through the Tico Times classifieds, we found an Isuzu Rodeo (4WD) for $30 a day! Incredible. We would have to pay in cash, but as long as we don’t get stung on the safety deposit, we will have gotten a great deal.

Chino took us into San Jose to pick up the car. It went very easily and soon we were driving home in our own car. Other than a mile or so that I drove Dom’s rental car in 2002, this was my first driving in Costa Rica, in six trips here.

We filled up the tank. There are three things of note concerning gasoline in Costa Rica. 1. There is no such thing as a self-serve gas station. I actually like the full-serve here. Not having to get out of the car, the attendant checking the air in the tires, etc. I remember that kind of service when I was a kid, but full-serve gas stations have gone the way of the do-do bird in the States. 2. The gas is very dirty here. Costa Rica imports 100% of their petroleum, and the quality of the gasoline they produce and consume is very bad. 3. It is expensive. Today it was 504 colones per liter, which is close to $4 a gallon. At least you don’t have to search for the cheapest station: Costa Rica’s gas is controlled by a state-run monopoly, so every station has the same price. That’s handy. Anyway, it is because of #2 and #3 that Ramón paid the $1000 or so to convert his car to propane. Clean burning and about $2 a gallon. Our rental car had a quarter of a tank when we picked it up. This fill-up cost us about $60. Ouch! Freedom and mobility ain’t cheap.

When we got home, we ate some lunch and discussed what we wanted to do with the rest of our day, now that we had a car. We decided to go to Cartago and visit the cathedral (basilica). To set the scene, we told Sofia and Alex the story of the Virgin of Los Angeles, Costa Rica’s patron saint, as best as we could remember it. Here’s the gist:

Hundreds of years ago, a little girl was collecting firewood. She found a doll-like statue on a rock near a bubbling spring. She took it home and put it in her jewelry box. The next morning, she went back to the same spot, only to find another statue. “Cool, now I’ve got two,” she thought as she took it home. But when she opened her jewelry box, it was empty. This time she put it in and locked it. The next morning, she looked in the box. It was gone. She went to the rock, and sure enough, there it was. She went to the priest, told him what happened, and gave him the statue. He kind of blew it off and put the statue in his room. The next day, it was gone and the priests found it, you guessed it, back at the same rock. Now they decided it was a miracle, and that the church should be built on that spot. So now the bubbling spring there at the church is considered holy water and people come from all around to drink it, take it home, cure what ails ‘em, etc. It’s a pretty cool story, and Sofia and Alex got a little excited to see the church. Better than just saying, “We’re going to go visit a church.”

We made a wrong turn somewhere on the way to Cartago and took the scenic route, which proved to be beautiful and fun. We had one long stretch of crappy unpaved road, but most of the trip was through bucolic mountainside roads and quaint little villages. Occasionally we would stop and ask someone if we were still on the path to Cartago. I think only twice did we need to backtrack some and take a different turn.

We got to the basilica and looked around inside. The stained glass was beautiful. Alex was very well behaved, quiet with his hands behind his back. We saw the rock where the little girl found the statue. We drank from the holy water spring. We bought some little holy water bottles to fill up for possible souvenirs.

We drove to the ruins of an older cathedral that was destroyed by an earthquake. In the story that Cristina had been told by her grandmother, the little girl told the priests where to build their church (with the Virgin Mary’s urging via the little statue) and the priests refused. They built the church where they wanted to, and an earthquake promptly destroyed it. So they finally recognized their error and built where the girl told them. Who knows what story is “correct,” but it really doesn’t matter. Like any good myth, this story obviously has different versions depending on the source.

Before we left Cartago, we popped into Burger King to use their bathroom. They had a playground, so the kids played for a while. I felt a little guilty for using their facilities, so I bought a kids meal that we all shared.

We took the correct route back and got home much quicker, even with rush hour traffic. We parked on the porch. It just barely squeezed in.

I was pleased to find a package waiting for me, finally! A little background first: every year, the University of Florida produces a poster for the upcoming football season. It has the schedule, as well as some kind of cool photo collage. They give the posters away at the stadium, but for those of us that no longer live in Gainesville, you can send a check for $5 and they’ll mail you up to five posters. I hadn’t ordered my 2006 poster yet because I was waiting for the basketball national championship poster to become available, and that wasn’t going to be ready until May. I wanted to bring Ramon a football poster, since I know he likes to frame them and put them up in his house. So I waited too long and before I knew it our trip was only a week away. I knew I wouldn’t get the posters in time to bring to Costa Rica, but just in case, I wrote a little note at the bottom of the order form that said “I leave for Costa Rica on May 31 and would like to take these posters with me. Please rush if possible.” We got a phone call the day before we left from a lady in the marketing department of the UF Athletic Association. I guess she sympathized with my plight, because she offered to mail the posters to me in Costa Rica! We quickly called Ramón and asked for his mailing address, but we didn’t tell him why. So this whole trip, we’ve been asking Maritza to check the mail. They’ve known we were waiting for something, but they had no idea what until tonight when I opened the poster tube. Ramon was very impressed. The basketball posters were included. They had just “come off the presses” around the time we left for Costa Rica. I ordered 3 football posters and 2 basketball posters. So I’ll give Ramón one of each, and that leaves one of each for my classroom, and Alex can put a football poster up in his bedroom.

During dinner, we relayed the day’s exploits to Ramon. Once the kids were in bed, we packed for our 3-day trip to Puerto Viejo, a beach town on the Atlantic side, down near Panama. Ramon called and made reservations: $40 a night at a little beachside hotel that he’d stayed at before.