On the road to Dominical

Whoa! All night on a full Boing 757 - a close approximation of hell.
Includes a couple hours standing around a little waiting room in
Guatemala City while the policía did a 'security check'. I'll bet they
weren't looking for bombs. I mean, why would anyone want to bomb Costa Rica?

Anyway, we made it, and Alajuela airport was a welcome site. There's an
exchange bank that won't take cards, and an ATM that takes all matter of
cards and spits out colones, roughly 500 to the dollar. No problems
through customs (she didn't even ask any questions), and outside to a
phalanx of taxi drivers ready to help. Have some colones ready to tip
the really helpful ones. We got pointed at the Toyota rental guy, who
soon had a shuttle on hand.

At the Toyota rental agency I found a flyer with their rates, which were
considerably less than what we had signed up for. When I showed the
friendly guy the rate, he said, "Oh that's for manual transmission."
The web site gave the same rate for either, so I called his bluff
(Actually I didn't know my wife had requested an auto, which would be a
disaster in our poor little under-powered Rav), and he produced a
beater with manual trans, bald tires and several dings. We turned it
down, having heard about the tire scam (you blow one, you buy them a new
one), and lo and behold, he produced a new (7k km) stick shift with
reasonable tires and very little damage. He proceeded to make a show of
marking down and having me sign for all the dings, and I quietly
photographed the car from several angles in case he produced a new one.
There was a bit of a mix up about the insurance since we used a master
card to cover it. I think I got scammed on that. These guys are good.

As I mentioned we are traveling with our friends. They rented a similar
sized Suzuki from Avanti. They couldn't get the larger vehicle they
needed for the 5 of them, and couldn't get a roof rack either.

The rental guy produced a couple maps for us, one of San Jose, the other
the whole country, and marked out and explained our somewhat circuitous
route right through San Jose, and on to San Isidro de General (There are
two San Isidro's on this road, pay attention. The route through town
turned out not to be as advertised, but we found our way.

We got a quick introduction to urban central America with
a long drive through San Jose with a map that didn't reflect reality,
(despite the rental guy's helpful markings). A quick query or two and we
found the tollway (100 colones I think) to San Isidro. Since this is THE
continent spanning highway there were lots of trucks. They all seemed to
have 20 hp diesels with no turbo or compression braking, so they were slow
as molasses up the hills spewing black smoke and, if loaded, slow down the
other side. The empty trucks were completely manaical, passing everything
whether they could see around the corners or not. I drove semi's in the
US for several years, so have a pretty good feel for how things work in
commercial trucking. These guys are nuts, and very intimidating on the
highway. Once I had a truck close the gap so I couldn't get
back in line after passing. Downright murderous behavior.

The next stop is lovely, vibrant downtown San Isadro de General. Not
lovely in the sense Butchart Gardens is lovely, rather a town center the
way town centers were meant to be. There's a "park" in the center with
lots of foot and car traffic all around it. Almost all the surrounding
area is commercial. It looked like a very healthy active business
center.

All the billboards change to English at the top of the hill approaching
Dominical. Dominical is an ex-pat haven pandering to the young surfer set.
(I mean, 2 internet cafes in a 'town' 2 rocky 'blocks' long.)