Is it a true vacation without a crazy road trip?
“Let’s go there!” Mark watched my arm extend towards the sky, my fingers pointing at the chalk-white turret on the horizon across from us. What looked like an honest-to-goodness getaway for Disney princesses sat regally atop a mountain.
“It’s called Castillo de Lilo,” he said, looking down at his phone. “Apparently, it has the best sunset in Costa Rica. It’s a somewhat private restaurant that’s 2,230 feet above sea level.”
“Thanks, Monsieur Google. Let’s go there.”
So, we did.
Little did I know that our adventure would be, well, terrifying. For once, I’m not exaggerating.
If thoughts of potential death could be woven into a cardigan, I would’ve been sporting an anxiety sweater tight enough to make my boobs look 20 years younger. Hairpin turns up and down steep terrain are one thing. Another is when the gravel beneath your vehicle offers about as much grip as a Canadian lake in January.
Why aren’t there guardrails? What if the brakes fail? Would anyone find our bodies after we plummeted to the valley below? Why didn’t I pee before we left?
“The map says go right,” I advised Mark. “Right here, where that sign says ‘Jungle Pass’.”
Mark veered off the main-road-that-wasn’t-very-main-at-all onto a rock-laden path wide enough for about two squirrel monkeys holding hands. As though we were on a roller coaster, we headed straight down into the straggly trees. Even with the wind huffing and puffing through the open windows, it felt as though we’d been dropped into a pizza oven. It smelled like it, too, the air still exhaling post-wildfire belches.
“Wheeeee!” we both squealed as we ascended to the dried-up riverbed at the base. Heisted from our friend Shelley’s traditional response to road curves we’d expanded the ritual to include downhills.
This squeal wasn’t unusual. What was unusual? Our attempt to mount the second part of the jungle’s path.
Keep in mind that we had rented a car. A jacked-up Hummer would’ve been the very best option, but we had a compact Nissan with wheels that could’ve been borrowed from a Radio Flyer tricycle. Mark laid pedal to the metal, and we made it about thirty feet up the incline before the car grunted, refused to go further, and spun gravel over the edge of the thin track into the valley below.
From the basements of our bellies came a massive laugh.
We slid backward. Back to the barren bottom that during rainy season would be filled with enough water to swallow us whole. We looked at one another. From the basements of our bellies came a massive laugh.
A second attempt. This time, avoiding the pothole as large as our vehicle in the middle of the road, we flirted with the road’s rim.
Making it twice as far, our little car conked out again. This time the slide backward felt more violent. When we were back at the barren bottom, we didn’t look at one another and laugh. We stared straight ahead. From the basements of our bellies came a massive sigh.
“We’re going to make it!” I shouted, pumping my fist in the air. “This damn path isn’t going to beat us!”
From the basements of our bellies came a massive cheer.
A third attempt. Three-quarters of the way up, dangerously hugging the left side of the gravel, our little car attempted to wave the white flag. But it didn’t. It persevered and we chugged our way to the rutty top. We looked at one another. From the basements of our bellies came a massive cheer.
Thankfully I didn’t know until later that my stress sweater had crawled onto Mark’s frame and was strangling him. Afterward he admitted to worrying about our vehicle somersaulting over the edge.
“It’s not a real trip until you’ve scared yourself!” he uttered, and we continued our way to Castillo de Lilo.
We couldn’t get to the actual castle itself. The last 100m was a paved laneway bordered by No Trespassing signs taller than me. No cars/no walking/no motorbikes. Parking in the long, parched grass, we gazed across the heat haze to where our towels hung on the balcony railings and Sparky Joan nursed her kittens.
We didn’t take the ‘shortcut’ Jungle Pass on the way home.
