The First Night in the Car

After landing in SJO (San Jose International Aiport), I quickly collected my bag, withdrew some cash and found the chauffeur driven car to the 4WD rental company. It had been a while since I haven't had someone waiting for me with a paper with my name on it XD.

The car was a Suzuki Jimny, with AC, USB player (useful to charge your phone) and enough space for a backpacker for 10 days :)

AWD is a must have in Costa Rica if you want to be on the safe side, and I had in mind to test my driving skills offroad...
Talking about Navitaion skills, I took the Garmin GPS option for few beucks/day, but I've quickly found a cheaper alternative and somehow as efficient : the Open Street Map navigation App for Android, very useful. (you can download the map and have offline navigation, for free... and the map also have some hike trails...)

Most guide books recommend you to stay in SJO or in vincinity for the first night when you travel from Europe, bug I guess my body got used to jetlag, and I was confident to drive at night. Costa Rica being close to the Equator (the line, not the country), you have almost all year long same duration for night and day, which means that after 18h, it's completely dark, and for a strange reason, it's the time the Costa Rican start to get out of their houses and walk on the road.
I managed to avoid the pedestrian, grabbed a delicious sandwich made with unknown type (or better, you-don't-want-to-know type) of meat for 2USD and headed toward my first destination : Poas Volcano. The aim was to get as close as possible to the entrance so that I could enjoy in the morning the volcano without the clouds.

I don't count the number of bumpers I've had to climb (literally narrow and high mountains, shock absorber killers) before reaching a village few kilometers from the entrance of the National Park. I pulled over the car to a grass field and before going to bed laying down the seat I've found some pretty fast public wifi from the local school in thisremote Costa Rican mountain village...
Obviously, from airplanes to lost paradises, Wifi is now everywhere :)