So yesterday there had been a couple of times when it had been a bit stiff getting the car into 3rd gear, but I hadn't paid much attention to it as the car was still driving okay.
This morning we got up at 6:15am to be packed and at the hotel for 7:00am (we had been put up in the owners' guest house overnight as the main hotel was full). We started the day off badly by checking emails and discovering that replacing the combi-boiler that broke the day before we set of for Costa Rica will most likely cost £3-£3.5k. Ouch! Plus the soonest it can be done is next Wednesday and we had arranged to host six guests over the weekend. Double ouch! A bad start to the day in anyone's books, but wait, it gets worse.
The sun was shining, so we were at least positive we'd have good view of the volcano crater once we got up there. We left our luggage at the hotel to keep it secure with the aim if collecting it on the way back en route to the airport. Then we headed up the road to try and find te road to Poas.
We'd barely got outside Alajuela when it started. All of a sudden I started really struggling to change gears. This got gradually worse as we climbed higher ad higher until it got to the point where I literally had to try desperately to get into 3rd gear and use only that gear for the rest of the climb uphill to the volcano. We were praying that we wouldn't have to stop at all, as 1st gear wasn't really happening at all. Great.
Of course we were worried about getting to the crater, but the real worry was whether or not we'd be able to make it back.
Anyway, we successfully got to the crater and it was definitely worth the effort. The sun was shining, the sky was blue and we had a perfect view down into the crater with its steaming centre. We took the obligatory photos and then decided to do the 30 minute walk through the cloud forest to see the lake before heading back to see if the car was going to get us back. This was at 9:30am, our flight was at 1:20pm.
I had to try a range of things to get the Terios out of reverse and into 1st gear (there was a big crunching sound), and 2nd gear wasn't much better. Then I prayed it would go into 3rd as we left the park and started our descent. Result! I managed. We followed a tourist minibus for a while, which was great until they stopped in a town. I had to stop and then it was back to trying 1st gear. Not happening. Hazard lights on. Pull over. Engine off, try again. Yes! Now 2nd gear? Nope. Dammit!
This was basically how our journey went for 40km. Praying I would be able to change gears, staying in as high gear as possible for as long as possible, cursing every time we had to stop the car. We were both starting to worry that we might not ever get back to Alajuela, but I thought that with a bit of luck we could get to the hotel at least.
No such luck. The clutch went just outside Alajuela. No gears, no driving, no phone. Nightmare scenario.
By this time Amber was freaking out (with good reason, it was now 10:30am), so I knew I'd better do something productive. I went and found a pay phone to call the car rental company. It wouldn't take cash. Typical. What to do now? I saw a pharmacy and figured they must speak decent English. The question was whether or not they'd want to help us. I tried my luck out of desperation an by some miracle one of the girls spoke perfect English and called Mapache for me! Finally things were looking up! The Mapache guy said he'd have an engineer with us in 30 minutes and we'd be able to pick up the bags and get to the airport on time. Fantastic.
After an hour (that's right, one hour!) we were threatening to ditch the car and get a taxi to pick our bags up. Ten minutes later the rescue team arrived, by which time we were both pretty strung out with all the stress and angry that we'd lost so much time when we really needed to be at the airport hours ago (originally we were going to drop the car off at 10:00am).
To their credit Mapache dropped the mechanic with the car and the driver took us straight to get our bags and then on to the Mapache office to fill out a statement (which we managed in just 2 minutes) before dropping us at the airport. We checked and I'm not being charged for the clutch (clearly not my fault).
You'd think that once we got to the airport things would suddenly become easy. You'd be wrong. We got through security and got a (seriously overpriced) bite to eat and were on the cusp of boarding the bus to take us to the plane when it happened.
Moisturisergate.
They were checking our bags one last time. One woman made a half-hearted attempt to search my bag and totally missed the bottle of aftersun and tub of face cream I'd forgotten were still in there, loose. Amber had put her liquids into a transparent bag in the top of her hand luggage like a good girl and guess what: the stupid woman checking her bag decided that she would have to confiscate all the bag's contents. Why? Because the bag wasn't a Zip-Lock bag. I kid you not.
As I'm sure you can imagine, Amber was by this stage in no mood to be messed around! So, we had a comedy stand off. There was no way we were leaving £50 worth of hand creams, homeopathic remedies and aromatherapeutic oils after the morning we'd had and the security lady was determined not to let these tourists get away with using any old transparent bag to hold their liquids.
In the mean time the bus left with all the other passengers...
Eventually the woman realised Amber wasn't going to give in and they informed us that I had 2 minutes to run and buy a couple of Zip-Lock bags in the duty free shop. Why the silly cow didn't tell us that in the first place I have no idea! I couldn't believe it. And then, even after I'd got the bags, the horrible woman still kept Amber's toothpaste!
That was the final straw for Amber and she ended up in floods of tears on the bus. Full scale meltdown. I'm amazed she managed to hold it in until that point to be honest, poor thing. I'd challenge anyone to go through what we did and not feel like crying afterwards. I have to say, I did feel a little sorry for the air stewards as we boarded the plane. They were looking rather concerned that Amber was in such a state and I'm sure they assumed we'd had a huge fight (I got some dirty looks). Little did they know.
To cap it all, we ended up on a plane where you had to pay $6 to watch the inflight entertainment! Incredible.
Amazingly, although I still can't quite believe it, everything was pretty much plain sailing from then on. We had a smooth flight to Newark; an easy time with passport control; and with transferring our baggage onto the connecting flight. The flight back was actually pretty fun. We got seats right by the door to the plane; we had great conversation with a guy sitting in our row whose company makes the headphone sockets on Brutish Airways planes (he also runs the Isle of White pro ice hockey team!); and the cabin crew were hilarious. They were having a great time and it made the journey so much more enjoyable.
Even so, it was a huge relief to touch down in Heathrow and know we'd made it. What an epic finale to such a wonderful holiday!
I can't wait to go back.
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