After finishing our meals, and heading back to our rooms, we made an inquiry at our hotel about the bus schedule to St. Elena and were told that it left from just outside the hotel at 8:00. That created some anxiety, since back in the San Jose Tourist Information Center, we were told the bus left at 6:00.
We didn’t sleep very well that night because there were cats in heat howling and pouncing on the tin roof above our bed. Thinking local knowledge was better than the information we got in San Jose, we threw caution to the wind and slept until 6:30, then caught the 8:00 bus, which was 15 minutes late. This first bus only took us to a place called Telaran which was only 70 kms (44 miles) away, but it took the bus several hours to get there.
The road was rough and winding. Near Arenal Lake, the vegetation beside the road was so thick and close, you could reach out the window and touch it. In fact, the Bus Helper, stood in the open door of the bus as it traveled down the gravel road, and hacked at the vegetation with a machete, as it passed by.
We arrived at Telaran at 11:30. It was a town high on a hill with a big concrete cross planted on one of the prominent neighboring bald hills. The whole surrounding area had been deforested, and turned into windswept pastures of grass. At the big “carport” which served at the bus terminal, we happily paid the Bathroom Attendant twenty cents to use the clean washroom.
At 12:30 we piled onto our next bus, which was a funky old school bus with a Mercedes emblem wired to the grill. It was very crowded, but we got to sit together. It was a painfully slow bus, picking up people and then dropping them off further down the road. The Driver’s Helper dropped off items like jugs of milk and bicycle tires here and there along the way. The rough road was reminiscent of the road up to McBride Peak, with its jarring surface and hairpin curves.
At one point a dump truck had tried to turn around and had locked gears in the attempt, blocking the road. Our bus which was climbing the hill up got to it and had to stop. The Bus Helper got out of the bus, walked to the rear of the bus where he pulled out a chain. He hooked the chain to the front of the stranded truck, then to the front of the bus. Our bus slowly backed up, pulling the truck sideways into the road, where it was able to get going downhill.
Further down the road, a motorcyclist with a flat tire, flagged our bus down. The Helper, opened the hood of the bus, hooked an air hose up to something on the engine and was able to inflate the motorcycle tire back up.
View my paintings: davidmarchant2.ca
No comments:
Post a Comment