Day 3: FAIL.

Apparently today wasn’t the day we were supposed to make our grand escape. It was far from it. We slathered ourselves in sunscreen, strapped on our Camelbacks and suited up for our butt-crushing ride into town only to find that Mike’s bike had its second flat tire. The first one happened approximately 2 minutes after he rode it. Since we had just bought it and already had to have it repaired, we attempted to negotiate a refund for the busted tire bill. Language barrier aside, they knew what I wanted, but they weren’t budging. La guarantia es not for the tires, only for the frame (is what I managed to translate from her hand gestures). And I didn’t have enough hand gestures to argue. Actually, I did have one…but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t gonna get our money back.

So after a few attempts of refilling the tire with our new handheld pump that the bike repairman recommended after the first flat, Mike found the leak. Our options: walk our bikes to the shop to get it fixed again (two hours, at least, and more money spent on a brand new bike) or walk to town without the burden of our bikes, find an internet café and research local car rental agencies. Once we have a car, we can drive Mike’s bike to the repair shop to tell them that this bicicleta, and the place that sold it to us, es muy mal.

We opted to walk without our bikes and made it to a hotel that offers free internet if you buy something to eat or drink. Even though we rarely order soda, we got Coca Colas, ‘cause in Spanish, it’s still Coca Cola. Sure we could have translated “iced tea” or “bottled water,” but at that point, we went with whatever was easiest. With our sodas, our waitress brought us the password to their internet network. And as soon as we began to celebrate a tiny bit of success, we were shut down. For some reason that none of us could troubleshoot, the network wasn’t recognized by my laptop. Denied.

So we ordered chicken nachos, the best part of our day, and attempted to regroup. And then our waitress, after seeing us flipping through our dictionary, did the unthinkable - she spoke English. Halle-frickin-lujah.

The internet failed us but she didn’t. She gave us some paper and pens and jotted down some Spanish phrases she thought would be helpful. But more importantly, she pointed us in the direction of the closest car rental place in a neighboring tourist town of Quepos. The only barrier to success this time? Ourselves. Neither of us brought a license. Passport yes, it’s recommended to carry them with you at all times, but license no. And you can’t drive anything with a passport.

This wouldn’t be such an issue someplace else but when you’re facing a two hour hike home…just to turn around and do another two hours back…it ruined an already ruined plan and pretty much the rest of the day. The only good thing to come out of today, other than our nachos and English speaking waitress, is we found out that taxis will bring us home. We weren’t sure if they would due to the conditions of our road but like I said, today we were looking for easy. We went straight to the taxi terminal and for probably way more than it should cost, we got home in about 15 minutes. We opted to save the money and not take it back. Instead, we armed ourselves with bug spray, rinsed off with cold water, entertained ourselves with a deck of cards and called it a day.

So we’re still here. Another night. Tomorrow’s plan: get up early, walk to the bus station and head to Quepos to pick up our car. It’ll be like Christmas. Except instead of running downstairs to find our gift, we’ll have to hoof it about 6 miles.

Thought you’d all like to know that while emptying out our backpack from earlier in the day – Mike realized his wallet, with license in it, was with us all along. I’ll refrain from telling you what my response was…