Costa Rica 1; Wilsons 0

Not that anyone is keeping score, but at this point, the Ants had won and we had lost. What we didn't know (little did they know) was that we were about to lose again. For the second day in a row.

Not even 15 minutes into the trip on the beautifully paved road of the North Shore of Lake Arenal, I heard a tinkling on the road behind us, like a wrench or something metal had fallen. Before I could even say, "did you hear that?" or "I heard something...", the car wrenched left across the other lane of traffic. A grinding noise started, much like you might hear when metal hits pavement. Though we didn't spin out of control, we were swerving all over the road, and with it being dark, we were in a very dangerous situation. Gripping with all his might, Kyle steered the car to a stop on the far right side of the road. No lane lines; no reflectors. Just us, in a broken car in the dark on the side of a Costa Rican road.

We thought we lost a tire; it really felt like the back passenger tire flew off, and the noise seemed to confirm it. Yet, when we got out to investigate, all tires were accounted for, there was nothing hanging from the undercarriage, and in truth nothing looked awry. But throwing the vehicle into drive caused nothing to happen, as if no transmission existed. Kyle tried putting it into 4-wheel drive, and we actually got the car to lurch forward a foot or two, but a new sound began: grinding and banging, deafening thudding on the undercarriage as if something sharp and metal would puncture the floor and impale us.

I was terrified for a number of reasons. The little research I had done ahead of time on Costa Rican travel had informed me that gringos should not be out at night. Especially not with anything of value (we just had an overnight bag, but still). We also didn't have a phone. Or a phone card. We knew no one (obviously), and had no way of actually making contact with anyone. Based on our afternoon adventures, I also knew that the likelihood of coming across someone who spoke English well enough to communicate our predicament was slim. Then, the thoughts of "This is my honeymoon; this shouldn't be happening" began, and I nearly lost it.

The day turned chilly when the sun went down, and I started shivering, kind of a shock plus cold equals mental and physical breakdown type of shiver. Every time Kyle would get out of the car to attempt to wave down a passing car, I'd start crying; trying to suck it all up by the time he returned.

No one would stop. An hour we sat there and no one stopped, even though our hazard lights were on, the hood was up, and Kyle was waving his arms at each passing vehicle. A number of cars passed from both directions, but they'd just flash their lights and zoom past going treacherous speeds for these mountain roads. Finally, a small pickup stopped. The driver was a Canadian who had a very pregnant Tico woman in the passenger seat, his wife. He offered to come check on us after he dropped his wife off at home. We had such faith in him--someone who spoke English!!! But, alas, he never returned.

An hour later, Kyle waved down a huge box truck. The man did not speak English and in my very broken Spanish I tried to explain our car was broken (without knowing the Spanish word for broken). After hearing the ominous sounds emitted when it inched forward, he promised to come back and help us when he made his delivery. "Diez minutos," he said. I had no hope left, but indeed in about thirty minutes he came back for us.

He graciously let us use his cell to call the car rental company, who apologized for the inconvenience and offered to deliver a replacement vehicle to us that night. "We're in San Jose, though, so it'll take us three and a half hours to get there." We balked. What would we do? Where would we go? This was the absolute middle of nowhere! "And one more thing," the guy on the phone said, "You have to get the car off the road. You must drive it into a town." No amount of Kyle's convincing argument that "it cannot be driven" would assuage the rental guy. He asserted that it would be stripped of anything useful by the time they arrived, and that, obviously, would leave them with a real problem (my guess was they didn't understand how bad a broken axle and dysfunctional transmission can be).

The kind delivery man offered to follow us the six miles back to the small town we'd passed hours earlier. Praying very hard, we get back in the murderous Oso Rojo and start inching toward Tilaran. Within five minutes, the truck driver flashed us over. "It's taking too long," he said in Spanish. "I'll pull you." He retrieved a 5-foot chain, tied it (I didn't know huge chains could be tied) to both vehicles and began pulling us at about 10-15 mph. The grinding and banging was so loud, Kyle and I had to scream at each other to be heard. Soon, we gave up talking and just prayed for the seemingly endless 30 minutes it took the man to tow us.

He pulled into a gas station and jumped out. "It's taking too long. I have to go." We knew it was true. This man was on the clock and had just taken AT LEAST an hour to help us. We gave him some money for his guardian angelship and profusely thanked him, never even learning his name.

And then we looked around. A gas station with one attendant in an outside booth (the store part of the business was not open). Several middle-aged Ticos sat around playing cards, listening to the radio, and, in general, loitering. We were not in any town; this was so not Tilaran.

Starving, by this time it's 9pm and we'd eaten lunch at the road-side diner at 11, we ask the attendant if he can go in and get us food. He was very annoyed and yelled in Spanish about "how was he supposed to help us?" and "what could he do?" We ended up borrowing a phone card from a random loitering man to call the car rental place. "We'll be there in three hours." The delivery truck man had called and told them exactly where to find us (God bless him).

Once again, we found ourselves stuck. So we prayed some more. A car pulled up, driven by a friend of the station attendant, and he asked if the guy would go get us some food. "Yes, for 5 American dollars." It was not a hard decision. I gave him some money to purchase the food, completely ignorant of the conversion rates and how much I had handed over. We were sure he'd take the money and run. But, like another Good Samaritan, he returned in 30 minutes with a huge, greasy pepperoni pizza and a 3-liter of Coke.

In minutes, it was devoured. Lacking napkins, we used finished crossword puzzle pages to "clean" our hands. Momentarily satiated, we passed out in our stinky, broken car. We were filthy; having awakened at 6am for this glorious day, we traipsed in and out of the humidity taking pictures between driving long stretches. Having consumed this delicious pizza, we had nothing left to do but collapse, giving in to the utter exhaustion from the day.

And this is how Wednesday ended. Awaiting our "new" car, stranded at a nonfunctional gas station, completely relying on strangers at every turn to be generous and kind to a couple of disillusioned, dirty Americans.