Driving South, Driving Rain

For the past few days, Ricardo and I enjoyed (for the most part) a road trip. What should have been a five hour drive to Frank and Irma's quinta in San Isidro De El General somehow stretched into eight hours, some of which was spent swimming in the warm surf of Playa Hermosa on the Pacific, some spent exploring a glorious secluded National Park nestled in the woods with a magnificent beach, but most spent trying to find a quinta hidden at the end of a rutted road during a torrential rainfall. I had visited San Isidro during my early days last year. I traveled by bus and as a passenger in the car of my friend Keith. We visited Frank and Irma's as guests at their Fiesta and, for some reason, detailed directions did not register in my befuddled brain due, I am sure, to the language differences. The place was very easy to find when I did not have to know or care how to locate it. This time it proved just a little more difficult to locate.
San Isidro is located in a valley, only approached by severe, winding, narrow sloped roads. By choosing the coastal route, we avoided driving through San Jose and chancing on our luck on the Highway of Death. However, we managed to miss the turn off at Dominical by 30 kilometers. As we backtracked, we were pulled over at an intersection by a roadblock and approached officiously by a police officer who looked like he just came out of casting for the movie, "If You Mess with Me, I Can Make Your Life Difficult." He signaled for me to pull over. Mistaking his universal gesture for the more common, "Come on over and have a friendly chat," gesture, I pulled up beside him and broke the ice by asking, "Perdon, Senor. Dondé está San Isidro, por favor?" As seems to happen so often to me, he rolled his eyes and pointed to a directional sign just in front of us. Mmm, an arrow pointing to the left beside a series of letters which spelled San Isidro. Logically assuming that I was too limited to be engaged in any nefarious activity, he fixed his stern gaze upon me and waved dismissively hoping to erase us from his consciousness.
After an hour and a half of driving up mud roads and making several phone calls using a variety of cell phones borrowed from bemused, but helpful locals, we finally made it just as darkness was descending. We were greeted, shown our guest quarters, complete with fridge, full bathroom and shower and treated to a great meal prepared by Sadie, her daughter and son who are employed by Frank and Irma to manage the farm. Being gracious guests, we brought along some libations which helped the conversation flow late into the evening (10:00pm). On Tuesday, we played the part of dude ranchers, milking the cows, feeding a calf by bottle and taking the freshly picked coffee to the road scales for weighing and recompense.
All in all a great diversion: I slept in the comfortable double bed in the guest casita both nights, while Dick tried to sleep in the hammock on the porch the first night and a single bed in the main house the second night. After two days of country life I was refreshed and ready for the five hour drive back to San Ramon; however, for some reason, Ricardo seemed a bit enervated.