Murphy`s trip

Murphy's law broadly states that anything that can possibly go wrong, does. Our short trip to Costa Rica turned out to be a prime example for this phenomenon and therefore will make history as the Murphy trip. (Fortunately, Murphy´s law doesn´t say that you can´t have fun while everything goes wrong ;-)!)

We hit the road very early on Friday morning because we had to reach David (the city!) before 2:30pm, as Jose had to get a permission to leave the country (which he had found out only by chance the night before!). Even though it rained heavily we made it to David on time and Jose got his paper. So far everything seemed to be alright and we reached the bordertown of Paso Cano quite relieved and anxious to go to Costa Rica - but here Murphy made his first and maybe best point: we needed a permission to take the car over the border to Costa Rica! This took us about 6 hours! It turned out that David had bought his car before the current data system had been introduced and the data for his car were still in the old system and had not been transferred. The papers had therefore to be filled out manually and the immigration police had to check with Interpol if there were any reports about the car. And everytime we thought it was alright they needed another document, another copy, another set of data... Finally we got the permission and drove over the border to the Costa Rican side and... Funny enough, the Costa Rican immigration officer didn´t want to accent the manual paper and David and Jose had to go back to the Panamanian side, with no success, back to the Costa Rican officer... finally, finally we were allowed to enter the promised land! But - enter Murphy, once again - by now it was already dark and the pass to San Jose was closed. We had to spend the night, not as David suggested in the "Cucaracha Dorada" but the "Hongkong Hotel" in Palmar de Norte.

The next morning we continued out trip over the Cerro de la Muerte which absolutely lived up to its name: still heavy rains, mud slides, fallen trees on the road...

We made it over the Cerro but got lost in San Jose and it took us quite some time to reach our destination, Alajuela. Our host, who had expected us the day before had left to the US and we had to find the house- and dog- and catsitter, David from Georgia, to let us in. Thank God a neighbour helped us to locate David II in an internet cafe. As a little treat to Murphy Nicky got lost on her way back from the internet cafe. The grand finale was definately when Daisy, our hosts little dog, made her business under the living room table when we where out on Sunday.

Anyway, despite Murphy's little treats we had a wonderful time in Costa Rica. It was a pleasure meeting David II and we had lots of laughs, especially on Sunday night when we went to the karakoke night at the local pub.

The way back to Panama was rainy and foggy but we made it over the border without further problems. Nicky left us in Penonome to take the bus to Panama and we went home to El Valle where I spend my last night in David´s beautiful house. Despite the rain and Murphy I had a fantastic time with David and his friends. Thanks for everything, David!