La Selva is probably one of the best known places in Costa Rica; it is a biological research station. It was to be our home for four nights after our first night at Hotel Villa Zurqui in the northern outskirts of San José. Hopefully it would be a damn sight better.
We checked out of Villa Zurqui and spent the sunny morning chasing odos in its grounds on the local river and pond beside the hotel. I think I nabbed about nine species but I’m sure my colleagues would’ve notched up a few more. In my opinion the most spectacular catch we made was this strikingly beautiful Mountain Flatwing (Heteragrion majus).
As the morning progressed clouds began rolling in and ‘t was time to set off for La Selva. We were taking CR route 32, advertised by Mr. Leader as being notoriously bad for closures both due to heavy rain, and/or due to accidents. We avoided the latter but rain did begin.
Soon after the rain started the traffic stopped; it ground to a halt and remained that way for fully 45 minutes. Eventually the traffic began moving slowly again but very soon came to another complete standstill for a further 25 minutes. We had no idea how far ahead of us the problem was or what it might be. Traffic, mostly large trucks, ground passed in dribs and drabs going uphill in the opposite direction. The sporadic nature of it was very confusing. Our second stop eventually ended and we made some more progress but were soon stopped yet again for perhaps 15 minutes this time.
After more than 90 minutes in this dreadful traffic jam we finally moved off and with some relief ran through the cause of all this mayhem – a contraflow around a large team of men up poles beside the road doing something with the overhead cables.
Relieved to be beyond the problem and on the road again, after pausing at our leader’s favourite truck stop for lunch followed by a stressful shopping trip for some essentials due to my missing luggage, we finally made it to La Selva where we were checked into some very acceptable accommodation units. It felt like luxury compared to Hotel Villa Zurqui.
I must say that after just two days driving in Costa Rica has been something of a nightmare and very slow. In San José the traffic is simply manic, made worse by some very oddly designed junctions and bottlenecks. I was hoping that the open road beyond the capital might be better but apparently not.
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