I have never traveled with a GPS before this past vacation, and it’s an amazing invention. When it works, you don’t have to know a thing! It literally instructs you breath by breath. When we first landed, we drove 30 minutes in the wrong direction (Alajuela towards Heredia) trying to get to the Arenal volcano. Only when we had to detour right after encountering a car accident did we realize that GPS was not in sync with us so much as its own internal self. Turns out it wasn’t on! Fun!
After driving back to Alamo and having them turn on our GPS, our drive was more or less straightforward and easy…or easy-ish. Husband suggested that GPS should advertise two options 1) the straight, simplest path with most paved roads or 2) see-some-authentic-sh*t route, because ours was a mix. There is no way, from my perspective, that you can go from city to the small touristy town La Fortuna, right outside of Arenal Volcano, without a GPS — the roads are twisty-turny, none of them are marked, and the highways feature conflicting signs.
Parts of our way were on main highways, and others were over pit-marked hills with drops of 70 degrees sharp that made my stomach lurch as much as the Coney Island Cyclone. Four hours later, we made it!
The next morning, the GPS died. For the rest of trip, we relied on our slightly incorrect maps, my Spanish/charades skills, and our spidey senses. The only time we were unbearably, tortuously lost was the last night, but more on that later.