San Francisco Beach, Montezuma
This was the longest day of travel for the entire trip. Without the local driving GPS, we were pretty much down to using the guidebook maps and my personal GPS (that didn't have any local maps saved within it). It is funny that I could know exactly in the world we were within a few feet, but couldn't figure out how to get someplace in the world that I also could locate within a few feet. We drove the Interamericas Highway a bit and got to San Francisco beach for our first glimpse of the Pacific Ocean, but in order to hit our destination beaches south we had to do more mountain crossings.
We had multiple water crossings and even nearly got stuck just off the road when we stopped for lunch. I backed up onto what I thought was just a wet are when it was very soft mud that quickly buried the rear right wheel to the axle. Even 4-wheel drive wasn't helping so the team was going to push until Jon thought to just pile on the front wheels so we could get traction which worked perfectly. Being in the middle of nowhere in a place like Costa Rica can be scary when you think you might be stuck there for a long time. We did get really lost once since the road signs were sparse at best with only a few 'major' intersection marked. Chris's Spanish language skills were invaluable. At one point we got to a water crossing that we didn't think was doable due to depth and river swiftness. It looked like we might have another 3 hour detour, so we tried a new route that looked like it might work but eventually started to turn into a very steep, extremely rugged path. At that time a guy on motorcycle came by and thankfully warned us that where we ere heading is pretty much impassable and could result in places impossible to turn around. we headed back with some of his directions and came into a town and decided to reevaluate out options.
While pondering our fate a family came by in a car and Chris started working his magic. This was literally a town with a population of about 35, but was kind of quaint. The family said they would be back in 20 minutes and show us the way and quickly left. Sure enough, just 20 minutes later they reappeared and we followed them for quite a while over multiple stream crossings and through roads that never had a single sign to show the way. There was even someone on an ATV following us to make sure we made it. 
Just as quickly we found ourselves lost we found some saviors that took us to with a few miles of where we wanted to be. Before we departed we have them some various small gifts, playing cards, candies, etc, as a thank you for their kindness. We found a nice hostel right on the beach and then walked into town to find some food for the evening. There was a great lightning storm that night of which I tried to get a few pictures before heading to bed with a nice breeze and one more adventurous memory. Sometimes events like this can make it easy to believe in karma.
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