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We were driving from Puerto Viejo de Talamanca on the east coast of Costa Rica to San Jose to catch our late flight home. We had decided to go to the Jaguar Rescue Center in the morning, thinking we had lots of time for the drive. That turned out to be a bad call because there had been torrential rain in Braulio Carrillo National Park, our planned route on highway 32 was closed due to landslides, and alternate routes doubled our trip time. We'd budgeted lots of time to get to San Jose before our flight so that part wasn't a problem, but it meant we'd be driving through the mountains after dark.
Holy shit let me tell you, when tourist guides to Costa Rica tell you not to drive in the mountains after dark, it is for a good fucking reason. Picture a steep, winding mountain road. Now imagine gutters on either side of the road that are V-shaped, four feet deep with 45 degree sloping sides. Now blanket the whole scene in the thickest pea soup fog you can imagine. That's mountain driving after dark in Costa Rica.
This was done in a shitty little rental hatchback with no fog lights, because of course we weren't planning to do any mountain driving after dark but fuck if it didn't happen anyway! It was a solid hour of the most intense pucker-factor driving I've ever had to do. The only reason I'm not a corpse on the side of a Costa Rican mountain is because some local with fog lights passed me on one of those roads, and by god I got onto that guys tail lights like fucking tick and drafted him all the way down the mountain. Shout out to the Costa Rican in that beat-up red pickup, I'm only alive today because of him.
Haha. I knew I was gonna find our roads here.
And yeah you drove by the Cerro de la Muerte (Death Mountain) at night. That's a big no-no!
That road is always almost coveted with fog (even during the day).
I would say this road is second most dangerous after Route 32. And yeah, Route 32 is the worst offender here. It cuts through one of our biggest national parks. It has no business there, and mother nature is always trying to reclaim that lost strip.
Always avoid doing long trips during the night in Costa Rica, especially if you're not a local. We have very narrow and poorly maintained roads.
Wait, so the actual proper name of the mountain I crossed, at night, under heavy fog, translates as Death Mountain?? Actually yeah, that seems pretty sensible based on what I saw. Clearly I was lucky to make it through without suffering a disaster of some kind. On the one hand I fully acknowledge that I was an idiot to put myself in that situation... but on the other hand it sounds really badass, so this detail is definitely getting added to the story whenever I tell it in future.