The Long Way In
- Christopher Roche
- 1 day ago
- 3 min read
Early Mornings and Leg Room
I told you a few weeks ago we were going to Costa Rica to find out what happens when you stop planning and start moving. I said, " Let's get exploring", hit publish, and closed the laptop, feeling a sense of adventure I haven't felt in a while.
I spent the next twenty hours learning that "start moving" mostly means sitting. In airports. In the window seat. In a rental car on a road that the map stopped believing in somewhere around the second hour.
Getting somewhere worth going always costs something. And Costa Rica makes you pay up front.
The cost? roughly twenty hours.
After flying to Houston, the trip really got started. That's where I met up with Spencer (@spencer.is.a.story) and Wynn (@wy_photo_video). We stopped being three friends with plane tickets and started being a team of creatives with a shared goal.
Make it to Costa Rica and see what happens.
Afternoon Light
In the afternoon haze of the Central Valley, we loaded our gear into the rental car and set out towards Dominical, a small surf town on the coast of Costa Rica. Before leaving the city, we stopped at a hole-in-the-wall for lunch and grabbed a tico taco for the road, a fried tortilla wrapped around shredded beef, topped with sour cream and plenty of cabbage. After a long morning, it hit the right spot.
Ahead lay one of the longest roads in the world:
The Pan-American Highway.
Stretching nearly 19,000 miles from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, all the way down to Ushuaia, Argentina, it’s the longest road in the world, a single ribbon connecting North, Central, and South America. It even threads right through Costa Rica, climbing over Cerro de la Muerte, the "Summit of Death", on its way south. I dream of driving the whole thing one day. This time, our road ran only as far as Dominical, about four hours south of San José.
On the road less traveled:
As we maneuvered through the busy city streets and wound around tight mountain curves, the cityscape of San José faded behind us. The road took us through a shifting landscape: dense jungles, palm fields that never seemed to end, wide-open plains, cloud-covered mountains, and coastal fishing villages.
After a couple of hours of driving, we made it to our first stop.
Río Tarcoles.
The Tarcoles bridge is a bit of a tourist attraction, but a worthy one. Sitting atop Rio Tarcoles, the bridge is famed for the abundance of crocodiles it holds. Worth checking out the next time you're in Costa Rica.
Just don't fall in.
We got out, stretched our legs, and grabbed a snack. Then it was back on the road. Luckily, the road only tried to kill us once. A massive sinkhole had swallowed most of the road to Dominical. The kind of sinkhole you don't dodge, the kind you negotiate with so you don't end up food for the jaguars. We threaded past it, running on Tico Tacos and adrenaline.
Danyasa Eco Retreat
We pulled into Dominical, travel-weary and insanely hungry.
Our first stop: Danyasa Eco Retreat, a stunningly beautiful eco hotel built from bamboo and repurposed shipping containers for rooms. We were welcomed into the hotel and got situated, and for the first time in twenty hours, we set our bags down somewhere that wasn't a conveyor belt or a trunk. Darkness, the nighttime sounds of the jungle, and the distant crash of waves surrounded us.
Not stopping to unpack properly, we dropped everything and went looking for food.
Fuego Brew Co: One of everything
We didn't have to look far.
Right next door to Danyasa sat Fuego Brew Company, a local restaurant and brewery built among the canopy.
On the beautiful open-air patio, we did what any three hungry travelers do: ordered just about one of everything on the menu.
The standout?
The birria tacos.
Five fried tortillas stuffed with shredded beef and melted cheese. With a mouthwatering dipping sauce and hot sauce on the side. It made the day's travel worth it all.
Under the Dominical Stars
Satisfied, we staggered back to Danyasa. There, we discovered the best news of the day: they have a pool. After twenty hours of flying, driving, and sweating, a pool is not a luxury,
It’s medicine.
We swam under the Costa Rican night sky — the real one, the kind you forget exists when you live under streetlights — and for a few minutes, nobody said anything about footage or shot lists or the plan.
And that was just the first day.
Tomorrow we’d point the car south again, toward Pavones, my aunt and uncle's farm, and the jungle adventures I promised you back at the start. But that’s the next chapter.
Siempre una aventura.
Follow Spencer and Wynn here:
@spencer.is.a.story
@wy_photo_video
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