I forgot to tell a really funny story in Costa Rica.
Galen and I had to return to our beloved San Isidro from Domincal, so we got up at 6am to catch a bus. At the bus stop a van full of ticos pulled over and asked if we wanted a ride. We said yes.
The funny thing was this van had seats that appeared from nowhere! The wall the floor. The isle we walked down became a seat for the next person they stopped and picked up and it seemed like it never ended! Just when I would think all the seats were full we would pull over and pick someone else up.
About half an hour twenty minutes into the journey there was loud thud under the car and the frightening smell of melting tires (sort of the street fire smell...)
The car coasts a ways with a rhythmic thudding and Galen and I keep looking at each other trying to figure out if this is the part where the van starts on fire and we are trapped in the back by all the seats that have appeared form nowhere.
Soon the driver pulls off the road and asks us all to get out. He drives off. Galen and I ponder what happens next Knowing we could still just walk up to the road and flag down the bus we were planning on catching earlier when it comes by.
Soon the driver returns in a bus marked 'School Bus for Children' (I imagine a small group of elementary kids somewhere sitting by the side of the road...)
We get in.
About twenty minutes later I notice this guy running after the car and the car comes to a sudden stop. The men converse for a second, the car begins to back up almost taking out a motorist and we pull backward down the road until we reach the spot the guy started running at us from. The driver and the three people sitting up front get out and flip the front seat over. Apparently the car is overheating! So they spray water on the engine which fills the whole van with metallic smelling smoke. When we are done the guy who chased the car joins us for the rest of the journey. They somehow create another seat and we take to the road.
Nothing much happened after that.
