Auto123 takes you down a path of discovery as our intrepid journalist recounts his two-week journey through Costa Rica on a Lexus RX 450h 2020.
When it comes to escaping winter, nothing beats the beach and a scorching sun. Immerse me in the maternal attentions of an all-inclusive hotel and I am as satisfied as a clam at high tide. Unless you visit Costa Rica, a Central American country that lends itself to a whole new kind of adventure. It would be almost sacrilege to head to this cheerful and colorful country and lock yourself in a spa.
In early February, at another time, it appears that two couples, of which a quarter, landed at Daniel-Oduber-Quirós airport in Liberia, with a plan to head first to the beaches of Samara in the northwest component of the island. country — hence the flight to Liberia instead of the capital, San Jose.
Once our bodies were sufficiently burned, we set off for La Fortuna, scattered at the foot of the Arenal volcano in central Costa Rica. From there, the last component of our adventure would take us to the outstanding Manuel Antonio Park further south along the Pacific coast.
Yes, I know, it meant missing the Caribbean coast to the east, the quetzales (birds) of Monteverde and the tapirs of Corcovado Park near the border with Panama. All this deserves to wait for some other trip.
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And in what, questions, were we going to adopt our 1,000 km adventure? Our adventure waiting for us in a terrible sun when we leave the airport.
Signed in the hand was José, representative of the Purdy Motor Group, founded in 1957 and the fourth oldest Toyota distributor in the world. After the presentations were made, José got on the horn (his smartphone) with a colleague, who magically gave the impression a few minutes later in our house on the road for the next 14 days: a Lexus RX 450h F Sport 2020.
Decorated in white with bright chrome and decorated with red leather seats, as befits its sportier role in the diversity of models, our RX also features a 12.3-inch touchscreen and a multitude of accessories. Everything is very modern and yet this medium-sized SUV dates back to the era before the application models dominated the world of automobiles.
That this specific style is a hybrid we found suitable when we set out to notice the charms of Costa Rica, a country that favors the concept of ecotourism.
A quarter of the territory of Costa Rica is faithful to protected reserves and parks, of which about 30 in total. Flora and fauna abound, both in types and colors, providing a biodiversity point that allows the two million climbers required to scale each year. Tourism is at the top of the country’s revenue source image, ahead of banana and coffee exports.
It’s not like it’s all peach and cream, of course, it never is. Costa Rica’s herbal resources and the bustling tourism industry have failed to achieve poverty that persists among nearly a quarter of Costa Rica’s population (better known locally as Ticos and Ticas, for that matter).
Multinational corporations are making liberal use of banned insecticides in many other parts of the world, while the country’s roads, ports and cultural sites may obviously need some FTA. Pure life is a smart thing.
Which literally means natural life. This concept can be implemented in any other way here, depending on the situation. Words can be used to greet others on the street or say goodbye, to mean that everything is fine, to calm a tense situation, to urge you to enjoy homeless life in stupid things, etc., a way to achieve a state of Zen. well-being, in other words, that adopting pure life as a mantra.
Beaches, beaches, beaches! Once the RX’s 695-litre shipping hold was filled to the edge, without having to resort to folding the 40/20/40 split seats but with the value of hitting my cab on the electric tailgate, I made the decision to get acquainted. with our Lexus the 115 km of road that will take us to our AirBnB located in Samara. The highlight, possibly not surprising to hear, was the tranquility and sweetness of the trip.
Degraded as we were by a winter of sun deprivation and accumulated fatigue induced by the passage to customs and then five hours of flight, and the surprise of being suddenly expelled at temperatures of 33 degrees Celsius, the air-conditioned cocoon of the Lexus itself the best environment for our semi-matod state. The immaculate cab with complicated fabrics acts as a sumptuous decompression chamber. Did I mention the massage and ventilation purposes of my seat?
Attached to the Pacific Ocean, the city of Samara was first “discovered” by the hippies of the 1960s, before being gradually taken over by American expats. At market stalls and stores, run basically through Chinese vendors, locate costs not far from those you see at home, but freshness and abundance of culmination and vegetables are in another league.
Every time we steered the RX and its futuristic surroundings towards the city’s main avenue, it moved at a tortoise’s pace. Pedestrians reign here and cars are simply tolerated. Same for us, our destination on the beach! And once we got a taste of Samara, charming as full, we just looked to find more.
We entrust our destination in the component to the Lexus navigation formula (which is not easy to use and is available using a touchpad-controlled cursor) and, on the other hand, to the map reading talent (smartphone) of my travel companion, who I liked this approach to using the Apple CarPlay and Android Auto programs built into the RX. Thus, well guided, we venture on well-built trails more thinking about off-road vehicles. At one point, we came across a series of poles of force that had fallen, in the form of a domino; the wires were on the floor.
Then we came here to a thread of water that had slipped out of the sea and divided the road in half. A quick inspection showed that the water point did not pose a threat to the RX and its modest off-road capabilities, and we crossed it with ease and bravery to lift as much splash as possible. So much for an immaculate white vehicle.
The goal of our walk that day was to succeed on the serene beach of Buenavista, known for its multitude of turtle nests. After parking the RX in the shade of a palm tree, we head towards the water and its undulating waves. A little further, we drove along the beach to Barrigona.
The 1,290 km of coastline of the country, grouped across an ocean and a sea, includes a myriad of coves and coves, each of which has its own visual and sensory pleasures to offer. The sandy bevery onees are deserted, unless it is by some other lone fisherman, ranked up to his waist in the waves, pulling and pulling his net with indefatigable optimism.
At the end of each day, our white Lexus was covered in bumper with ochre dust bumpers that made him look like an off-road adventurer of yesteryear. Without a doubt, we are putting its AWD functions to much more serious control than the average owner of a Lexus RX.
From the sea to the clouds and this abuse would only be more serious. We swam Samara’s incredible warmth to much cooler temperatures, in the order of 12 degrees of decline, which accompanied a two-hundred-kilometre ascent at higher altitudes, occasional flooding, stunning mountain prospects and thousands of people. an activity at our disposal in and around La Fortuna, in the shadow of the Arenal volcano.
During our five days in this corner of the Forests of Costa Rica, we were never able to glimpse the cone of this volcano through the persistent clouds and fog, even though the intrepid RX brought us closer to the thing.
The Arenal erupted in 1968, killing more than 80 local residents, and remains active today. Costa Rica, in fact, comprises no less than 116 volcanoes, a modest detail of the wonderful Pacific Ring of Fire.
Once upon a time, when local farmers learned that the gringos discovered that it was a delicious activity to immerse their bodies in the river waters that were too hot for them to drink their farm animals, they left their forks and evolved baths and other lucrative benefits. . designed to attract tourists willing to spend. And so you have zip lines, kayaking and fishing, suspension bridges, visits to coffee and cocoa plantations, horseback riding, etc.
Amid the beautiful, lush plants that surround it, it’s easy to step on your neck while looking to practice a tocán, a monkey, a parrot or a sloth. The giant panoramic sunroof is actually helping with this, however, we found that the most productive thing is to decrease the tinted windows to see it. Of course, we had assimilated the warnings: the more colorful the frog, the more poisonous it is. And then there are the jaguars …
are we on the right track? The complicated maximum control for the RX turned out to be near Zapote, about 140 km beyond La Fortuna. The road was sinking into the mountainside, and as I got ahead of myself to bet the professional rally driver, the nausean looks on my passengers’ faces alerted me enough to pass slowly. Suddenly, the zig-zag stopped and the hailstone surface gave way to an even more rugged “road”; I felt like I was driving the RX the duration of a stepasssaurus backwards.
The erosion of the roadway had left in position torture tools that relentlessly punished the RX’s 20-inch tyres. For a while, I doubted we were in the right position. Had I strayed from the right path knowing it, on a side track for tanks or donkeys? A check from the navigation screen showed that, no, we were still on National Route 713. My god.
Its beautiful grille pointing defiantly towards the nasty rocks and craters, its seat belt protecting my forehead from a nasty argument with the windshield, the RX stood firm. During our descent, we came here through an upside-down Jeep, and wondered what the idea of the driving force we were doing in our luxurious “urban” SUV was.
Fortunately for us, this F Sport edition includes adaptive surprise shock absorbers with advanced settings. The control worked quite well under the circumstances, however, the fact is that the RX jumped like a faquir that eventually began to locate the embers a little too hot. Meanwhile, the sloping A-pillars of this sporty-looking vehicle have obstructed my line of sight in the most dangerous corners.
Finally, the apartment was leveled and we found ourselves in a small village, where the local youth played through the aspect of the road. They stared at this Global vehicle that had just survived the fatal descent into the city.
All we’re looking for was to do it again!
This is just passing madness! Continue to the next page to be informed more…