The rental car is relatively easy, if you accept the fact that they blocked our credit card when the agency tried to put a $2500 deposit on it (because we decline the insurance). Ah well, getting the actual car is easy- we mark all the little dings, dump the bags in the hatchback and off we go. We have no maps (please don’t ask) only the Maps 2 Go on Ed’s phone, but we know we are heading to Valpo and it is easy to get on the roads from the airport.
Okie dokie. Airport exit is fine, we head in the right direction, get onto route 68 which will take us through Casablanca (the wine valley) and then onto Valpo. I’m going to use the time to scope out all the vineyards and restaurants I’ve researched for our wine tour tomorrow. Highway 68 is fine, it’s straight, good signage, and no worries. And on the way, we get our requisite text and phone call from Chase asking if we made the $2500 charge – yes, we did, unblock the card thank you. Handled. Gotta love Chase (oh and mobile phones!).
We stop outside of Casablanca, on the road to the Loma Larga vineyard just to stretch our legs. We were hoping they would be open and we could wander around a bit, but the gates are locked, so we just meander up the narrow road near the vineyard and stretch our legs on the side of the road.
Back on the highway, we make our way to Valpo, and take the exit south of town to go up into the hills to find Costa Azul, our home for the next 3 days. We are sort of navigating by the seat of our pants. There are no written directions to the B&B, and while we have a good feel for where it is, Ed and I are thinking about it in different terms. So…we drive up this road that is under construction, so it is one lane up, up, up into the hills with tons of trucks (all going to the port) which slows the traffic down (because no one can pass) and gets very frustrating (especially when we are operating on so little sleep). I’m following the maps on the phone and know we want to turn right on Santa Maria – but we never see the street or directional sign. I see it coming up on the map, but then, there it goes…we’ve passed under it, missed the turn off by 750 meters (because it did NOT say Santa Maria, but local road, and something else), so then, down, down, down we go on this godforsaken road under construction!
I keep looking for the “retorno” signs so we can turn around, but of course there are none. And the traffic going back up the hill is even worse, but….at least we’d be going in the right direction. We finally get to the bottom of the mountain, almost into town, and there is a road that we can turn onto to get back up to where we belong, but alas, it is on top of the freaking tunnel that we are now entering. Damn. So onward we march, through the tunnel, into town, down at the seaport. I know we have to be way back up on the mountain ridge, behind where we are right now, but I’ll be damned if I can figure out how to get there.
We get stuck in traffic in the main part of town, by Plaza Soltomayor and the pier, and then finally just turn right (up mountain) on the first street we can, to simply be heading in the right direction. We are thinking we can just park somewhere, have a bite to eat and chill out for a bit while figuring out how to get up to the B&B, but there is literally no where to park in this city. We drive and drive and drive and cannot find one single space. So, we head back up the hills, and immediately get stuck on a street where we can’t go in the direction we want, but have to go opposite and end up going uphill – but on the wrong side of the town.
Argh. So frustrating! All these roads are piggly-de-wiggly. They wind and wind around, very narrow, going uphill, but then suddenly changing and going downhill. It is terrible to try to make sense out of any of it. We are pulling our hair out! We finally get onto one street that at least winds around the top of a ridge in the direction of the B&B. I’ve got it mapped out pretty well, and we make all the correct turns onto increasingly more twisty turny little streets moving ever upwards to the top of the ridge. We are quite confident in our directions now, we know exactly where we are going, we get to the final street – San Francisco – and we wind our way around on the tiny narrow road until……we reach the incline. OMG – the freaking road goes straight up. Swear. It’s at least a 40 degree angle. We come around the corner and face defeat. There is no way in hell we are getting up there – not in this little VW Golf with a really loose clutch. Ed tries valiantly, but it is not happening. That little car is not going up that wicked hill. Crap!
So, down we go, oh, backwards, until we can turn around – then back down through the twisty-turny roads we go, another one that is straight down at a 40 degree angle (we are praying on the brakes!) until we are back down on the main windy road, and we follow it around to another little road (found on the map) that we hope against hope is not as bad as San Francisco. Fortunately for us, it is not, and we end up – finally – at the front door of Costa Azul. Thank heavens. One wrong turn cost us over 1 hour and a half in driving. What a crazy, frustrating experience. (And, no, I did not take any pictures of the wildly narrow and harrowing roads, nor of the fantastic views we had while navigating up and around the ridge lines around Valpo - I was way too busy watching the map and trying to figure out where we were and where we were going! We’ll make up for that during our stay here.)
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