The roads are old, not maintained and commonly both. The services are ok but the other trucks and cars are not what you are used to if you grew up driving in a G8 nation.

Most of the time there are no signs, no traffic laws are followed, just a road. Many times in my driving of Costa Rica's road system did I find my path blocked by cows, trucks, who knows what.

Near Monteverde on the way to the pacific I was driving at night, the road dropped off to my right thousands of feet without a guardrail. Then around a blind corner there was a single orange cone, looking old and alone. Beyond the was nothing. Twenty feet the other side of the loan, lonely cone the road was gone. GONE, washed away in a landslide. There were no sign leading up to this and no signs that repair would start soon.

The photo above was on a part of the pacific coastal HWY heading south from Santa Rosa NP. Long winding road through the jungle and very slow work trucks. Once the fuel track passed I was able to pass the truck in front of me and the next slow truck all in one shot. I was driving the uber-wonderbar Daihatsu Terios. It is a massively painful SUV to drive if you stand over 5'7"

On the OSA peninsula I DROVE that thing in 4 wheel drive; Across farmers fields and through stream crossing after stream crossing. I was so on edge, it's not like there is AAA I can call for a tow. The biggest mistake I made was giving a farmer and his son a ride. The kid not older then 9 was sick and I got his cold not having the immunities for the local region.