During the last ten months of travelling, transportation had always been straightforward. Along the Silk Road, I did an overland tour and used a truck. Through Southeast Asia, we went by bus. Those buses were comfortable and drove from one touristic place to the next. In French Polynesia, buses were irregular but distances were mostly short and I had more than enough time to wait. And in South America, I might have had to switch buses once, but rarely more than that.

It wasn’t until I got to Costa Rica that I faced my first challenge. We were in Puerto Viejo de Talamanca and wanted to go to Tortuguero – without taking one of those very expensive shuttles that cost two or three times as much as public transport.…