Tour of Central Pacific Costa Rica

After waking up at 4:00AM my boyfriend, Matt, and I took a $65 cab ride to Reagan National.  By about 5:45 we had checked in, checked the bags, made it through security, and found our gate.  The waiting game began and we filled the time by practicing Spanish and eating airport food which just never ends up being as good as it looks/should be for the price.  We boarded the plane at 7:00AM and had an uneventful flight to Houston , TX .  However, once there, we learned that there was no pilot for the next flight – he was somewhere else in TX.  We ended up delayed for two hours which had us up in arms because we had arranged for ground transportation in Costa Rica at a specific time.  We finally made if off the ground and flew for about three hours.  I wish I had had a sense of what country/body of water we were flying over because it was beautiful!  There was a definite change in infrastructure as we left Texas because the towns and buildings became so small and sparse.  Beautiful hues of blue and green water gave way to other green or brown countries and tiny uninhabited islands.  Mountainous roads wound their way up to the fog and down to the coast.  Finally we made our descent into San Jose , Costa Rica which looked like a mass of small rusty roofs. 

The next part of the day was called: haul ass.  Though we were two hours behind schedule, we held out hope of catching our safe, secure, pre-paid (and non-refundable) way out of the capital and to the beach.  Our first view of CR was the mass of people trying to form a line for immigration in the hot, humid airport.  It didn’t take as long as we had thought and before I knew it, my passport had its first visa.  Next we ran to collect our bags and clear customs.  Once outside, it was quite obvious we weren’t in Kansas anymore as hoards of people had assembled and were yelling at us to take us somewhere.  It reminded of me of watching the inside of the New York Stock Exchange on TV.  Somehow, we caught our Holiday Inn Express Shuttle to the hotel where we waited for our Gray Line shuttle to Jaco Beach .  On the way there, we saw the afternoon clouds and lightening forming in the distance and approaching.  While we waited at the hotel, a storm came that literally shook the glass doors and intermittently knocked off the power.  The shuttle, which was late, finally picked us up at about 5pm local time and we marveled at the miracle of actually catching it.

Off we drove up and down the mountains on tiny roads.  The people of Costa Rica have one objective in mind when they drive – GO! At times, the drivers create three lanes to pass whomever they want.  I learned that you really just have to strap in and hold on as my entire body literally left my seat a few times.  The two and a half ride there reminded me of going through the mountains of Southern West Virginia in their terrain, the condition of the roads, and the sights of the locals’ homes.  At one point we climbed so high the visibility had to have been zero (which did not slow down our driver).  Imagine the densest fog you have ever seen and triple it.  It seemed we had slipped into a different world.  At one point the driver pulled over between two little food stands suddenly and announced we would take a 15 minute break.  This turned into an over thirty minute break as the sun set and we were plunged into darkness and torrential rain.  (The sun sets much earlier here because the country does not observe day light savings time and once it does, total darkness sets in.) 

Finally at around 8pm (10pm EST – a full 18 hours after we started) we made it to our beautiful luxury condominium with granite counter tops, a working kitchen with stainless steel appliances, flat screen TVs, and a shower so huge it has two faucets.  Though we were ready for sleep, we made our way out once more to a local grocery store for a well deserved bottle of wine and my first tropical mango.  After a few minutes of watching Scrubs with Spanish subtitles we fell asleep.          

Website for our condo: http://www.jacomonaco.com/