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Costa
Rica Adventure
March 5-20, 2005
4:30am alarm clock. Did I mention I am not a morning
person? However, the morning of March
5th, I didn’t complain too much. I even managed to zip my
backpack closed. Yes, I’d procrastinated packing until the last possible
minute, and yes, I fell into the trap of packing too much. I was improving on
that score with every trip, but there was still work to be done. My ultimate
goal is to travel for months out of a carry-on sized bag. I’m not quite there
yet. Quick-step into Cathy’s
parents’ car in my running shoes and sweatshirt, since I didn’t want to have
to carry a winter coat with me. Arrival at the airport by 5am. Miraculously,
our flights were on time, and we were at the gate on time to board. The first flight departed for
Miami at 6:15am and it even arrived a bit early. The second flight departed
for Costa Rica on time too. I craned
my neck to look over Cathy and out the window to get my first glimpse of
Costa Rica. My impression was that it was… browner than I’d thought. The flight arrived about 15
minutes early in San Jose. American
Airlines is so much more pleasant than Air Canada, I kept thinking. But…
nothing is quite that simple, as we were quickly introduced to Tico-time –
because there was another plane at our arrival gate. Apparently, the San Jose
airport has not been able to grow fast enough to accommodate the burgeoning
tourism industry, and overcrowding was frequent. We waited on the tarmac for a half hour, getting our first view
of Costa Rica: a restaurant across the runway with a hand-painted welcome
sign:
Welcome to Costa Rica: The view from the airplane window (Photo credit: CD) After a fun taxi around the
runway, the other plane departed and we pulled into the gate and stepped off
the plane… straight into a lineup that spanned the entire length of the
airport. “This can’t be the line,” I remember saying. But alas, it was. Even
the Ticos in line were marveling at how crowded it was. The lineup for customs and
immigration took over an hour and a half. In that time, we window-shopped for
souvenirs, discovering a yummy-sounding line of flavoured liqueurs, and of
course, coffee-coffee-coffee. We also
noted, much to our dismay, that every American fast-food chain was
represented in the San José airport. On the bright side, we got what I
suppose we can refer to as the Costa Rican advertising experience.
Three-dimensional, creative advertisements lined the hallway near the gates,
for everything from coffee to rum or liquor to a promotion for a zipline
canopy tour featuring a 3D full-sized human dummy harnessed to a wire. “That looks like so much fun!”
I exclaimed to Cathy. She and her fear of heights disagreed, but I was
mentally adding a canopy tour to my “to-do” list of activities. After what seemed like
forever, we cleared customs and made our way to the exit, where we found a
taxi stand that took our money and gave us a coupon for a cab to our hotel in
San José. Unfortunately, it was somewhat unclear what one was actually
supposed to do with this coupon. Outside the airport, someone
official-looking took the coupon and spoke rapid-fire Spanish to us.
Confused, we made our way to the nearest taxi, only to be waved off by the
driver. In the meantime, another taxi pulled up and asked us for our ticket,
but the person to whom we had given the ticket had momentarily disappeared.
We did eventually get things sorted out and settled back into our cab ride
into the bustling metropolis of San José. Billboards and chain stores
dotted the roads, but somehow they looked different surrounded by trees and
plants, the likes of which we would never see at home in Montreal. It was
wonderful seeing palm trees, knowing that at home it was cold and snowing and
that we were in the tropics. “You know, the first time I
saw palm trees as a kid, I was convinced they were fake,” Cathy
commented. I assured her that these
palm trees were as real as it gets… and continued to point out the
authenticity of palm trees for the entire two-week trip. I think Cathy quickly regretted telling me
that story. We arrived at our hotel – Hotel La Amistad, in the
Barrio Amon – by mid-afternoon. The first impression I had of the hotel was
that it, along with all the other buildings in the area, was surrounded by a
gate of metal bars. Since their decorative value was fairly low, I assumed
the reason was security. I’d heard that Costa Rica was relatively safe, and was
somewhat dismayed to see that clearly, San José had something of a problem
with crime. At any rate, we unloaded our bags and went to check in. The hotel itself was nicer than I’d expected on a budget
tour. The owner was very nice. He changed traveller’s cheques for us into colones.
Then, when I discovered that Canada Direct (or any 0-800-number) doesn’t work
from public phones in Costa Rica, he kindly let me use the hotel’s phone to
access my calling card and phone home. The phone system is a major headache,
and I never quite figured out how to efficiently call home. But anyway. We saw a note posted by our tour that we would be
meeting for dinner later on, so in the meantime we changed into shorts and
decided to go explore San Jose. The hotel owner warned us to lock valuables
in the safe and take only essentials with us, so we locked up our passports and extra money and set off. Weaving through the streets around the hotel was a bit
tricky, but eventually we found an outdoor plaza. It was bustling with a
market, music, street performers, outdoor vendors and lots of people.
Even the city parks had exotic-looking trees with interesting
birds that a naturalist could probably name but that I just will refer to as
a “cool bird” (the first of many).
Yes,
Cathy, the trees are real (Photo
credit: SHS) We browsed in some souvenir shops but decided to leave
the shopping until the end of the trip, so we wouldn’t have to carry around
anything bulky with us for two weeks. Another park had a live concert going
on. After stopping to watch for a few minutes, we realized that it was a
fundraiser for some sort of political action group. My Spanish is extremely
rudimentary, but even I caught the unflattering references to the USA and to
George Bush. We waited for more music
but things were rapidly turning into a political rally, and so we decided to
move on.
How do
you say “We hate Bush” in Spanish? One of the things we realized about San José was that
the drivers are crazy. We’d seen evidence of this in our taxi ride from the
airport, and saw even more when we attempted to cross a street. Red lights
seemed to be taken by most drivers as mere suggestions; stop signs were
ignored altogether. I never saw evidence of a speed limit. It was as though
Ticos spent so much time of every day conducting all other aspects of life
slowly, and then tried to make up for all lost time by driving like maniacs.
But then, being from Montreal, it didn’t seem all that unusual to us. The weather was breezy and the clouds were ominously
threatening rain. We opted to go back. Returning to the hotel without getting
lost was an accomplishment. Back at La Amistad, we met Julie, our fearless
GAP leader, and some of the members of our tour group. These were the people
we would be spending the next two weeks traveling with, but remembering names
was completely beyond me at that point, let alone matching them to faces. Our
group had a wide age range, and we had members from
Canada, the USA, Denmark, Germany… even Malta. A diverse and energetic group. Julie suggested a nearby restaurant for dinner and
everyone agreed easily. So we made our way down the street to the Café Mundo,
where we had an excellent dinner. I mistakenly assumed that portions would be
reasonable in San José, and ordered two appetizers in lieu of an entrée. Big mistake. I had about enough food for
four people. Oh well, at least there were plenty of people on my tour willing
to take some of the extra tempura off my hands. After dinner and an exhausting travel day, we packed up and
went to sleep. Next: Caribbean
Coast: Puerto Viejo de Talamanca. |
