Sunday, 27 April 2014

Costa Rica

Last night (Friday, April 25, 2014) we arrived safely in San Jose, Costa Rica. We left from Kingston at 7:15 and flew out of Syracuse. When I went through airport security, they took my bag aside and told me they had to search it. They had seen something suspicious, which was strange because I hadn't brought any weapons or explosives with me. After a quick search they determined that the suspicious items were two carrots that I had brought along as a snack and looked like knives under their scanner. Apparently most travelers don't travel with full sized carrots!

Approximately 12 hours later we arrived in San Jose. We had to fill out various forms to get passed the border. We weren't really sure what to put as our destination or length of stay since we didn't really have a plan, but the customs officers didn't even seem to read the forms; they just let us through. It was nice to have less suspicious people at this border!

When we left the airport, we were immediately greeted by dozens of Costa Ricans holding signs that said "taxi". We managed to avoid most of them, but once we stopped, a man named Carlos approached us asking us in English where we were headed. We didn't know, so we said we would go inside the nearby shop for a minute to figure out our plan. Two minutes later, Carlos was also in the store! We gave up on avoiding him and told him we needed a map. He promptly got us a free map of Costa Rica, and recommended a hostel. The hostel was only $13 US per night so we agreed to it and he right away called to reserve for us and got us a cab. It was a 20 minute cab ride that cost $30 US, which is good by Canadian standards. By Costa Rican standard, we probably got ripped off, but it had been a long day of travel and it was nice to just get to a hostel and sleep, even if it cost a little more money than it had to.

Today (Saturday, April 26, 2014) we woke up early and decided we should head towards the coast to a smaller city. San Jose didn't feel that different from North America. Walking down the street, we still saw Wendy's, McDonald's, KFC, subway, and several other familiar fast food chains. After half an hour of walking and a lot of confusion, we managed to find a little bus terminal and got tickets to Puntarenas.

Puntarenas is a little beach town which is extremely popular with the Costa Rican locals. It is packed with little shops and hotels and the beach is beautiful (albeit a little dirty in some places). Unfortunately, very few people speak English here and we haven't seen any other tourists. I thought it would be nice to get a more authentic experience, but I'd rather have other anglophones around. We are spending the night in Puntarenas and will use the evening to plan a few things we want to do for the next few days. While it's nice to have the freedom to go anywhere, it would be better have destinations with specific activities in mind so that we don't end up just aimlessly wandering.
The beach at Puntarenas, Costa Rica

No comments:

Post a Comment