Costa Rica: Day 1 and 2

Today is technically Day 3 of our Costa Rica trip, but since I finally have access to some wireless internet I can finally put up a blog post. I’ve decided that the first two days will be combined.

Day 1

We started out day fairly early as our flight down to Phoenix Arizona was to leave at 7:44am. Once arriving at YVR we checked in and arrived at Security. Robyn unfortunately had to be “searched” as we believe her bra’s under-wire triggered the metal detector. While being wanded by a CSTSA agent, the wand beeped around her ankles too. Yes, weird. I also had to open the laptop so it could be swabbed, as well as open up my camera backpack. I heard that my big lenses show up as large black holes under X-Ray. Anyway, this didn’t start our trip out on a positive. Did I mention in the news there was some guy who thought it would be a good idea to strap a bomb to himself in Detroit? Well, it put YVR under more of a security lock down and we were told we would have a “personal search” done.

We get to our Gate and noticed EVERYONE is getting a pat-down by CSTSA agents. I was ok with this, but poor Robyn had to get violated twice. Not violated in the cavity search sort of way, but being patted down isn’t fun for everyone. If it is, you’re weird!

Once on the plane we are delayed 15 minutes as it seems we need to de-ice. Good thing it’s not snowing in Vancouver right? We eventually take off into the clouds and this is what we are presented with…

Not a total inversion of clouds, but it definitely was cool to see Vancouver surrounded by fog. Who says you can’t take cool photos from an airplane’s window!

Because of our delay in departure, we arrived in Phoenix within 4 hours or so but with enough time to dehydrate and get over to our departing gate for our connecting flight. We would have liked to have at least some lunch, but we quickly grabbed some sandwiches from Starbucks for the 5 or so hour flight ahead of us.

Yes, that above photo is us leaving the Phoenix Airport. We do have an 8 hour layover on our way back to Vancouver, which sounds like it might suck.

After 5 or so hours we finally arrive in San Jose, Costa Rica. Now I’m not much of a traveler but my first impressions of San Jose are a bit… low. I am sure San Jose has its moments, but I guess after various holiday festivities, it has left the city pretty dirty. I’ve never seen so much garbage in the streets. Drivers are crazy down there too and I don’t think I could handle driving through the city. Granted we did arrive at night, but our driver was great. He took us to our first night accommodation: Casa 69.

Ok so the photo I took might not look like the photo they have on their website, but I didn’t do any photography trickery now did I have any daylight through the window. The room was good though, the bed was comfy, the bathroom was nice, there was even a good sized safe on the wall that would easily have fit all my camera gear.

Day 2 (also my 30th Birthday)

Casa 69 is a wonderful place to stay if you are in San Jose. Kurt, the owner, is extremely helpful and friendly. The included breakfast was filling too, and I got my first taste of Costa Rica’s coffee. If you’re looking for a place to stay a day or more, I would recommend staying at this B&B. Located in the heart of San Jose, it is close to a lot of things. We will be staying another night on our way back from Puerto Viejo.

Under the recommendation of Kurt we took the locals (Tica) bus from San Jose to Puerto Viejo. When I read about the buses in Lonely Planet’s book, they said they would be old American converted school buses. What they really are, is regular coach buses, sans the Air Conditioning and Bathroom.  If you do take the Tica bus (costs only $& US per person) arrive a bit earlier than your departure. We missed the 10AM bus, and had to wait until 12noon for the next one.

The ride out of San Jose in the day light made up for arriving in San Jose during the night. The countryside is very beautiful.

The drive through the dense jungle forests is even more impressive. We also went through a brief downpour that lasted for roughly 10 minutes. Now if you’ve never been to a jungle like Costa Rica’s, even on the bus it reminded both Robyn and I of the Vancouver Aquarium’s Tropical Exhibit, the humidity portion of it anyway.

Once we were out of the mountain area and headed for the coastline you do see a lot of the above (photos) areas. Pineapple and Plantain plantations dot the road along the way. It still surprises me that people think that Pineapples grow from trees, when really they grow from the ground. Both Dole Foods and Chiquita seems to have distribution centers here in Costa Rica.

The ride from San Jose to Puerto Viejo is a long one at roughly 4 hours 30 minutes in total, with a quick stop at Puerto Limon. Here we could dehydrate and buy some food/drink if needed.

Eventually we started driving along the Caribbean coast, which also gave us our first glimpses of the ocean. From Limon to Puerto Viejo is was about 1.5 hours. We finally arrived in Puerto Viejo, which was full of energy. We grabbed our bags, jumped into a taxi and headed back north towards our final destination of stay: Banana Azul.

Will we be here at the Banana Azul for 7 nights. We don’t have set plans, but we will play in the ocean as much as possible, check out the coastline, check out Puerto Viejo itself. We also want to check out the various jungles around us. There is a self-hike tour we can do of Cahuita which is what Banana Azul boarders onto. There is the beach in front of our place called Playa Negra, there are also many beaches south of us which we are going to check out too. We also plan on visiting Manzanillo which is to be where the most beautiful beaches hide on the Caribbean coast.

Don’t worry, I’ll be taking photos and uploading them as often as possible too. To keep an eye out of upcoming posts here by subscribing to my RSS feed, you can also follow along via my Flickr Photostream, where I am sure I will upload more photos than I put here too.

So far the photos I have taken have been through the window of moving transport. Granted they didn’t turn out so bad.

We are also on the look out for various wildlife. The birds we have seen so far are amazing (colourfu, different) and we had a Pelican fly over us while we played in the ocean last night too.

Now if I only spoke Spanish, I would feel much more comfortable!

Photos Taken So Far: 148

Next to Come: Playa Negra and the town of Puerto Viejo