Hello Costa Rica! We finally made it to our 6th country! We took the 10
hour bus ride down from Managua, Nicaragua to San Jose, Costa Rica.
Even though the bus ride was long, it was one of our best rides yet. We
took the Tica Bus, which is known for its comfy seats, air conditioning
and movies. Needless to say, this is a big step up from the packed
school buses we usually ride that stop every 5 minutes. We weren't sure
what to expect from San Jose, but all the other capitals we've stayed
were not necessarily places we wanted to stay for long. Just places to
get in and out of quick. We were pleasantly surprised that San Jose is
quite a nice, clean city that is surrounded by mountains, with hills
rolling throughout the city streets and a bustling of energy and life.
We settled into our hostel and then hit the streets in search of
dinner. It was Friday night and the streets were filled with people. We
found a nice little restaurant on one of the busy streets and settled
down for a little casada and beer.
Brett and I have been talking about how nice it would be to rent a car
at some point on our trip and it looks like we've finally found the
perfect place to do it! Yesterday as we were walking around the city,
we kept running into car rental shops and finally decided to stop in
one to get a quote and see if we could find a good deal. The guy at U
Save hooked us up with a good price and we got ourselves a nice little
Nissan Tiida for the week. Costa Rica seems like one of the better
places to rent a car because the roads here are better than most of the
countries we've been in and we only have a week here and having a car
will definitely let us see a lot more in that time. After getting the
car, we drove around for about 30 minutes trying to get to the Tica Bus
station, turning down various one way streets going the wrong way and
being able to see the station but not being about to get there because
all the streets were one way. Finally Brett decided to drive the wrong
way on the street to get there and we rolled our Nissan up on the
sidewalk where we had a taxi cab driver watch it while we went in to
get our tickets. I thought Brett's texting and driving in the States
stressed me out, but his foreign country city driving brought my stress
to a whole new level!
Finally we got on the interstate and things got a little better.
Thankfully it's a lot harder to get going the wrong way on the highway
than it is on the streets in the city! A tip to people planning to
drive on the highways in Costa Rica is to carry a lot of cash, because
it seems like we had to stop every 30 minutes to pay another dollar for
the tollroads. Having the freedom of having a car and being able to
stop while traveling is so nice! We made a lot of stops along the way
and only got lost once on the way up to Monteverde. When we were about
20 km outside of Monteverde the road turned into dirt and we had to
navigate our little Tiida around the many potholes in the ground. This
portion of the road made us wish that we would have upgraded to the 4x4
Jimny, but we made it and came upon the highly developed and touristy
town of Santa Elena. It's weird to me that a tourist city like this
comes after a long dirt road with nothing but jungle at every side of
us.
We had a hostel picked out called
Pension de Santa Elena that is run by
native Texans. We drove through the cloud filled city through the mist
and rain in searching for this spot. At one point we'd pulled over to
look at the map, frustrated because our map sucked, and I looked up to
see the sign for our hostel right in front of us! What luck! We got a
room and found out that the owners of the place are actually from
Austin, TX! This was cool, but even better was walking into our rooms
and finding that one of the beds had a Hook 'em Horns bedspread! I was
wearing my TX shirt so I jumped on the bed and posed for a photo.
It turns out that the people who run the hostel also run a taqueria and
a nightclub here in town. These Texans are taking over here in
Monteverde! When you stay at their hostel, then you get free admission
to the nightclub. Last night there was a live band playing, so Brett
and I headed over for a late dinner and some music. Being at this club
was like being back in America and come to think of it, so is
everywhere in Costa Rica! All of the white travelers were dancing to a
mix of California Girls with some salsa mixed in. Brett wasn't feeling
the scene so getting him on the dancefloor was quite a challenge. The
live band started shortly after and it consisted of two old white guys
and two young Costa Rican guys. The white guys would do rock n roll
covers and the costa ricans did their own version of Costa Rican rock.
It was an interesting mix, but as far as I'm concerned they could
retire both of the old white guys from vocals and this band would be in
much better shape!
Around midnight we headed back to our room to enjoy a good nights sleep
under the steady rain of Hurricane Matthew. Ahhh... It was good day.
