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| A view of the ticketing hall in Airport |
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| Jeff And Jane arriving in San Jose Costa Rica |
Picking Jeff and Jane up from the airport went pretty smooth,
but quite and adventure in itself. We
left early, from the hotel, to make sure we had enough time to find our
unaccustomed way to the airport. In
fact, we went early enough to try out the restaurant we had seen on the way,
before, which offered breakfast for $3.00.
It was a remarkably good breakfast.
It was almost like an omelet folded into a flour tortilla. The filling in the omelet consisted of green
beans and carrots. I had never
considered that particular combination, but as I said, it was very good.
We ended up at the airport parking garage about an hour
early. We went ahead and parked the car
and went in to check the monitor and make sure the flight was on time. We then went to the cafeteria and had a cup
of coffee. We managed to make it last
until about ten minutes before the flight was scheduled to land. We then made our way back outside, where the
parking garage was, and found a huge crowd of people waiting in front of the
only doors from which passengers were allowed to exit. We ended up having to wait almost another
hour before Jeff and Jane came through those doors.
We greeted them, went to prepay the parking fee and started
on our trip to Playa del Coco, where the first time-share was located. We had no good estimate of how long it would
take and had been warned the highways could be very poor condition. Making sure we were on the right highway, in
this case Highway #1, and that we were going in the right direction, took a
while, but we managed to get on the right highway and in the right direction.
It ended up taking us about six hours to get to our
destination, which included about forty minutes when we stopped to have dinner.
The highway was better than we expected,
but was constantly impeded by trucks and laid-back Costa Ricans who drove a consistent
60 Kilometers per hour (about 44 MPH). Otherwise,
the highway actually proved to be in pretty good condition, one lane in each
direction, and was being widened for about 50 miles as we neared Liberia, one of the few larger towns in Costa Rica.
It was dark by the time we arrived in
Playa del Coco. Jeff and Jane worked
together to navigate our way there and did a great job. We didn’t have to turn around or recover from
any wrong ways and we were finally in our temporary home. Tonight would be a catch-up night for sleep
for our friends, like the first night in San
Jose was for us.
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| View from condo |
The timeshare was a relatively small two bedroom, two bath
condo on the ground floor, but was clean and comfortable. It didn’t have any wireless internet, so we
had to take the two hundred yard walk to the administrative offices to hook
into their internet provider. The pool
was literally right outside our sliding glass doors and was very nicely
landscaped with tropical vegetation. The
little strip center that had our time share’s administrative office also
contained a small “mini mart,” two restaurants (one Italian and one Dutch Crepe
restaurant), a travel office, and an office to plan and pay for excursions and other special
trips. The condo was almost exactly one
kilometer from the main street of Playa Del Coco, which was an easy walk.
Playa Del Coco is a typical tourist trap. The main street was lined with so many stores that catered to tourist trinket or souvenir mindsets, there was literally hardly anything for us to do. There were some really quality restaurants, again aimed at American or European tourists, but the prices were very high. We decided it was better to look for the type of restaurants the locals were more likely to frequent. While it was true many of the prices there, were also high, there were native foods offered at prices natives could afford. We generally found meals for between $4.00 and $8.00. Those plates were what I would consider better than what we can get in the States for a similar price. We were "always" satisfied with the selection we were able to find at those prices. By the way, we were warned, by the airport officials, not to drink the water from the faucets while in Costa Rica. The Americans we met on the first morning in Costa Rica said they had always drank the water since arriving in the country, with no ill affects. Emboldened by that, we, too, drank the water from the tap throughout our stay in the country. We had no ill affects at all.
The next day, we set out to explore the area. We ended up driving to a few coastal towns (to say cities would have been too much of an exageration), and found a couple that were worth spending time to look at. We had packed a lunch and decided to eat lunch at a small town called Samara. It was just a short main street and one road parallel to the coast line that didn't have much to offer. We drove off the main road to a beach slightly north of the main road, parked the car, and walked to the beach. It was about 80 degrees and 65% humidity. We were still not used to that level of heat and humidity, so it was a little uncomfortable. The beach, however, was unpopulated and beautiful. We sat under some coconut trees and ate our lunch.
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| Our picnic under the trees |
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| The Beach at Samara |
It seemed no matter where we went, in Costa Rica, we found gorgeous environments and settings.
The grocery stores, here, were a huge improvement over those "supermarkets" in Belize. They were large, fully stocked, and not air conditioned. The heat in the stores was oppressive and stifling. We bought food to take back to the timeshare and prepare. Jane fixed the first meal we had there. Life was good and very layed back in this beach area.
Tomorrow, we are headed to Lake Arenal.
