2021 September - Day 01 - Costa Rica - San Jose - Rainy Travel Day.

 Hey everyone…it is been a long time since we’ve travelled internationally.  But we finally made it to Costa Rica after a first failed attempt about a month ago in August.  Our trip down here from SLC took us through Houston.  Our connection time was only 50 minutes.  So thank goodness, flights were all on time even arriving early.  We landed in San Jose around 2:30 PM…which is in the same time zone as Utah.  Getting through customs was fairly easy.  We only needed their Health Passport completed and ready to show along with our passport.  In these Covid times, Costa Rica is only requiring proof of vaccination for the Covid virus.  So pretty easy.  After getting out of customs, we looked for the Adobe Rental car van.  We found a fellow holding a sign and a few of us go in a van and made a crazy drive away from the airport to where most car rentals were found.  It took almost an hour to get the car and we ended up being forced to pay almost $200 for insurances on the car.  Liability is required by law in this country.  But for car coverage, they would not accept the insurance that the credit card offered unless the credit card company had written a letter stating that they would be an insurance carrier….which I did not do or realize I had to do.  I was pretty ticked at them saying that I’ve never seen this requirement in most of the world in which I’ve traveled.  They just listened to me rant in their nice way.  It was all good in the end.  

I’ve been a bit anxious about driving down here.  I have had visions of Mexico…which causes sleepless nights.  And yes, the driving in San Jose was a big congested.  But not too bad.  We used our cell phone to navigate us through but I made a mistake and left the ‘No Toll’ option on my phone and as a result we started down a crazy, windy (highway 3) toward our hotel.  I wondered why we were not taking Highway 1, the main freeway through this country that would get us to this place quicker.  It then dawned on me that I had this option on.  Well, once we turned it off, it took us to another, toll based, highway that knocked about 15 minutes off our drive.  But the rain…oh my…it is definitely the rainy season down here.  We went through some real down pours to get to Puerto Calderas and the Casa del Sol hotel that we are staying in.

The hotel sits right on an inlet from the sea.  It is a small port.  Our room has an ocean view with a nice little balcony.  The people have been so nice.  The hotel has a fancy restaurant that we chose to eat at.  Pretty pricey however.  Denise did not want to walk down to the other restaurant where the locals seemed to be eating due to darkness.  It was dark down here by 6 PM.  I’m glad I did not try to drive to Monteverdi area…like I had planned…as it was another 2 hours of driving.  We will head that way tomorrow early.

Lastly, our food was really good.  Denise had surf and turf on a skewer.  I had their seafood platter.  It was all yummy.  

We are tired and going to turn in a bit early.  We have begun another trip in a new country and are excited to come to know Costa Rica a little bit.

Some pictures:

Our room with an ocean view balcony.  Pretty nice for $80.

This little area is just outside our room door for sitting and just relaxing.  It is kind of humid, but cooler than we anticipated.  We’ll see how the morning is.

When I travel to other countries, I’m always amazed at the wires that are above ground.  We’ve seen some amazing sites in this regard.  Not too bad here as we left San Jose.

Yum…lots of butter, garlic and seafood.  Pretty good.

An example on what I saw driving as we headed to the pacific coast.  It rained hard most of the way there…about 1.5 hours.  But once on the coast here, it has not been too bad.

Having a wonderful dinner with my beautiful wife.  What a great travel companion she really is.  I know I’m not easy especially in stressful situations.  But she is such a great calming and reassuring voice as things come up.  We do well together mostly because of her.

You can see the restaurant.  Actually, our room is above this place out by the water.  The waiters…well everyone…has been really nice and accommodating.

Another picture of our small, clean room.  Tomorrow we get a breakfast as a part of our room deal.  I hear it is pretty good.  Good way to start our journey to Monteverde area and possibly some zip lining and hanging bridges.  We’ll see!