San Jose - big noisy capital city

Entering the canal
see all photos »

Monday 17th September – Boca's del Toro – San Jose

Today was another early start as we were leaving Bocas for Costa Rica (San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica). We knew it would be a long travel day which started with an 8am boat ride. This turned out to be an absolute adventure! Again it was a speed boat that took us along the sea, but a different route from the way we arrived. As we were speeding along the sea, we watched a very low flying plane pass through thunderous clouds which looked pretty scary. Then from the very large open sea we sped towards a long row of trees. The boat captain managed to navigate his way to the small opening which took us into jungle and a canal. Jo was keeping her eyes peeled for crocodiles as there were bound to be plenty in this deep, brown water (even Leigh was holding his breath)! We made one stop along the way to someones house and then continued at quite high speeds dodging trees and logs that were sticking up out of the water. Jo doing her risk assessments wondered what it would take to make a hole in the boat for us to have to abandon ship (probably not much as it was pretty rickety). The journey went for quite sometime, around 40 minutes to get to our destination. In the end we had both been holding our breath the whole way for fear of being attacked by crocodiles, but at the sametime really appreciating the rustic and jungle beauty. It was actually a trip you would pay money for, not just a mode of transportation. That was the end of our first leg. Our second leg was jumping in a very broken down looking mini van, which had dents everywhere and a lot of missing interior. We caught this for about 20 minutes until the San Jose bus stop which was on the side of a street.

Looking out for crocodiles...
see all photos »

The next leg was the long one and to do this we had to take another old school bus, that was really uncomfortable but luckily the windows opened as it was scorching outside. It also arrived early to our delight, around 9.15am for a 10am depature. We travelled for not too long, around 45 minutes to get to the Panama-Costa Rica la frontera (i.e. Border crossing). On the way we passed through more lush tropics and broken down houses, but the one thing we noticed the most was the banana plantations. We realised that this is where “Chiquita” bananas comes from. We eventually arrived at the border crossing where we jumped off the bus and walked 10mins up a path to a very small office. We handed over the passports and with no questions asked where given them back with the correct exit stamp. We then noticed how we had to pass into Costa Rica - along a rusty old bridge with wholes everywhere and planks of wood with big gaps between them. Not only that we had to walk along this and contend with massive lorries. Below was a very fast flowing rapid and quite a drop, so we walked very swiftly along this bridge which only took about 8 minutes, but felt like at least half an hour of cautiously placing your foot.

A local on the canal
see all photos »

Relieved on the other side of the bridge we then went to the Costa Rica immigration which had two booths. Leigh went to one and I went to the other. Luckily we had printed off flights that we have booked from Cancun to Dallas in a month or so time, as you need to prove that you'll be leaving the country. With stamps in our passport and very empty stomachs we wandered down the hill to a supermarket and got some food for the rest of the journey. Unfortunately the bus has to cross the rickety old bridge and to do this also had to contend with the trucks, so an hour or so later our bus made it to the otherside. The locals obviously knew a trick as they had jumped on just before it reached us and everyone's seat had been taken except ours as we left stuff on it, knowing full well you have to protect your seat! We carried on the journey into Costa Rica, when about 15 minutes later we were pulled over by a Policeman carrying a very large weapon. He wanted to check the bags in the luggage hold. Spending about 45 minutes and questioning a number of the Jamaican passengers in severe heat, we thankfully were released and went on our way. We initially thought we were on the express bus but this wasn't so. We seemed to stop every 500m to pick up another passenger who would then stand in the isle, as there were no seats left. Then again we got pulled over by a number of policeman with some even larger weapons. They too wanted to check the luggage hold and did so by going through everyone's bags. After checking our passports they came on the bus holding up a yellow waterproof bag cover and one of the Irish girls hoped off looking rather sheepish. We kept our eye on the activities and found out that she had marijuana on her. Luckily she admitted to it straight away and because it wasn't a huge amount, they didn't seem to be too concerned. She hoped back on the bus looking absolutely relieved, while we were thinking how stupid!

Houses on the canal
see all photos »

We carried on our way driving along the Caribbean coast which was absolutely beautiful. Again very lush, full of palm trees and untouched beaches. We made a brief stop for lunch and then headed inland towards San Jose. The temperature had been 35 degrees all day, so sitting on a bus without air conditioning was rather uncomfortable, but we are getting use to it now. As we approached slightly higher altitude, it began raining and the temperature quickly dropped 20 degrees, it was unbelievable! We arrived into San Jose and as soon as we got off the bus were hounded by taxi drivers. We got one to take us directly to our hostel as bus stations aren't the safest areas. The traffic was awful and the city itself was not what we expected. Pretty rundown with lots of garbage in the sidewalk and we saw a man hit off his motorbike, but receiving a lot more help than Rich did after getting knocked off his cycle in London! We got to our hostel which had a lovely king bed and shared bathroom and after surfing on the internet for a while we went across the road for dinner at the sister hostel. The food was lovely and we joined some Americans we met on the bus, who were good company. We headed to bed around 10pm absolutely exhausted from the days traveling.

Banana Plantations
see all photos »

Tuesday 18th September – San Jose

Our first job of the day was to buy onward bus tickets from Tica bus. We jumped in a taxi who turned the meter on so we were unsure how many times he would drive us around the block and headed to the station. Thankfully the attendant spoke a little English so there was no problem booking the tickets. The only problem was the bus left at 6am and for some reason check is one hour before departure meaning a 4.30am wake up call! We decided to walk back from the bus station and enjoy a few sights of San Jose. The walk took us onto a busy pedestrian street that resembled Manners Mall 20 years ago, rather run down and oozing with that 1980's charm. The main attraction attraction to the street seemed to be never ending amounts of shoe shops with a gang of shoe assistants standing out the front doing everything possible to co hearse you in. Unfortunately for them we were not in shoe shopping mood and were thinking more about our tummies. We stopped for lunch in a food court and Jo opted for rice and salad and believe it or not Leigh turned up with 2 burger combo's and tried to explain to Jo that they were on special and he even got one with no cheese so Jo could have some. Jo was not really hungry so Leigh got away with 2 huge burgers for lunch. The main clientèle for the food court was the staff from the hospital across the road. We had a great time observing the doctors and nurses strutting around with their stethoscopes dangling from their neck... it was like watching the programme Scrubs.

We soldiered on after lunch and as per usual another thunder storm was brewing. We stepped up the pace to get home quickly, but were unfortunately caught in yet another massive downpour. Thankfully there was a tiny corner cafe that we managed to take refuge in. We had a drink and watched the streets become fast moving rivers. We chatted with the lady behind the counter in some form of broken English and Spanish for sometime. With the rain getting lighter and only being 2 blocks from our hostel we decided to brave the elements and run home. We did well but still arrived back soaking wet to the amusement of the staff who were wandering why we had not taken an umbrella - lesson learnt! We spent the rest of the afternoon organizing our plans before heading over the road to have dinner and catch the end of the movie they were showing.