355809 3 Location 455689 <p>First a word on Alajuela. Like San Jose, the streets are poorly marked at best - small inconsistent signs on side buildings. The naming is similar to the capital - streets and avenues delineating east-west vs. north-south streets and odd and even numbers to denote direction from center. We were lucky that the girl at Thrifty car rental at the airport also lived near Charlie's and was happy to let uys follow her there. If you aren't so lucky, I'd suggest taking a cab or getting directions from someone who knows the area.</p><p>We arrived late on Christmas Eve to find everyone asleep and all quiet at Charlie's Place - apparantly not even a mouse was stirring. Ringing the doorbell brought our gracious host. Communication was a bit awkward at first until we settled on a combination of my broken&nbsp;spanish and his broken english. We were quickly settled in an unremarkable room off the main courtyard. The bathroom had one of the electric showerhead attachments for hot water that I've only seen in Costa Rica.&nbsp;It's hard to keep thoughts of dropping a toaster in the bathtub out of my head each time I shower. The trick to getting hot water out of&nbsp;these things is to&nbsp;turn down the water until the electric heater can keep up - usually this means a&nbsp;very light trickle.&nbsp;&nbsp;Still, it is hot and that isn't necessarily the norm, as this spoiled north american had learned on the last trip here.</p><p>The courtyard which looked unremarkable when we stumbled in late, was a beautiful little garden of local plants and flowers when we awoke Christmas morning. The simple breakfast (toast, fresh fruit and coffee) was included in the room price and was served in the courtyard. A perfectly relaxing start for a day that will be spent on the road.</p> 2007-01-14T12:00:57-08:00 415236133 2006-12-24T16:00:00-08:00 0 16 160292 3339408 355809 0 240861 0.0 2006-12-23T16:00:00-08:00 Published 0.0 2007-01-14T12:01:35-08:00 71106 0