Updated on April 11, 2009
First Night In San Jose
We landed in San Jose around 9pm last night and waited for our friends Ann and Kirk who were on a different flight. As usual, we were a little worried about the surfboard but they got here in one piece.
After going through the formalities of immigration and customs, we went out of the airport and started being harassed by fake taxi drivers. We randomly chose one who soon called up his friends and took care of our bags. We jumped in the van, me on the passenger seat, and the driver put my Spanish to the test right away…
After a 20 minute ride, we arrived at our hotel, los volcanes, and checked in. After being set up in the room, we booked a flight online with Sansa Airlines, the domestic Costa Rican airline, to go to Quepos (Manuel Antonio) the next day. Flights are pretty cheap: $75 each way. The flight is about 30 minutes, compared to a 4 hour bus ride should you decide to go the cheap way… We went straight to bed after booking the tickets as as it was already 11pm.
These are some pictures of los volcanes hotel. It was a convenient, clean, nice little place in San Jose. I recommend it!
We didn’t sleep really well. I guess we were just too excited. We were cold, and then there was this stupid bird singing at 5am.
Around 6am, I heard my friend Corry talking to the hotel clerk. Corry just got here and he was supposed to meet Ann and Kirk as they have a bungalow together in Santa Teresa. I got up and went see Corry.
It was definitely time to get ready for the day. We cleaned up a bit, had un desayuno (breakfast) and took a cab back to the airport, to fly to Quepos, which is the closest airport to Manuel Antonio.
Los volcanes had a very cute little open air nook to comidan desayuno. Here is Sebastien hablando con Cory.
The Sansa terminal is pretty much as big as your garage… We checked in and we had to take our boards out of the bag, which was kinda odd. Then we folded the boardbag so it gets smaller. On this tiny airplanes, every inch counts…
They gave us our boarding passes and they are the strangest boarding passes I’ve seen so far. I think they are “reusable” passes. It’s just a laminated piece of paper that I believe you have to give when you board the plane. Not sure yet…
We went then through what you may call security. The security check was very quick and I’m pretty sure we could have had a pound of cocaine with us that they wouldn’t have noticed.
We’re now waiting for our plane. We have an hour to kill. Tina is a little anxious because of the boards and because of the size of the plane we’re gonna take. “I hope we don’t die” are the words she just said to me. It will be fine. What can happen, right? Worst case scenario, we do an emergency landing in the jungle and we will have great stories to tell our kids.
Anne, Kirk, and Corey also took a Sansa flight but they went directly to Santa Teresa. Anne was bummed because their American flight had messed up the tail and nose of her board. But Kirk brought a ding repair shop with them so it will be ok.
We don’t have a place to stay at in Manuel Antonio but we’re very confident that we’ll find something, even though this week is the semana santa (the holy week), which is the week preceding Easter. Our travel guide says that hotels are usually booked month ahead for this week but whatever, we’ll find something.
30 more minutes before boarding. I can’t wait to find a place and go surf. The surf report says that water is 84 degrees in Manuel Antonio and waves are supposed to be 3 to 4 feet high…