Blogocentric Formulations

Costa Rica - Part 1

It's the end of our third day here in Costa Rica, with five days of our trip left.

The first day was quite an adventure. We got to the airport with plenty of time and the flight was pretty uneventful — other than being seated in the midst of an entire group of friends or family reunion group all traveling together, whose kids lost their minds screaming and roughhousing for the last hour of the flight — and we even landed a little earlier than scheduled. We opted to fly into Liberia International Airport, the smaller airport in the northwestern part of the country, and way closer to our destination than the capital city of San Jose, which it four and a half hours away.

We got our bags and found the rental car shuttle we needed to be on without issue, but that's where the issues ended. The rental car company we opted for (Sixt) was one that we had an amazing experience with in Maui a couple years ago, so we decided to give them a try here too. Apparently not all branches are equal, because the shuttle drove us out to a small strip mall in the middle of nowhere (not quite the "short distance from the terminal" they advertised), dropped us off, and immediately took off again. At that point, the rental car agent pulled the, "Oh no, it turns out that the minivan you reserved is actually this one..." and points to a manual-transmission cargo/delivery van in the corner of the lot. And then goes, "Unfortunately we don't have any other cars available at the moment, except this much smaller vehicle which is actually more money because it's a 4x4... otherwise, you'll have to wait for a couple hours until someone else turns in a car and we can clean it for you."

I was tempted to just take the van to spite him (I do know how to drive a manual transmission), but ultimately I had read that some of the roads in Costa Rica are quite gnarly (unpaved mountain roads, etc.), so I didn't want to chance it and just paid the $125 for the "upgrade" to a smaller car with an automatic transmission. Then he tried to sell me on additional insurance (he claimed the insurance I purchased for the rental online wasn't valid in Costa Rica ), and when I didn't pay up, he got quite testy and just wanted to get rid of us.

We left the car rental place about 30 minutes later than we had hoped, but still had plenty of time to get through the hills before dark and enjoy our first sunset on the beach. Unfortunately, we exited the strip mall directly into traffic because there was apparently construction on the small two-lane highway we needed to take. What was supposed to be a 45-minute driver ended up being a three-hour drive, which meant the sun went down and it got dark just as we were driving through the hills. The highway through those hills was super narrow and full of tiny little towns where people were randomly walking down (or across!) the highway in the dark, all while cars were whipping along the road at 40 miles per hour. Several sections of the road were unfinished and had unclear markers... it made me very glad that I opted to upgrade to the smaller vehicle with the automatic transmission, but it was probably one of the more terrifying driving experiences I've ever had. We rolled into the resort with just enough time to check in, have dinner, and go to bed.

Service at the resort has been amazing so far. Everyone is super friendly and we got a free upgrade to a suite (and put on the all-inclusive plan, even though we didn't ask or pay for it). The resort is right on the water; we can walk less than a hundred meters and end up in the Pacific Ocean. The ocean is delightfully warm, and the beach has good boogie boarding waves but is still calm enough for the kids to play in the surf. We've spent the past two full days basically alternating between playing in the ocean and playing in the pool, and eating at the different restaurants around the resort.

After an unpredictable journey to get here, we're finally starting to unwind and relax, with plans to book a few excursions in the coming days. Each member of our family picked one thing they really want to do while they're here, so we're looking at doing some horseback riding, zip-lining, food eating, and sloth sanctuary visiting. I'll update more as those experiences are had.