Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Shock Treatment
Our main adventure was to start in Tortuguero, a tiny village on the northern Caribbean coast that is one of the primary nesting grounds for three species of sea turtles.The only way to reach this rustic village is by boat. In researching this destination, all of the mainstream tourist guides and TripAdvisor pointed to the necessity to book a guided tour that included transportation, lodging and meals - at a prices starting at $300 per person for 2 nights.As this represented nearly half of our 2-week budget, I was determined to find another way.After exhaustive research, I finally learned the way to get to Tortuguero as the "ticos" {Costa Rican locals} do.Of course, it involved taking a public bus from the airport to downtown San Jose, going to another bus station, catching another public bus to a small town named Cariari, changing bus stations, catching another public bus to what is essentially a farm called La Pavona, where you then take a public boat to Tortuguero.Although I was apprehensive about diving right into the local culture at the very beginning of our trip and throwing my family into culture shock, especially with our very limited Spanish skills, I ultimately decided that the best way to cover all the places we wanted to in Costa Rica, we needed to just do it.Since our flight was scheduled to land too late for us to catch the last bus to Tortuguero, we planned to spend our first night in the tiny town of Cariari in the Hotel El Sura, a place described by my information source as "a nice new hotel across from the plaza."Knowing that the owner of the hotel likely did not speak English, I asked my sister Kat who speaks fluent Spanish to call and make our reservation.I was a bit unsure about this reservation when Kat said that, when she asked if there was some confirmation number we would need, the woman replied in Spanish, "Um, I give you number 6."
Meanwhile, back in Miami . . .
Our flight from Miami to San Jose was supposed to leave at 12:10 pm and arrive at 12:55 pm (with a 2-hour time difference).Suffice to say that, after several delays, a mechanical issue, boarding, deplaning, changing gates, and reboarding, the plane departed close to 6 pm.My well-planned itinerary included plenty of time for clearing baggage claims, customs and immigration, and ultimately catching the 3 pm bus to Cariari.While delayed in Miami, I looked online at the public bus schedule to learn that there were two more buses leaving that evening for Cariari - one at 7 pm and one at 8:30 pm. When we landed at 6:15 pm, we knew there was little chance of making to 7 pm bus.After clearing baggage, immigration and customs, we decided to take a cab to the bus station in downtown San Jose rather than trying to hoof it to the local bus there in the dark {the sun sets every night in Costa Rica at 6 pm}.
Our very nice cab driver dropped us off outside of the bus station in downtown San Jose at 7:15 pm and pointed to where we would need to go.Another man standing with a group of other cab drivers there said that he would show us where to go and our first cab driver left.There seemed to be very little activity at this bus station, which was nothing more than a loading dock and a bunch of buses parked in a lot. The man then said, "You are going to Guapiles?", to which we replied, "No, Cariari at 8:30."He stopped and turned and, in a mixture of his broken English and our very broken Spanish, informed us that the last bus to Cariari had left at 7 pm.Our choices for Plan B were limited to finding a hotel to spend the night in San Jose or hiring one of his buddies to drive us to Cariari.We finally settled on the latter at a negotiated price of $100 and piled into Jorge's small Honda Prelude.{I later had to explain to the kids that you should never just get into a car in a strange town with someone that you don't know, but that somehow, after reading about the friendliness and generosity of the Costa Ricans and observing how the interactions between all of us transpired, Dad and I had to trust our gut feeling that it would be all right.}
The next part of our adventure involved a crowded, white-knuckled drive through the pitch black, winding mountain roads that gave a new meaning to the term "blind curve."I had read numerous warnings in my research about the dangers of driving at night in Costa Rica, as there are little to no streetlights and lots of pedestrians that just appear out of nowhere.They forgot to mention that the Costa Ricans have no fear in crossing double yellow lines around curves with no visibility to pass slower moving vehicles.About 45 minutes later, we came into the town of Guapiles, where we asked Jorge to stop at the Burger King/Church's Chicken so we could get something to eat.After grabbing chicken nuggets to go, we all piled back into the little Prelude.The next 1.5 hours was spent driving through tiny towns and farmland, including several wrong turns as we slowly realized that Jorge had no clue how to get to Cariari.As we passed through very rustic towns, dodging the people walking, biking and standing in the streets, the dogs that have decided that "peros" have the right of way, and the car-eating potholes, Jorge would call out to someone who looked friendly "Amigo!" and ask directions for the way to Cariari.At the end of our death-defying journey, I was relieved to start seeing signs that contained the work "Cariari".As we pulled into a parking lot of a motel, with a sign reading "Cabinas El Sura" and the likes of which would make a Super 8 motel look like The Ritz Carlton, I thought that we must be in the wrong place: this did not resemble "a nice new hotel across from the plaza."
After a great deal of sign language and pointing at a map, Bill, Jorge and the hotel owner determined that this was indeed the right place; however, he had no reservation for us and was certainly not expecting us to show up at 10 pm.He did have one room, however, that would sleep the four of us.We bid "Adios" to Jorge and followed the man through a dark, dingy hallway to a room that he had obviously been sleeping in.The remnants of his dinner were still in a frying pan on a hotplate, the TV was on, and he needed to change the sheets on one of the twin beds.As Carly looked up at me with an expression that channeled Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz: "Mom, we are not in Kansas anymore" and the expression on Lane's face saying, "Mom, what have you gotten us into?", I was hopeful that we would all come through the culture shock just fine.Fortunately, we were all exhausted after our day of travel and we fell into the beds, trying not to wonder what creatures we might be sharing them with, to get some sleep before our 5 am alarm would ring in the adventures of a new day.
- comments