A day in Costa Rica
Day 323 Sat 23/7
Since I had but barely around 17 or 18 days, I figured I’d rather make it to Nicaragua than spend the time in Costa Rica. The decision made for a long day on the road!
Woke up at around 05:30 and left Isla Colon by the boat at 07:30. It was, as usual, pouring cats and dogs at that time. The boat was luckily covered and the boat ride, surprisingly smooth! I expected it to be a bit rough. Managed to find more folks and shared a cab to Changuinola where the bus to San Jose would leave at 10:00. The taxi got there with time to spare.
The border crossing between Panama and CR is the longest I have had to wait to cross borders in my entire trip and I have crossed borders more times than I care to remember! The Panama side was quite inefficient as they only had one queue to handle both exists and entries, not to mention the fact that there was only 1 person working there! Had to also pay USD 3.00 to leave Panama. The Costa Rican side was a bit quicker, since they had 2 folks working. A glance at my passport, no questions asked, and voila, I was in CR after spending about 2 hours at the border!
Arrived in San Jose around 04:30 local time (an hour behind Panama). A total driving time of about 5.5 hours. I decided that I would try and get closer to the border and hopped on another bus to a town called Liberia in the north. When I arrived there, I was told that there was a festival going on there, which meant that it took me a while to find a place to crash and at $12.5, quite expensive for about 6 hours of sleep.
Tags: Travel
Damu