Costa Rica – Coast to Coast June 2005 and August 2006

We decided to wake up early and go to Manuel Antonio Park for a few hours before having to make the drive back to Alajuela for our flight home the next morning. Coming into town we were flagged down by a kid who told us that the parking lots for the park were full and that we needed to park in his lot for $2. I told him that we were going to go look anyways and found that the other parking lots were quite empty! We still needed to pay to park in the official parking areas but you to look for the guys in either the official yellow or brown shirts to avoid getting scammed. After parking the car we were offered a tour by an official park guide for $20 each. I thought this was pretty expensive and declined. We were warned that we would mss out on seeing any wildlife but we decided that we would take our chances anyway.

In order to get into the park you need to either get wet by wading through a estuary or they had some guys with boats to ferry you across. They didn’t charge any money but accepted tips. Inside the park was very nice. They only allow 600 people/day to enter the park, so on busy days it is best to get there early. We followed the main trail and found that whenever we saw one of the guides leading a group stop we could just look at where they were pointing and see whatever wildlife was there. We saw iguanas, sloths, spider monkeys, and birds. We made our way to the second beach and I wish that we had more time to stay there because it was pure heaven! We did a bit more exploring through the park before heading back to the car to go pick up the luggage at the hotel and make the drive back to Alajuela. On the way back to the hotel we stopped at Si Como No and had lunch. I thought that Si Como No was very nice but the food was pretty average.

The drive back was uneventful. The road that takes you up into the central valley is pretty steep and twisty in places. We got stuck behind a long line of cars following a slow moving truck. Once we arrived in Alajuela we stops at a mega super mercado and purchased 10 bags of Costa Rican coffee as well as several bottles of Lizano hot sauce to bring back home.

We arrived at Las Orquideas at about 4pm after getting lost again in downtown Alajuela. Our room there this time was nicer with satellite TV and two beds but the lighting in the room could have used some improvement. There was a light bulb missing in the bathroom and the reading lamp had a florescent bulb.

We retired to the hotel bar where we met another couple from Texas who were also finishing their trip and we compared notes and got ideas on where to go for our next trip. Christopher from Tricolor rental arrived right on time to pick up the car with no hassles.
We then had drinks and dinner at the hotel bar where we found that the food at dinner wasn’t as good as the breakfast we had there on our previous stay. We also found that we were charged for $20 of wine that we didn’t order but the hotel manager took the charge off of our bill when we checked out the next day.

Day 1 – Arrival in Alajuela

We woke up at 3am for 6:30am flight to Miami with a 4 hour lay over before catching our connecting flight to San Jose. Our layover in Miami was uneventful and we had some expensive crappy airport food in the only restaurant that was in our terminal. Once we got near San Jose the pilot told us that San Jose was having some really bad rain and that we would need to circle around for a bit and hope that the rain would let up so that we could land. After one aborted landing attempt where we were about 100’ off the ground before having to shoot back up into the air the pilot told us that we only had enough fuel to make one more landing attempt or we would need to divert to Panama to wait out the weather and refuel. Fortunately we were able to land at about 9:00pm, an hour late. The lines through immigration and customs moved fairly quickly and as we exited the airport we were greeted by a mob of people waiting just outside the doors to the airport. At first we thought that Madonna or some other VIP must have been arriving but we quickly realized that WE were the VIPs. There were people taking pictures, a swarm of people asking if we needed a taxi or a hotel room.
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