I recently came across a rock ballad with a very catchy and beautiful melody about COSTA RICA sung by Jakob Dylan, son of the famous rock star-poet, Bob Dylan. Entitled Costa Rica, the song reminds me a bit of the famous Margaritaville sung by Jimmy Buffet, but it is much softer and dreamier in tone and style. The song is about a young couple’s romantic escape and love affair in Costa Rica. When it’s time for them to return home, the couple discover that it is very difficult to leave as they have fallen under Costa Rica’s magical tropical spell, and they realize that there is really nothing for them to return home to - “We may or may not never return”.

The song is accompanied by a wonderful video which depicts some of the remarkable natural beauty and wildlife that Costa Rica has to offer as well as some of the popular activities and tours for the adventurous tourist - Zipline Canopy tours, mountain biking, hiking, sea kayaking and whitewater rafting and the like. In my opinion, the video (accompanied by the Jacob Dylan song) is a very powerful marketing vehicle for tourism to Costa Rica, which in recent years has become one of the most popular playgrounds and vacation hot spots of many Hollywood celebrities and stars.
PURA VIDA!

Due to its increasing popularity as a vacation destination, Costa Rica cannot be considered cheap anymore. However if you’re a budget traveler or a backpacker, do not let this deter you from traveling to Costa Rica - it is still a wonderful place. To make your funds last longer (and to stay within your budget), I suggest that you become more like a Tico (a Costa Rican) – avoid the most popular and most Americanized beach resorts and tourist traps – Manuel Antonio, Tamarindo, Flamingo Beach, Arenal and the like – and by all means patronize some of the local sodas and cafes when dining. You will save a lot of monies.

Manuel Antonio, while being the most beautiful and most scenic of the many beach resorts in Costa Rica, it is also the priciest with budget accommodations costing in the neighborhood of $80/90USD. If you still insist on going to Manuel Antonio, you will find cheaper accommodations in the nearby town of Quepos, about 5KM from the beginning of the resort area. What beach resorts do I recommend for the budget traveler? Well, on the Pacific Coast, I would try Playa del Coco, Playa Negra, Playa Potrero or Brasilito. These places are all very popular with TICOS – which means they are more affordable. Even though I haven’t been to Cahuita and Puerto Viejo on the Caribbean Coast in many years, I believe you’ll still find relatively affordable accommodations there as well.

Most travelers will spend at least 1-2 nights or more in San Jose, Costa Rica’s Capital City because it is the transportation hub and the primary transit point in the country. For instance, if you’re traveling from the Caribbean Coast to the Pacific Coast, most likely you will have to overnight in San Jose, before continuing your journey. In San Jose, there are many secure low cost hostels and places that cater to backpackers. While walking through San Jose’s popular Barrio Amon district (not far from the downtown area) on my most recent trip to Costa Rica, I came across two fairly respectable hostels – Tranquilo Backpackers and Kabata Hostel. Both places offered a choice of a bed in a dormitory or a private bedroom with shared bathroom facilities as well as providing a variety of other amenities such as free WIFI (in the lobby), free luggage storage and laundry service. While I didn’t have a chance to inspect the rooms, I did get the room rates:

For a bed in the dorm, Backpackers.. $10 Kabata .. $12
For a private room (with shared bathroom), Backpackers.. $24-28 Kabata.. $32

Note: All prices in USD

Next up - Dining on a budget in Costa Rica!

PURA VIDA!

San Jose, Costa Rica’s capital city is usually full of life – in the busy downtown area, you’ll see people from all walks of life, street vendors at every corner selling a hodgepodge of goods and the automobile traffic can sometimes be very hectic. The scene was quite different however upon my return to San Jose from the Pacific Coast on the Wednesday before Easter Sunday. Automobile traffic was relatively light from the International Airport to San Jose and the streets, which were normally full of people and cars, were relatively deserted. San Jose was somewhat like a Ghost Town.

While being transferred from the airport to my hotel in San Jose, I had a long conversation with my driver Johnny about the celebration of Easter holidays in Costa Rica. Johnny said that in those countries where the Catholic Church is very strong – includes Costa Rica as well as most Latin American countries - the Easter Holidays officially starts on Ash Wednesday, which is the first Wednesday before Easter Sunday. Many local businesses, shops, bars and restaurants close down either on Ash Wednesday (or Thursday) and do not reopen until the day after Easter. Continuing, he told me that many working class people in San Jose take advantage of their time off from work for the Semana de Santa (Easter Week) by heading to the beach, not to return until Sunday evening.

Apparently most of the vacationing Ticos left early Wednesday morning and the highways to the beaches were very congested with automobile traffic. When I asked which beach towns were the most popular among Ticos for Semana de Santa, Johnny said – “On the Pacific Coast it is Jaco beach and Playa Hermosa and on the Caribbean side, it’s Cahuita and Puerto Viejo.”

Taking a stroll through the downtown area, about the only place that had any life or activity was the Plaza de La Cultura (Culture Plaza), where I observed many adults with young children feeding the many pigeons, a trio of clowns selling toy balloons and a pair of performing mimes who attracted quite a crowd. Thursday was even deader yet in San Jose, as there were even fewer automobiles and people on the streets. My two preferred restaurants for dinner were also closed. Oh well… To coin a phrase from the infamous Mad Sad Alice, it was like a Dead-end Sunday in San Jose.

In Costa Rica, road signs on major highways can be somewhat confusing or even absent. I had an unusual experience the other day when I discovered the exit sign on the highway to my hotel in Heredia Province (San Jose Area) had been hijacked.

I was returning from the small town of Tibas about 4KM away. There was no signage whatsoever for the exit to Santo Tomas, the town where the Bougainvillea Hotel was located. As I stayed at the same hotel four years earlier, I distinctly remember an exit sign on the highway for Santo Thomas, but I couldn’t remember exactly where. Stopping at a roadside restaurant, I asked a gentleman how do I get to Bougainvillea. He told me to go back to Tibas and take a route through town. So I headed back along the highway to Tibas, got off at the exit but in last a minute change of heart, I decided to get back on the highway again, retrace my steps and try to find the exit sign that existed 4 years earlier.

After passing over the bridge located only 200 meters from the restaurant where I had stopped previously, I approached the first exit on the right. Slowing down as this turnout looked familiar, I looked quickly over my right shoulder and saw a small sign nested within the turnoff itself with directional arrows pointing to Santo Tomas. To say the least, I was relieved as I knew this was the right way. Following the familiar twisting, winding road I navigated the car safely back to my hotel. When I told Omar, the front desk receptionist at the Bougainvillea, about this driving adventure, he laughed out loud and said to me “Senor, the road sign on the highway was hijacked. Welcome to Costa Rica.”

Do yourself a favor – If driving a car in Costa Rica, you’ll save yourself a lot unnecessary aggravation, if you get a car with GPS. Most car rental companies in COSTA RICA, will provide with the optional GPS device for about $10USD extra per day. Well worth it!

In Costa Rica, it is easy to get lost as signage is absolutely terrible. Navigating within San Jose and most major cities, street names are either nonexistent or very obscure - typically the street name is painted in small letters on top of the building wall at each intersection; however the paint usually fades over time making the lettering unreadable. In general people use landmarks to navigate in the city instead of physical address. Addresses are usually given in terms of how many meters – North, South, East or West – a place is from a specific landmark (for example: churches, stores, large trees). Each block is considered to be 100 meters although some are much longer or shorter.

As an example, I was looking for a San Juan Bed & Breakfast in the San José suburb of Tibas. The address was given as 175 meters east of the southeast corner of the Catholic Church. I found the church all right, but wouldn’t you know it, but I really wasn’t sure which way north or south was, so I had to ask. Then after going the right way, I must have drove by this B& B several times.

In frustration, I parked my car near the main park and walked 2 blocks southeast of the church. Sure enough about two blocks away, I discovered a small courtyard set back from the street with a sign advertising “San Juan”. When I inquired inside an office on the ground floor, the lady told me that San Juan B & B had shut down some time ago and the rooms were now used for business offices. Oh well …

In San Jose, my tour operator is Costa Rican Trails - their address is Curridabat (the name of the town), 200 meters south and 250 meters west of POPS (an ice cream store) and building #328. Taking a taxi to their office, the driver found the right street all right but the building numbers did not have any reasonable order to them. In addition to the numbers being out of sequence, odd & even numbers appeared on both sides of the street. The numbering system so confused the driver so much that he had ask a lady on the street where Costa Rican Trails was located. It was then that we discovered that #328 was preceded by #331 and #325 (or something like that). Both the taxi cab driver and I laughed!

To avoid getting lost, your best bet is to shell out some additional monies for GPS - it cost about 10USD extra per day with most car rental companies. If I had GPS on my current trip, it would have saved me a lot of unnecessary aggravation.

Using landmarks with N, S, E and W coordinates instead of physical addresses is not a uniquely Costa Rica custom but apparently is commonplace throughout Central America.

Driving in COSTA RICA is quite an adventure, however once you become familiar
with the idiosyncrasies of Costa Rican drivers and the way things work here, you shouldn’t have too much of a problem. When discussing this issue with Omar, the friendly receptionist at the front desk of Hotel Bougainvillea, he confided to me with a big grin on his face, that if you can drive in Costa Rica, you can drive anywhere in the world. After all, he proudly said “Ticos are some of the craziest drivers in the world.” Furthermore he pointed out to me that automobile accidents are the leading cause of death in Costa Rica. I nodded and told him, I read that somewhere in a travel book

If you plan to drive an automobile in Costa Rica, there are a couple of observations and tips that I would like to share with you. Having driven a car in Costa Rica on four of my eight trips here, I am definitely speaking from experience. In my opinion, driving around Costa Rica is still the best way to see the country!

• Bad Roads

..In general roads in Costa Rica are not in very good shape; on secondary roads in particular, be prepared to encouter potholes (in Spanish, huecos) of every imaginable size and shape. Curiously enough while driving from Siquerres to Turrialba on Highway 10, I saw road signs warning that the road was in bad shape “Carratera en mal estado”, but much to my surprise there were only a few minor potholes. Yesterday while driving on a secondary road from Guayabo National Monument to the town of Turrialba; over a 7-8 miles stretch, I stopped counting huecos at 50!

• Stop Signs

..In the urban area, you’ll see stop signs posted at most intersections. Alto means stop in Spanish. For most Tico drivers, a stop sign doesn’t necessarily mean stop. Some will slow down as they drive through a stop sign, looking both ways to make sure the coast is clear before proceeding through the intersection, while the typically more reckless driver will go right through the stop sign as if it doesn’t even exist. Apparently this is a unique Costa Rica custom. I have seen only a handful of drivers come to a full stop – they were mostly ladies and tourists. When questioning the representative of the Toyota Car Rental Company about this custom, he confirmed to me that this is how most people drive in Costa Rica including himself. Apparently the traffic cops in Costa Rica don’t enforce the law with respect to stopping at stop signs and issue citations to drivers only if they are directly responsible for an automobile accident. Pura Vida!

In my next post, I will discuss signage, finding addresses and where to park your car.

When renting a car in COSTA RICA, by all means take the full insurance coverage - most car rental companies will usually offer you at least two coverage plans. Better spend a little bit more for full coverage and be safe rather than sorry

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