Saturday 12/4/04 -
Landing, Customs and Driving to Arenal

The plane landed smoothly in Costa Rica just about noon. The airport here is small, but clean and well laid out. There are at least two food courts as well as a number of shops. We were warned that it could take us hours to get through customs but the entire run was super fast. We went through immigration, waiting in a short line and looking at a big poster for our resort for the night, the Tabacon. Then we got our bags, and walked literally straight through customs. We were still filling out the form as the guy was asking for it! So we were out the main door by 12:30.

This posed a problem. There were no phone card machines, so we didn't have a phone card. My cell phone, which was supposed to be activated for use here, was not picking up a signal. There was a SWARM of taxi drivers demanding we go with them. I asked one where a phone was and they took me to the central booth that handled communications, and let me use the phone there for free. Then he sat there for the next half hour, like a vulture, hoping my call would fail and he could drive me somewhere :)

I called into MonteVerdeInfo.com, which is the place I had arranged my InterBus shuttle with. If you look at their website, it says the InterBus comes to San Jose at 1:30, and gets to the airport 1/2 hour later. So I was expecting a 2pm pickup at the airport and was hoping to figure out something to leave sooner. I didn't want to stand in this noisy mob for 1 1/2 hours. However, I was now told that the shuttle wouldn't get to our area until after *3pm* and that it wouldn't even come to the airport - we had to find a shuttle to a nearby hotel and wait there. Since it's 2 1/2 hrs to get to Arenal, that would have us getting to Arenal after dark - and we were only there until 8:30 tomorrow morning so I really wanted to see it during the daylight. So after a fair amount of discussion he tracked down a private shuttle for us that could get us shortly. We would have to "eat" our $25 each shuttle fare since Interbus was already reserved - and in addition pay $99 for the driver to get us out to Arenal. I sighed and agreed, since we were only in town for 3 short days and Arenal was one of the highlights of our trip.

We waited to one side for "Christopher" and a number of taxi drivers came over trying to claim they were going to take us, to the point that one tried to read my piece of paper to see what name to claim! Luckily Christopher was there soon and found us. He was in a comfy big 4x4 vehicle and put our stuff in the car. Off we went!

San Jose is a HUGE city where most of Costa Ricans live - but the rest of the country is practically deserted. So first we drove through the throngs of people, even passing an open air concert.

historic building

Soon we were driving through the 'suburbs' - metal topped homes, tall fences with barbed wire, and lots of coffee bean bushes. The beans were bright red.

Then we drove for a long while on quieter and quieter roads, with more and more agriculture around us. Everyone pretty much drove 4wd vehicles, a necessity given how pot-holy some of the roads were. We were lucky - we were still on paved roads. Most roads here are dirt and rock. Eventually we got into the more mountainous region and even passed a gorgeous waterfall, where we stopped for photos.

Most homes had massive walls topped with barbed wire on them. Eventually we got to a few that didn't have the giant walls and could actually get photos of. Here's one house we passed. It had a roof for the car - most did not.

Arenal Volcano and Tabacon Resort

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