Day 13: Never ending flight day

Our flight left early today, so we caught a cab the owner called for us.  Customs wasnt that difficult, nor long.  But the $25/ person to leave was irritating, oh well.  We were stuck on Coach on the way to Texas, but it wasnt too bad.  We flew over Nicaragua and saw an active volcano, which was pretty neat, and then on the way into Texas, saw the Gulf.

We had a VERY LONG lay over in Dallas, which American Airlines kept pushing back so we were stuck there for about 8 hours.  We made our way over to the terminal and tried to catch an earlier flight, but were told that our bags might not make it on the plane.  Didnt really make sense to us, so we left disappointed.

The first class lounge was just right across the way, so we went into the glass doors and were secretly really excited to relax for 8 hours.  We were pissed when they turned us away because we didnt have a first class international flight.  I guess you need to fly first class on an international flight in order to go up to the first class lounge.  Who knew?! We voiced our displeasure, especially since multiple people told us we could go up there!  They tried to sell us a one day first class pass for $90/person.  Pshyeah right!

We made our way back to our terminal and decided on a plan....I would stay quiet while Jeremy did the talking.  We tried another first class lounge in a different terminal to see if we could get the same results.  This time we werent going to advertise that we didnt take a first class international flight, since our tickets really didnt say we had a coach trip there.  Luckily we got the guy on his first day and was training, so it took him a while to figure out why our tickets werent scanning in.  The lady helping him just flagged us in!

No one could prepare me for how amazing awesome the first class lounge was, and amazingly out of place both of us were.  They had a gym, showers, kids play room, cigar room, a bar, and a huge lounge area.  We stuck out like sore thumbs, we didnt have roller Coach carry-ons, suit and ties, and a laptop, but we didnt care.  I took advantage of the free cookies and coffee while Jeremy took advantage of the free beer (I might have too)!

Our flight finally left, late of course but we were bummed because we couldnt enjoy First Class as much as the way down since it was late.  We didnt get any hot food, and Jeremy was a little grumpy cause we really didnt get much to eat.  We were so tired and ended up sleeping the whole way back to Sacramento.




Now that the trip is over, I am so glad we did it!  There were times that I wished we wouldve stayed in nice hotels and rented a car, but we would've missed so many cultural opportunities.  Im so glad that I could spent this time with the one I love, and wish we will have many more to come!  Here's to the next trip!!

Day 12: Travel day back to San Jose

Today was the day to get back to San Jose so we could catch our flight the next day.  This is the day I appreciated the fact that we paid to take a private shuttle up to La Fortuna!  There were two buses out of town, one leaving at 11 and one at 2:15.  We opted for the one at 11am, since we heard it was about a 4 1/2 hour ride.  

We were told that we could buy our bus ticket from the driver and save some dough, but now that I look back, Im so glad we didnt do that!  I wanna say it was only 5-10 dollars for the trip back to San Jose.  We stocked up on some snacks for the ride since the supermarket was right there by the bus stop.  

I wanted to be one of the first ones on the bus, so I could get a seat situated on top of the luggage storage below us.  I stood right were I thought the bus would pull up, and I was waiting patiently as the bus started to pull in.  I looked down for a split second to grab the packs and like flies to honey I had about 10 little Costa Rican ladies get in front of me.  Now, I dont really get irritated with crowds of people but people were pushing and yelling to get on the bus, it was irritating, it didnt help either that about 15 teenagers from Australia were linking arms trying to get on the bus.  

This is why I would suggest to buy your tickets before hand.  The ones with pre-bought tickets boarded first and the ones that didnt have tickets boarded last.  Needless to say, the ladies that went in front of me still had to wait, but we all ended up getting on the bus.  

The actual bus to San Jose was so painfully long and crowded!  I called the window since Jeremy had the window the majority of the trip, and Im glad I did since he had crotch awkwardly in his face the whole time.  At one point it was raining, so we had to close the windows, but it was a catch 22 because if you closed the windows it would get REALLY stuffy, but if you opened the windows the rain would drip on you.  I tried to get sleep, but I was constantly opening and closing the windows the whole time.

The trip ended up taking almost 6 hours.  I thought it would be somewhat of a straight shot to San Jose like the trip to Quepos, but it wasnt!  Ugh, we probably stopped every few minutes to let people on and off.  To make matters worse we got stuck in traffic when we made it close to San Jose.  There was some confusion (and slight panic) when we were getting close to our destination...we quickly noticed we werent being dropped off at the same place when we first started out trip.  I heard about the Coca Cola bus station in Lonely Planet and we found out from some of the other people on the bus thats were we were being dropped off.

I was a little apprehensive about this place, as I heard it was a horrible place for a bus station as a few travelers recently got mugged.  I quickly briefed Jeremy and what our plan of attack was going to be once the bus stopped.  Nothing really prepared me for this place!  The taxi drivers were on the bus just as we stopped.  They even offered to grab our bags and take them to their taxi for us, how nice!!  Yeah right!  Jeremy grabbed our bags, as I pretended not to understand what the guys were saying to me.  We learned our lesson this time and found a red taxi waiting on the street.

We still were stuck in traffic on the way to Casa de Parque, but made it in about 30 minutes.  We were so happy to be there, and had the same room as before.  We settled in a little and made some soup we had packed from home.  We relaxed and watched soccer while chit chatting with the owner of the place.

Day 11: Eco Centro Denaus and Baldi Hot Springs

We both woke up late (which was nice) and walked around town for a bit since we were sore from the hike up Cerro Chato.  We had a late breakfast in town, and did some last minute shopping for friends and family, I was limited on the shopping since I was quickly running out of room in the pack since we bought that hammock.  

We went to Eco Centro Denaus, which was recommended by Lonely Planet, it was close to town, fairly cheap, and didn’t involve hiking!  I wish we would have done this on the first day at La Fortuna, this place was great!  It’s a little bit outside of town, and on a dirt road but a super cheap cab ride which was a plus.  I don’t know how to describe it other than it was like a miniature ecocenter.  We paid, I wanna say around 20-30 bucks for a guided tour and I'm glad we did because we definitely wouldn’t have spotted that much stuff without one. 

We saw so much wildlife, iguanas, frogs, birds, sloths, butterflies, monkeys, everything!  The tour lasted for about an hour, and the tour guide was super knowledgeable.  We ended up spotting the red eyed tree frog on the underneath of a leaf, which I was soooo excited to see up close since the last time I saw one was in the car, and we couldn’t get him to sit still long enough to take a decent picture.  I was stoked! 

We left and on the way back into town ended up booking a hotsprings trip to Baldi with dinner included.  We went back to the room, Jeremy ate some more (shocker) while I had a cappuccino   We figured out a way to pack the hammock in the backpack (I don’t know how we fit it), and left for the taxi up to the hot springs.

The place was a nice way to end a vacation.  The buffet was okay, not really something to write home about, but for a couple extra bucks added on the price it was worth it.  The only thing that irritated me about Baldi is that we had to pay for lockers… Well I thought I would outsmart them and bring my own lock and towel (they charge for towels too).  Evidently we still had to pay for a locker!  I was pissed.  We heard some horror stories of employees going through peoples stuff and taking money, and when you go to return your towel, they would still charge you for it.  The locker and towel rental would have been just as much as the hot springs.  If you go bring your own stuff!!

 The hot springs itself we were nice, and relaxing.  There were many different types of pools, with a range of temperatures…one being 150 degrees!  Needless to say, no one was in those ones.  The place was pretty empty so it was nice to be somewhat secluded.  The natural saunas were at the top in the 150 degree pools in some rock formations.  We didn’t stay there long since it was virtually impossible to breath.  Glad we decided to finish off our trip with this!