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.
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