Trip date: Mar 6th to 13th
Route: Hanover – Boston – Miami – San Jose/Alajuela – Jaco – Playa Hermosa – Jaco – Alajuela – Miami – Boston – Hanover
Commentary:
Officially the winter term ended on March 11th, but we were tired of the cold and the stress of final year MBA. So we decided to head out to the warm waters, sun and sand of Costa Rica – the rich coast, in central america. Wedged between Nicaragua and Panama, Costa Rica is the first and perhaps the only country in the world that has constitutionally abolished the army. Neat huh.
The trip was nice most of the time, except for a few glitches along the way. Starting the trip, i broke off a strap on my bag and had to dump everything onto a suitcase that was large enough to allow me to dump a chess-board and assorted other games as well. Travelling to Boston on Darmouth Coach is always an easy ride and i spent the two hours watching Ghost Town – funny comedy with some british actor. Uneventful flight to Miami, but a welcome wiff of warmth and holiday mood. Sweet. Met up with the four strong indian crew of the 12 people on this trip in Miami and spent several minutes figuring out what to buy at the duty free. In the end settled on three bottles of Captain Morgan Spiced Rum, an Absolut and a Malibu. We figured that this much would be enough for the short week’s stay. We were so wrong. The hitch in this leg of the journey: American Airlines changed the gate 30 minutes before departure, while we were chilling. Luckily saw it while being cautious and re-checking the flight time and gate. Announcement came only 10 minutes later while we were scrambling for the new gate.
Landed around 9:30 PM in San Jose and reached the car rental. Adviced to not travel at night since the road is circuitious and dangerous. We checked out the price at a nearby hotel, but it would cost us $200 for a night’t stay with 5 beds in one room. Hmmm. Perhaps we can take the risk, drive slow and hit it out anyway. We are all on budget you see. Go back to the rental lady (rental formalities still on) and new piece of information. There are a lot of crime againsts tourists, so if we run into trouble, or stop to ask directions, we can be screwed. With many expensive electronics and passports (that are apparently coveted in Costa Rica) we decided that it is perhaps better to stay. The rental clerk arranged a “nice” $80 hotel. Decision made and what a decision: as we rode out in our newly rented Hyundai Tucson past the nearby casino we saw a security guard with a massive shot gun and walki-talkie! WTF! Where have we come to? No army sure, but this is central america – the highway from the jungles of Columbia to the States of America! Holy Crap. We follow the driver of the hotel van (who came to pick us up), excitedly scared as the driver leads us to increasingly run-down looking, empty streets of Alajuela (a Suburb of San Jose, location of the airport). The van says: hotel only 5 minutes from the airport, but it is two 5 minutes past the first 5 minutes that we finally reach the large gates of the hotel. Electronically operated from the inside, the gates did give us some sense of security. At 11 PM we are told that no food outlet is open, no delivery options are available and the hotel restaurant is shut. Liquid dinner time. Playing Taboo, we spent the next 4 hours consuming the first bottle of Captain Morgan.
Drive next day to Jaco. Uneventful, except that there are no reliable signboards along the way. We get lost getting out of Alejuela, but eventually find the narrow, winding highway that takes us out of the San Jose valley onto the pacific coastland. Nice, green, pleasant. We reach Jaco late in the morning, freshen up and head to the beach. The beach we stayed at is called Playa Hermosa and we lived at Hermosa Palms, a gated residential ‘hood with a proper clubhouse that rents out Bodyboards and Surfboards, and maintains a nice, lighted pool. Most of the people that we saw were perhaps american tourists renting a house like us, or the locals tending to the houses. The clubhouse led to the pool which in turn led to the beach and the pacific.
For the next five days, the routine was pretty simple. Wake up whenever the eyes open (around 9 for me), eat breakfast and go to the beach. Start consuming beer (Imperial beer is a local brand and pretty good) when ever the thirst strikes. Read, snooze, frolick in the pool, whatever. Head for lunch around 2, a smattering of international cuisine fixed by the ladies of our house: Shwets and Set; and then head back to the beach. Stay to watch the sunset, then head out to the pool. PLay around, throw water at each other, force people down, play “volleyball”, whatever untill you are tired for the day and then head back to the house around 7. Shower and dinner time. While the dinner was being prepared, i would open my little black book of Cocktails and prepare whatever i can. This usually was a fix of Caipiroska and Caiprissima – simple syrup, lime and Vodka or Rum (whichever was available). Yup, we consumed the cache of alcohol that we had brought and then some. Mind you that of the 12 people, only the five Indians and the french couple were drinking. Indians more than anyone else. The British and the Serbian do not drink, the Americans and the Peruvian were too busy taking exams. We had three “kitchens” a vegetarian one which was prepared by our British party and made for two. A “main” menu fixed by Shwet and Set and a barbeqcue made by Fran, Shaantnu and William. Dinner would invariably be followed by board games and capped with the three nerds playing Mario-Cart on Wii. Next day repeat.
We made a trip to a waterfall one day. The waterfall was well a waterfall. But it had two pools were you could dive into and dive we did. Well everyone except me and two others who had gone there. I don’t swim, so no way i am going to jump into a deep pool of water. But the other guys had fun. I had fun with the little hike getting to the waterfall and then taking pictures.
Perhaps the most tourist attraction of Costa Rica is a live volcano; we wanted to go there, but then it was a five hour drive and hte beach was too inviting. In the end we didn’t go to the bach, but rather stayed in on Wednesday to finally see a bit of the night life at a local pub. It was nice and happening, but quite obviously a pick-up joint. Still, we had some good time among ourselves. Woke up on Thursday to a minor earthquake – my only so far. It felt wierd to feel you losing your balance while being perfectly conscious of it (unlike say when you feel dizzy and are not exactly sensible), but with no experience to guide me, i only realized what it was when looking at the water in the indoor pooling lapping laterally – the way it does when say you shake a tub of water. With no harm to anything, it was nice to have experienced one. I would know earlier in the future.
On our last day we finally did some tourist things. We went on a canopy tour. This was nice, an air-tram took us up a mountain slope, though not to the peak and then we had to zip-line our way back. There were 9 ziplines in all, some of them as much as a 1000 feet across. I was scared initially, me who has hung in the air was scared of hanging from an iron cable, but then i got the hang of it and so was not that happy when we did the last zip. But back to ground, gift shopping and back to the house. Pack our bags and leave for San Jose. With the return flight at 6 AM, we figured the best option was for us to travel early in the evening to San Jose and stay overnight before catching the morning flight. We got lost a couple of times along the way, Costa Rican’s don’t seem to believe in sign-boards, even to point to their capital city. But reached we did, stayed at the same hotel we had coming in and went out for dinner.
Sleep and then wake up alarm at 3 am. Rech the rental company to return the car only to realize that it opens only at 6. We had reached at 4, after rushing around at night to find a 24 hour petrol pump to fill up the tank. Arggh. Reach the Airport, check-in, with the idea to go back around 5 (time we registered to return) and see what happens. Long queue, but check-in, come back out to find that the battery of the car died in the hour of its blinkers’ being on. Find a Jumper cable, find a security guard, park the car in the Rental company’s parking spot at the airport, drop the keys inside, lock it and leave to catch the 6 am flight.
Miami airport. Wait 2 hours at immigration! I have never waited that long at any line, even in India. But here i had to. Finally get out of immigration, collect the bags and basically run for my connecting flight. I had a 3 hour stopover, but now i barely made it back. Finally eat in Boston while waiting for the Dartmouth Coach. Reach Hanover, grab dinner and sleep.
With only a week gone, there is marked difference in the weather now. While it was freezing when i got back, the temperature has been 12 – 13 C last few days. It can’t beat the 27C of the beach, but it still is better than -28C of January. Chilling now, and trying to get the pictures onto my hard-drive. they shall be posted soon. Keep looking.
~*~
