In my last post, I have already mentioned that I had spent my last weekend in DR in Las Terrenas. The beaches there are beautiful, just avoid Playa Punto Popy on weekends, especially Sunday afternoon as it is getting extremely crowded. I went there Sunday morning, fell asleep and when I woke up I was surrounded and each group had their music running. So, I started to look for a quieter place.
If you decide to travel by public transport, it is best to go with a light backbag. The bus stop is ca. 3km away from the beach, and the only taxis are motorconchos. I was honestly too lazy to walk, so I took a motorconcho with all my luggage. The driver took my small backbag in front of him, and I had my 20kg backbag on my back (that is too much luggage, I know. I am so happy when I am in El Salvador to get rid of the stuff I need for my volunteer work, just 1 month more and then I am anyhow Hulk :-P) . 3km does not sound that far, but it was for me. Having so many kilos on my back, it cost me lots of strength not to fall backwards from the motorcycle, especially when we were going over one of the thousand speed pumps. That is also when I decided that I will walk back to the bus station and not to retake a motorconcho.
Tuesday was my travel day – from Santo Domingo to Panama and finally to San Jose. Funnily, that was the cheapest flight to the mainland. Just flying to Panama would have been twice the price…
I read before, that Uber is available in San José, but that there are lots of problems with it. Uber had been illegal for some time, according to the law it still is, but since a couple of months Uber is paying taxes as every legal company does, while illegal companies usually do not pay taxes. So I am not sure what that means from a legal perspective. What is a fact, is that some Uber drivers and Uber Eat drivers have been beaten up in the streets by taxi drivers….
Letˋs come back to the airport: As always when you get out of the airport, there are lots of taxi drivers offering their services. I wanted to walk passed them, when suddenly one of the taxi drivers. got in my way and started screaming at me at a very aggressive tone „Uber is illegal“. If someone yells at me, I will definitely not get in a car with this person, so I walked around him and looked for a friendly driver.
I spent one day in San José. Half a day is sufficient to see the interesting spots. I went to the park La Sabana, took a walk through the central market and the pedestrian street to the national museum. The national museum is excellent. It shows the whole history of Costa Rica until today; it talks about issues like women in the workplace, illiteracy and health care. Subjects other countries avoid talking about. The exhibition is both in Spanish and English. When I was there, there had a special exhibition by the medical university – the history of medicine from a global and Costa Rican perspective. Worth seeing.
The public bus system is again a little bit complicated as there is no central bus station. However, many companies have a stop at the rather new bus terminal 7-10. So, I took an Uber to get to the terminal. I prefer Uber due to the safety aspect. I am travelling alone. When I use Uber, it is recorded with whom I was and which way we went. So, if something happened to me, it could be tracked down much easier, then when I took a random taxi without any record of the driver’s name or plate number. So, I would use Uber also if the price was equal to a regular cab. Anyhow, my Uber driver first appeared to be nice – we spoke first about the issues of Uber in CR and that I still prefer Uber due to the safety aspect, then about lovely places in Latin America everyone should have seen – and suddenly out of nowhere he said „Eres bonita“ – you are beautiful – and started asking me questions about my marital status and whether I want to have a Costa Rican boyfriend or an Uber boyfriend, who can drive me everywhere in Costa Rica and so on. Why can we not live a world where women are treated with respect and not brought into uncomfortable situations all the time? I got to know the driver using UBER – not Tinder. I was just glad that we were at the terminal very quickly as he made me feel uncomfortable with his “I wanna be your boyfriend” statements. Sitting in a car with someone, I always try to respond nicely, like „No, thanks“ to avoid an escalation, but some people just seem to understand a no, when you become extremely unfriendly.
La Fortuna – El Arenal: Volcans and pure nature and la pura vida
Thanks to my friend Marina, I had already an idea what to do in Costa Rica without even screening through the internet. So I went from San José to La Fortuna, the village in the area of the volcano El Arenal. This city is full of hostels and restaurants. The more expensive resorts are located a little bit outside the city and usually offer private access to thermal rivers / natural pools. The hostel I am staying at has a shuttle service to the freely accessible thermal river. Once I was in the warm water with a tiny waterfall behind me, massaging my back, I forgot everything around me.
In this area, you can do lots of tours by yourself, or you go with an agencies. From hiking, zip lining, birdwatching, rafting– you can find almost everything here. I went hiking first to a view point on the volcano – that is the highest you are allowed to go given that the volcano is still active and eruptions are very hard to predict. Until 1968 people thought it is a usual mountain, until it suddenly errupted in the early morning hours. The village La Fortuna was not hit and therefore the name was changed to „La Fortuna“. In the afternoon, I then went to the volcano observatory, again with a good view towards the Volcano (unfortunately the top was hidden behind clouds) and took another walk through the jungle seeing lots of birds, frogs and waterfalls. To relax after the hiking, I again went to the hot thermal river.
My next stop is Monteverde. There are some ways to go from La Fortuna to Monteverde. From taking public buses – the emphasise is on buses given that you have to change several times – private transport by „jeep-boat-jeep“ or you hike. When I saw the advertisement for the hiking, I wanted to do this; the pictures are fantastic. I am not the most sportive person in the world and I am not sure, how challenging the hike is. I asked the guys in my hostel and they told me, that this hike is only for people in an excellent shape as it is very steep- so nothing for me. My experience is that words like challenging and steep are very subjective and – not sure whether that is the case in Costa Rica – but often people tend to give you an answer – even if they have no idea. To double check I asked the tour operator. Not sure, whether they just wanted to sell the trip to me or not, but according to them even people with knee problems and arthritis would do the tour. Sounds a little bit exaggerated,but ok. I finally decided to do the 2-day tour, including a night in a cabin in the middle of the forest, because I love nature and I do not want to miss out the experience of being away from the mass tourism. I might hate myself during the hike or even afterwards, but letˋs see 🙂
I heard the term „Pura Vida“ before in connection with Costa Rica. What I did not know, is that the people are using it as a greeting. When saying goodbye to someone, they will usually respond „Pura Vida“ – which stands for the way of living – be happy and thankful to be alive, enjoy life and take the things as they come without letting them ruin your day. I have to start living „Pura Vida“ 😊
Wanderlust 