Costa Rica - Day Zero/Day One

My parents and I booked flights to get into San Jose, Costa Rica, a day before the tour was due to start. This was a semi-hellish travel day, in that we had to fly through Chicago and Miami to get to San Jose, and we had a 6.5 hour layover in Miami. The Miami airport was a little odd to me in that it seemed to be a hub with spokes (the terminals) going outwards, and the ends of the spokes connected via rail. There was very little in the way of interesting food inside the terminal, and it wasn't much better outside security, either, but at least somewhat better. My mom and I ended up eating at the "Club Bacardi", where all the food had some Bacardi component to it (we had salads and the dressings were Bacardi), while my sister got CPK and my dad got Burger King. For dinner, we had Pizza Hut. Such healthy eating. We decided not to venture outside the airport into Miami, so much of our time was spent sitting in the food court, reviewing our itineraries and reading the Costa Rica guidebook I had on me. (Fact: Costa Rica never declared their own independence, they just kind of went along when Guatemala (I think) declared independence from Spain for all the Central American countries)

When we finally arrived in San Jose, it was pretty late. After going through customs and retrieving our bags, we found ourselves in a rather confusing swirl of activity. Because we already had Caravan tags on our bags, there was some confusion as various Caravan personnel inside and outside the airport assumed we were with them and tried to direct us to their shuttles. Caravan only provides transport to/from the airport on your tour's actual arrival/departure dates, though, and we had booked a night at a different hotel than the tour hotel anyway. I spotted the Best Western Irazu shuttle going by, though, so I quickly wove my way past the various tour personnel and people offering taxis, and made my way to the shuttle, only to discover that since they were the last shuttle of the day, they were going to wait around for a while to make sure they got everyone so the running was unnecessary.

When we arrived at the hotel, we were greeted by the sounds of "My Heart Will Go On," courtesy the open-air karaoke bar located right at the entrance of the hotel. The singer wasn't terrible, but it was rather amusing. The Best Western itself was an ok hotel. The shared areas - the pool, the lobby, etc - were all fairly nice, and they had a business center with free internet. The room itself was mediocre - a little run-down, hardish beds (fairly typical for Costa Rica), a sink that spurt water everywhere, and a shower that took a while to warm up. Exhausted from all the travel, we quickly went to bed, though I was kept up by the sounds of the A/C, my dad snoring, everyone breathing... I'm not a good sleeper and the first night in a strange place rarely is a good night of sleep for me.

The next morning, we were called by my bf, who had flown on the red-eye from SF and just arrived in San Jose in the early morning. I had figured out from the limited maps provided on the Best Western and Barcelo Palacio websites that the hotels were on the same road and probably relatively close, but I had no idea how close. It turned out that the hotels were just down the street from each other, literally one exit away on the highway but a rather dangerous walk on streets with no sidewalks and deep gutters, crossing highway entrance/exit ramps. My bf walked over from the Barcelo Palacio but then we took cabs after that. My mom really wanted to explore the Best Western, and try out a restaurant across the street that had gotten good reviews, but my bf wanted to shower (the rooms weren't ready when he'd arrived that morning) so he and I ended up taking a couple trips back and forth. The hotel had included free breakfast in the attached Denny's with the room - fairly limited small menus - so my bf ate there as well. That Denny's was quite overpriced, with most of the items $8 US or higher. There actually were Denny's attached to several of the hotels I saw. Welcome to Costa Rica - it's just like the US!

The Best Western itself was, like I said, fairly nice but not incredibly fascinating. We sat by the pool some (the pool itself was quite cold), we went on the Internet so I could try to get info on some ziplining tours, and we visited the gift shop where we discovered that Costa Rican gift shops had two things I quite like - chocolate covered fruits (there were samples) and pretty wood products. At the time, I resisted buying anything, quite convinced that we'd find better and cheaper stuff elsewhere, but my mom started her souvenir buying right then and there. Eventually, lunch time rolled around (though I think this was actually before the gift shop visit) and we trotted across the street to "La Gallera," a cute restaurant with a strong rooster theme. Roosters on the placemats and coasters, roosters of various designs in the artwork and on a series of plates on one wall. The menu looked really interesting so we happily went to town, ordering two different ceviches (one a Peruvian, I think, style one which was more traditional - sea bass with a strong lemon flavoring, and one a Coconut one - I forget all the components in it, but my bf loved that one), a couple juices (my pineapple was good, my bf liked his strawberry much better than his blackberry), a soup (I didn't try it), and split 3 entrees among the 5 of us. My bf and I got a plantain-stuffed pork (didn't see the stuffing but it was still pretty yummy), my sister and mom split a beef tenderloin with a coffee/pineapple sauce (fairly interesting), and my dad got a Cuban sandwich with great fries. It was a bit of an indulgence but given that all meals were included on the tour, our only opportunity to try a restaurant on our own. It was quite good!

Eventually we made our way to our tour hotel, the Barcelo Palacio just down the street. My mom was forced to concede that the Barcelo was a lot nicer and more interesting than the Best Western. We met the tour director, Sergio, who showed us the restaurant where we'd be having dinner, told us about our 8pm briefing, hooked us up with our rooms, and told us where everything was in the hotel. The Barcelo is quite a nice hotel - the rooms are beautiful, with dark wood built-in cabinets, nice bathrooms, and nice bedding with a choice of pillows of various softness. The beds themselves were sometimes really comfy and sometimes not, because they were hard mattresses with a layer of down comforter or something laid on top (under the sheet) so they seemed soft but you had to find the right spot on the padding or it wouldn't be very comfortable. The bathrooms had a basket of every travel accessory imaginable - sewing kit, dental kit, "vanity kit" (q-tips and makeup pads), shoe horn, lotion, conditioner, soap... The grounds of the hotel had a smallish garden with a path through it where my mom and I spent quite some time trying to locate a parrot we could clearly hear but never could spot, and a nice pool area with a cute little island and bridge in it, and a nice poolside bar/snack bar. It also had a small casino we never used, a couple restaurants, a lounge where they played music at night, etc. Our room those first two nights had a king bed and a walk-out deck area (only available on the first floor) that overlooked the garden. My sister, dad, and bf all decided to take naps, leaving my mom and I to wander around the property. We had dinner, buffet-style, in one of the hotel restaurants. The place was huge and there were a ton of choices, and a huge dessert spread, including a chocolate fountain and fruits to dip in it. After being initially impressed by the variety of choice, we ended up being a bit let down by the food - wasn't as good as it seemed it should be, the desserts weren't that interesting, and the chocolate fountain turned out to have a magic-shell like substance (plus we saw it in between meals and they just kept recycling the old chocolate, which lay stagnant in between meals). Don't get me wrong, it wasn't *bad*, it just looked more impressive than it was. The hotel did themed nights for their food, so it was (I think) Spanish night.

After dinner we had a briefing where we got to meet our tour group - 44 people with rather more young people than I expected to see. Our tour guide proved very personable and quite funny, and he walked us through the important points of what we needed to know about the upcoming tour, and what our schedule was going to be like. He went out of his way to inform us that the proper way to respond to "Como estas" in Costa Rica was "Pura Vida" (pure life), which apparently is a common saying and general philosophy in Costa Rica. He got us all trained to use it after a while, and it is true that it was on all the shirts and we occasionally did hear people using it. Since we had a fairly early start the next morning (he kept bumping the times up so we'd beat other groups - there was another Caravan group running in parallel with us, which wasn't typical, and at some of the locations, we were trying to beat big cruise groups), everyone dispersed fairly quickly after the briefing and no one really stopped to introduce themselves. Time for bed!