9: Two Tickets to Paradise

What goes up, most come down.  This is both the case with the flight we booked (thankfully) as well as the price we paid for it (even more thankful).  For a little over $300 each, Paul and I were booked on a non-stop United flight from EWR (which somehow stands for Newark Liberty Airport) to SJO (San Jose's Santa Maria International Aeropuerto).  Outside of booking our rental car, lodging and figuring out how I would get my phone to work, we really didn't plan much to do while we were down there.  Remember.  This was a research trip.  Not a vacation.  Had it been a vacation, the wives and families would probably have tagged along. Needless to say, our lodging needs would probably have been a bit more extravagant.

It was late November when we landed, so I was pretty warm in my athletic pants, but not so warm that I was uncomfortable.  It was below freezing when we left NJ, so I needed to compromise between between being too cold in Jersey verses melting down by the equator.  Both of us didn't check bags for this trip and instead opted for a roll-away and a backpack each.  Did I mention that we're cheap?  Had we taken along coats and sweaters, there was no way we would have fit eight days worth of outfit changes.  My Adidas three stripe were ideal.  Well, the flight was uneventful besides Paul's non-stop chatter for five straight hours and the trip was made even more interesting by the fact that Paul hadn't flown since pre-911 days.  He was a mess in security.  But we eventually did get through.  Rookie!

Customs in CR was extremely expedient.  They asked the usual, "Where are you going/staying/what are you smuggling in, questions."  After that, all bags went through a scanner to make sure you weren't sneaking any food, bugs, animals or washed-up hip-hop artists in to the country.  The whole process took about ten minutes from landing to out the exit.  We had read that the ideal place to exchange money was at the Bank of America upstairs which was also near a Kolbi, where I planned to purchase the standard $20 sim card which would magically make my unlocked iPhone work in paradise.  Well there was only one door to exit and it was surrounded by all means of transportation providers.  At this point, it was getting kind of late (9:30pm)  and we figured we could make it on American dollars and credit cards without the telephone working for one night.

We were picked up immediately by the Alamo rental shuttle and had a quick and comfortable ride over to the rental facility.  The driver was very courteous and everything went quite smoothly.  Once at the rental car counter, we were offered some complimentary bottled water (which was sweet) and had absolutely no issue getting the exact car we wanted at the exact price that we reserved it at.  There was almost no up-sell whatsoever.  We even came prepared with our LDW waiver (as I was told to do by another wise CR blogger) and we were offered automatic transmission for free if we wanted it, to which Paul would have no such thing.  Preposterous for them to even suggest it I think he said.  Our price was phenomenal and the rental agent even recognized it as a great deal, but he had no issue putting it through.  Our Suzuki Grand Vitarra was nearly brand new and made Paul very happy.

Moments later, we were in the car and headed to our hotel and to our surprise, the Waze app worked for the most part.  It appears GPS works as long as you donwload the maps where there was wifi (which we did in customs).  Of course, if you were not in wifi when you searched an address, the likelihood of Waze finding it was pretty slim.  We were told driving at night could be pretty hairy, but we did not find this to be the case at all.  Although, we did see a lot of people run stop signs and blow through red lights.  The road signage was actually pretty good in San Jose and we were at Casa Lima B&B in minutes.  We couldn't wait to see what a dump $54/night lodging would be like (including breakfast).  And in case you were wondering, the only time I had to speak a little Spanish was in exchanging pleasantries with the shuttle driver.  Additionally, SJO airport was one of the most modern, clean and efficient airports that I've ever used.  Especially in Latin America.  Let the research continue!