We finally left Bocas after 2.5 weeks of diving, Spanish school, some surfing and eating awesome $3 lunches at Chitre every day. Bit sad to leave but we had to press on...
We’d organised a “shuttle” (several different minivans and boats) to get ourselves to the border and on to Puerto Viejo, on the Caribbean side of Costa Rica. Pretty interesting drive past all the banana plantations and a cool border crossing (see pic). Not so cool was waiting for 1.5 hours at the Costa Rica side of the border crossing for no apparent reason. Painfully slow and absolutely nothing you can do about it. Jack pointed out my bogan singlet probably wasn’t the most appropriate attire for a border crossing (and probably should have shaved first) but no problems apart from the long wait.
Eventually made it to Puerto Viejo which is almost the Costa Rica version of Bocas, no islands but a relaxed town on the beach. We didn’t fancy it quite as much as some people and there wasn’t much surf so decided to just stay the night and press on to the Pacific.
Next day, another pretty interesting bus ride to San Jose, along the coast and then up through the mountains. Amazing to feel cool air for a change! Quite nice views as we weaved up way up the mountain roads but it all went downhill once we got to San Jose. Apart from the novelty value of the super-pimped Hyundai taxi to the other bus station (they love to pimp their rides here) San Jose was awful. The bus station was quite sketchy and all the shopkeepers were telling us to watch our bags, etc. Couldn’t get out of there fast enough!
Luckily we didn’t have to wait long for the connecting bus to Jaco (another crap hole but that’s another story) and we were off. Slightly less interesting drive but something new anyway and only took a few hours. We got off in Jaco and flagged down a taxi to get ourselves to Playa Hermosa. So glad we brought the soft roof racks for our surfboards. After all the 4x4 pickup taxis in Panama we thought we were carrying dead weight but used the racks twice in the first day in Costa!
