Saturday Aug 5
Left Miami (FLL) in the morning, arrived in San Jose 3 hours later.
Airport was slightly chaotic- passport control was busy but we moved on through, everyone had to pass their luggage through a security check scanning for banned agricultural items (seeds, plants). Upon exiting the airport we were immediately surrounded and accosted by people offering taxi services. Finally we found where to go for the bus. We were too late for the noon one, so we had to wait for the 2pm one.
We took the TIG bus to Santa Cruz, 11 dollars each. Bus was a comfortable charter style bus with working a/c and large windows. The drive was scenic: lush greenery, jungle, hills, mountains, tropical plants and forests, farmland, cows, horses, rivers..
Halfway we stopped at a bus rest stop for 20 minutes. There was a clean, spacious restaurant serving homestyle food (stewed meats, beans, rice, veggies, plantains) and a sort of private zoo/animal sanctuary with a mini horse, goats, turkeys, different colors of peacocks, chickens of all colors, shapes and sizes, and other birds. At this stop, we discovered the Dos Pinones Aloe Vera Light drink. Yum!
Back on the bus. The sun started to set around 6pm which surprised me, having just come from summertime in Florida where the sun goes down around 8/8:30pm. Later, a quick internet search revealed that the sun consistently sets around 6pm year-round. In the quickening darkness, it hit me how far away we still were from our airbnb.
Finally we got to Santa Cruz which is a nothing little town. Not charming at all. The options are few and limited to fast food. The town is dark, very few lights and so everything looks run down. Maybe it looks better in the daylight but at night it was not a welcome sight. Maybe it was just the part of town we were in, but I was surprised to see hardly anyone out and about on a Saturday night. We were unable to quickly find somewhere suitable to eat so we sat at the well lit bus terminal where other people were waiting. Unable to find an Uber or official taxi, we decided to trust a local guy who had been talking to us about where we were headed.
Originally I did not want to go with this person, but we were unable to find any other taxi option. I saw he was friends with the bus depot security guard so that made me lower my guard a bit. We followed him to a nearby lot and got into his car (family SUV) and drove off to Junquillal. He had a child’s seat in the back so that also made me trust him. While driving, he talked about and showed us picture and videos of his family. He has 4 daughters, he owns an elementary school that has 7 students. He works multiple jobs, pirate taxi being one of them. He told us never to trust a pirate taxi in San Jose or bigger cities, but in this area the pirate taxis are much cheaper than the normal ones.
After about 30 minutes we arrived to our Airbnb in Junquillal. There was nothing around but other houses/properties. We got in without a problem.
After unwinding a bit, we decide to go out for a walk, maybe to see the leatherback turtles, maybe to get a bite to eat. After all, it was only 9pm on a Saturday night and this was our first night in Costa Rica! I was determined to do have done something today other than travel through the countryside on a bus.
The walk was not at all relaxing or enjoyable. It was pitch black with little streetlight. We were hyper aware that there were unknown animals all around us.. There weren’t any people around. We used our phone lights to watch out for potholes, crabs, and large centipedes.
After walking past some nice houses and others that were a bit rundown with plenty of dogs barking outside, we almost made it to the beach. We could hear the menacing, crashing ocean waves, but at night with only our phone lights we were unsuccessful in finding a foot path to the beach. So we turned around and headed back to our Airbnb. The black sky was studded with bright, twinkling stars. It was a clear night and we could see an arm of the Milky Way.