Flights to San Jose, Costa Rica

Overall, we were fortunate in all our hours of flight.  Our flights to and from San Jose, Costa Rica were all on time, and pretty uneventful, with some of the best movie selections to watch in flight.

We wanted to get into San Jose while there was still light to pick up a rental car and drive to our lodging.  So, we departed Phoenix at about 11 p.m. and arrived in Ft. Lauderdale about 5 a.m.  There we had a pretty long layover, maybe 4 hours…

On the way back, we departed San Jose at 8 a.m. and flew into Los Angeles, LAX, short layover, and on to a very warm and dry Phoenix, about 4, 5 p.m.

With the early flight out and stories of traffic trying to get to the airport in the same day, we made sure we were in San Jose the day before.  That made it good to just relax after a pretty intense 3, mas o menos (good huh), hour drive from La Fortuna and then relax with an Imperial cerveza, wine and good cosada dinners at one of the local sodas.

The aerial map above shows the airport in the top right corner with the blue dot, and the lower blue dot shows where we stayed, actually both times.  I know it’s difficult to get a feel for distance and the size of San Jose, but it was about a 20 minute drive, to and from the airport, regardless of which way we went.

The next day we explored San Jose, picked up some groceries and supplies that we didn’t want to bring in the luggage.  We were also able to compare U.S. prices to Costa Rica prices which was a big part of our going to Costa Rica.  We may get into writing on those comparisons in another blog.  In short though, nothing exciting to write home about and have everyone move down.

We enjoyed our day, exploring, trying foods, learning a whole new way of driving…as in learning their driving “guidelines” vs. rules and laws.  And, the weather was fantastic.  The rains subsided and we had a sunny day of some 80 degrees instead of the standard 110+ in Phoenix, Arizona in August.

Which way to Playas del Coco…

Heading west out of San Jose to explore the Pacific Ocean side of Costa Rica provided us with 3 good options.  We stuck with Google Maps pick of Hwy 1 which was a beautiful, scenic drive.  Of course, that equates to not getting anywhere fast.  While Hwy’s 3 and 27 are more highway like there are still plenty of one lane travel each way with plenty of commercial trucking traffic.

The photo above is a pretty typical stretch of Hwy 1 north of Barranca.  The condition of the roads are very good, well paved, smooth, but not much for bicycles, pedestrians, no lights making for dark roads at night…which is cool, for those star studded nights.  This shot of traffic is pretty typical as well, with commercial trucks and lines of vehicles awaiting the next passing lanes or the next suicide passing try, regardless of a double yellow or not.  This was probably a 80 km/hr stretch, the highest posted speeds, basically 50 miles per hour.  The vegetation can be like walls of trees, shrubs, grasses, with tree canopies stretching well over the roadway.