From Panama to Costa Rica

In late October of my first year in Panama, I realized my three-month tourist visa was a few weeks away from its expiration date and made a quick decision with Francisco to spend a weekend in Costa Rica.  We opted to take the TicaBus (which follows a route from Panama to Mexico) to San Jose, Costa Rica, where we would catch a local bus to escape the capital for a more tranquil town on the Caribbean. 

The first adventure was, surprisingly enough, the TicaBus itself.  It’s about 15 hours from Panama City to San Jose, so we left just before midnight in hopes of enjoying a relaxing overnight bus ride.  We fell asleep almost immediately, but I was awoken at about 2:00 am by rain inside the bus.  I quickly realized the source of the drizzle:  a leak from the poor, overworked air conditioning unit above.  We promptly moved across the aisle, but were awoken again about two hours later for a passport check, and finally we arrived at the border at 5:30ish am to find it closed.  After waiting a full 3 hours for customs to open and clear all the passengers, we finally reboarded our leaky bus to sleep in relative peace. 

Lesson 1:  An overnight bus trip does NOT guarantee you a full night's sleep.

We arrived in the capital shortly after 1:00 pm to find a small, rather squat, and very overcast San Jose.  We quickly found our way to the closest hostel, ditched our packs, and set out to stretch our legs for a bit. 

We wandered around the city’s center, losing and finding ourselves again and again on our little city map until we happened upon Mercado Central.  Once inside we found a variety of veggies, fruits, fresh meat, and seafood.  Spying a few ceviche bars, we settled in for a treat. 

The next day we awoke at 5:45 am and prepared for the 6:30 departure for Cariari.  At 7:15, the bus finally lumbered up to the station, much to my frustration, and Francisco and I boarded with much less enthusiasm than the other Caribbean-bound passengers.  Upon listening to the radio in the middle of the ride, however, Francisco and I discovered the hour’s difference in time zones between Panama and Costa Rica.  In reality we had gotten up at 4:45 in the morning, Costa Rican time, and arrived at the terminal a full hour and fifteen minutes before the bus was scheduled to leave for Cariari. 

Lesson 2:  Always check for time zone/daylight’s savings changes. 

The most difficult part of our journey was the bus scheduling.  To go from San Jose to Tortuguero, one must take a first bus to Cariari and a second to Pavona, where a launch ferries passengers to Tortuguero, the Caribbean/turtle-protection paradise. 

To complete this leg of the trip, I had done quite a bit of research regarding bus costs and schedules and had planned everything out well in advance.  I did not, however, account for turtle eggs.  Because Tortuguero is a turtle-protection area and tourists are primarily interested in watching little turtlets waddle to the water, there are fewer buses scheduled to travel that route when turtle eggs are not in season (which, of course, they were not during our trip). 

In short, the 9:30 am bus advertised online that would take us to our next destination was not offered in the off-season, so we had to wait 3 hours for one of the two buses that were running.   

Lesson 3:  Nothing ever goes COMPLETELY as planned.

In the midst of my utter frustration, Francisco became acquainted with our future tour guide for the canoe trip we would take the following morning.  Fascinated by his knowledge of Costa Rican flora and fauna, we spent the next two hours interrogating him at a small café just a few blocks from the bus terminal (in Cariari, everything was just a few blocks from the terminal).  At one point he admitted that it wasn’t turtle-egg-laying season and that visitors were therefore prohibited from those parts of the beach, but confided that he could get us into the rain forest to observe the little dudes for a slightly higher price.  Taking the safer and more legal route, Francisco and I opted for the canoe tour and made arrangements to meet him at dawn the next morning. 

Lesson 4:  But there are ALWAYS good surprises in store.  

One of Cariari's few natural attractions

The rest of Cariari 

At 11:30 we happily boarded a bus so old and rickety that I thought the windows would rattle right out of their panes when we reached the gravel roads for Pavona. The route cut a squiggly line through the stark green countryside and took us through a number of sprawling banana farms.   Some pictures of this portion of the trip can be seen below:

The bus was really HOT!

Finally, from Pavona we embarked on our ferry to Tortuguero, a thin strip of land that is bordered by the Carbbean Sea on one side and by the Tortugero Canal on the other.  In between the two bodies of water was a small village dotted with restaurants, private residences, and hostels.  Upon arrival in our small, isolated strip of paradise, Francisco and I set out to explore and appease our appetites.  We spent the rest of the day marveling at the sea, frolicking in the sand, and exchanging friendly words in broken English with our Dutch, German, and Costa Rican counterparts. 

The next day we arrived promptly at the boat launch at 5:15 am to see what kind of wildlife Costa Rica had to offer.  We shared the canoe with two of our Dutch neighbors, a Brazilian who insisted he spoke nothing other than Portuguese (though he suspiciously understood us well enough), and, of course, our informative tour guide.  

To Be Continued...