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LAX to San Jose, Costa Rica-The Adventure Begins

As often happens on our foreign travels, I am always relieved when I shakily climb out of the car or shuttle, and actually set foot on the curb of Los Angeles International Airport. This is because the most dangerous part of the trip, navigating the treacherous freeways that dissect Southern California and which become supremely tangled in L.A., is comparable to the carnage seen at the chariot races in ancient Rome. Indeed, the only difference I think is the available horsepower and longer pants. Still, surviving the trip to the airport is all part of the fun and prepares us for anything and everything from that point on. This trip saw me doubly confident as it was my father in law who actually drove us…you would probably recognize him as the guy in the Lexus SUV who makes his own driving rules (wait, isn’t that everyone who owns a Lexus SUV?) Enough said. We caught our red-eye flight to San Jose International Airport in Costa Rica and arrived without further incident or sleep.

Arriving from the ocean in the early morning is a great way to experience the overwhelming green ruggedness of Costa Rica. Near the mountains and at an elevation of nearly 4,000 feet, San Jose was veiled by a thin mist that partially hid the patchwork of corrugated tin roofs and added to its allure as we descended to the runway. We left the airport and made our way to our rental car via taxi. We were a little disoriented and the rush hour traffic was gaining volume as we snaked in and out of lanes full of cars and motorcycles. Robyn had booked a small 4-wheel drive jeep online for a good deal, but we had to arrange insurance when we got there. There is, we found out, a mandatory $1,000 fee for less than basic coverage in Costa Rica (the same as many latin American countries as we later found out). The rental guys seemed sincere when they told us that it really wasn’t worth the money as we would basically be covered for nothing more than spilling coffee on the upholstery. In the case of an actual accident, we would be entirely liable for all mechanical and medical coverage for ourselves and the other party. Of course this was terrifying for us as we were on a very tight budget as it was. The actual cost of adequate insurance would be $1400. A GPS would be thrown in free of charge. I looked up this information online, and found out that it was accurate and that travelers are encouraged to pay and thus drive with more security. We paid and drove off on our adventure. The moment we pulled into traffic in our little white jeep we came to affectionately name “Raul,” I knew that we’d made the right decision. Not only are the roads in Costa Rica not in the best of shape (even if paved), the drivers are all like my father in law (gulp). In addition, there is a quite high crime rate in Costa Rica and we would be heading way off the beaten path far from police, hospitals, and paved roads quite often. Any security is immediately valuable and welcome.

I drove carefully bathed in sweat trusting our GPS which we compared to a road map from the rental agency for accuracy. We wound our way through narrow streets comprised of lots of low one or two-story buildings with colorful if faded and peeling concrete walls, bars on the windows, and capped with rusting tin roofs. We saw small houses arranged like compounds surrounded by walls, bars, and barbed wire. The people bustled around as they do in any city, and my eye started to decipher the Spanish road and store signs. We made one turn at a large intersection (thankfully, I didn’t stall Raul’s engine with my rusty stick-shift driving skills) passed a large bus and went around a horse and cart, and…Voila: the mountains climbed ahead of us dark, green, and draped in vaporous mists of lightly falling rain. Banana trees and brightly blossomed plants replaced telegraph poles and we instantly felt like we were in the real Costa Rica, home of great coffee and riotous parrots.

Our radio pulsed out very mellow songs from the 80’s and 90’s interspersed with some lively pop songs from the same era. Every so often our thoughtful little GPS friend would send out a “dangerous bridge ahead” warning which we initially interpreted as some kind of rickety rope or log bridge propped above a swirling river of death. However, we soon learned that the danger was not so much because the bridge was narrow and usually placed at the bottom of a narrow ravine where the rivers were sometimes swollen by the rains (it was), but that the danger came from people hurtling along seemingly without a care, or with their eyes closed like me. It truly felt like we were in Jurassic Park as the buildings disappeared and the jungle closed in. Very cool!