The Journey and a Brief Stopover

Friday.

My daily surf spot in Montezuma...as hot as it is bright.

It is hot as blazes and my shoulders are sore as hell from paddling a surfboard the last few days.  Today, I’m taking the day off from the Sun and watching day one of the Euros.  Russia and Czech Republic are playing now and Russia has looked impressive.  Later, the US team's first World Cup qualifying match will be on.  In short, it doesn’t look like I’ll be surfing today.  What I will be doing this afternoon between games is talking a little about the journey to Arenal, how and why I booked everything, and how it worked out.

The last few trips I’ve booked were through Cheapoair.  Through my searching for the best fair I had the idea to check Chicago, which is a six hour bus ride from St Louis.  It proved to be much cheaper (nearly $300) to fly from Chicago, so I booked at flight leaving Tuesday, May 15^th leaving at 5:30am and arriving in San Jose at 9:23am.  I reserved a Megabus ticket to Chicago that would get me to Union Station at 9:40pm and I would take the El from there to the airport, where I’d have about four hours to kill before check-in.  It seems long, but I’ve done much worse and didn’t think it was too bad.  Besides, the Megabus is nice and it only cost $11 to get to Chicago from St Louis.

What I didn’t initially notice was that the airline I booked was Spirit, which I had no real knowledge of.  Then I read some horror story reviews and found out they charge for bags and every other little extra, like boarding passes.  I was a little apprehensive about the whole deal so I went to their web site and saw that they do charge for bags, and food, and boarding passes.  However, you can print your own for free 24 hours before the flight and you can also pay for your luggage for significantly less than the counter.  It ended up costing an extra $34 to check a bag, but I still came out well ahead price wise.  Overall the service was decent  and I have no real complaints.  I like their concession system, which I would take on any domestic flight.  The prices were more reasonable than what you’d expect for snacks, beverages, beers, mixed drinks, etc.  Not to sound like Iike I’m promoting Spirit, but I was curious as to how it would work out and it didn’t piss me off, arrive late, or leave me hungry, which is a plus.

Lauderdale is overrated.

There was a brief stopover in Fort Lauderdale.  I had just enough time to meet a beautiful nice girl right away, get swept away in a wave of partying, beaches, bikinis, and gaining the confidence to finally ask the really hot girl out, the one that I had been overlooking the nice girl for the whole time in a misguided quest to lose my virginity.  Along the way there is a crazy drug dealer on the beach in a VW van where I get stoned for the first time and then it falls apart into a side series of whacky misadventures which leads to me winning a random belly flop contest that I somehow stumbled into .

  Later that evening things  settled down and there was a mellow bonfire party on the beach where the really hot girl, impressed by the belly flop contest trophy, kept eyeing me from across the fire.  The nice girl told me to make my move if that’s what I really wanted and I went over to the really hot girl and asked her to take a walk.  As we walked, I realized she wasn’t as interesting as the nice girl, nor did she make me laugh the same way.   Yet, she was very hot and we kissed.  As we kissed I kept thinking of the nice girl and told the really hot girl to stop, and she wasn’t very nice about it.

Bizarre love triangle

I ran back to the fire and the nice girl was nowhere to be seen.  Her friend, who hadn’t been seen or introduced before, yet was somehow conveniently there and we knew each other, told me the nice girl was going back to the farm.  I furiously ran toward her hotel and found the maid cleaning out her room.   I ran outside and saw the crazy drug dealer who was on the run from a shady deal and had to catch a plane.  We hopped on random, yet available moped and raced to the airport only for me to get there and see her plane flying away.  Dejected, I walked toward the other terminal to fly away from Fort Lauderdale forever, a victim of a cruel cupid plot.  However, after I checked in I saw the nice girl waiting for me and I wanted to tell her everything I felt, and she put her finger to my lips and said,  “Shhhh, you don’t have to tell me anything.”  We shared a passionate long kiss to some 80’s generic spring break song with a saxophone.  Then I told her I’d be back, got on the plane and made my way to San Jose.   Not the most eventful stopover, but there are worse ways to kill an hour and twenty minutes.

The plane wasn’t late.  I arrived in San Jose right on time and had a driver with a sign with my name written on it.  Let me say that I always love getting off a plane, walking out of the airport, and seeing a sign with my name on it.  The driver was friendly and spoke conversational English, which would not be a rare occurrence on this trip; especially through ACR.  It would be about a three hour drive to La Fortuna, where I would be staying at the base of mighty Arenal.  As we drove away from the airport, my first impression was how much the country reminded me of Philippines, topographically.

Roadside scenery

At first glance it was apparent that Costa Rica is a more together and cleaner country.  After all, how would you effectively govern all of those islands?

The highway to Arenal was paved, mostly two way, and very windy.  (Just to be clear:  w-eye-n-dy)  We stopped midway for a much needed bite to eat.  It was here that I had my first experience with casado, which I instantly took a serious liking to.  There will be much more on casado later. 
After eating we continued the scenic drive until we arrived at the Arenal Rossi Hotel.  I arrived around 2:30 and spent most of the day relaxing and recovering from the long trip.  The next day would be difficult and I wanted to be ready.  I would hit the ground running on a rappelling and white water rafting tour, which would begin at 7:15am. 

Tomorrow I will talk about Arenal and the very, very fabulous tour.  For now, it’s getting close to game time.  Go USA!