Home again

As I said previously, we’re not beach people so the one day in Quepos was enough for our “Taste of Costa Rica” tour. We went back to the city park and took a few more pictures (see previous post) and were on our way to San Jose by 11am. Since our flight left San Jose at 7:40am Saturday morning, we planned to turn our rental car in and spend our last night in an airport hotel. The Holiday Inn Express in this case. (Ken had made reservations on our previous ill-fated pass through San Jose.)

Our trip in was pretty uneventful – good paved roads, signage, and a non-obscure destination (the airport). Until the very end. We were heading east on CN-27 (the orange line at the lower left below) and needed to go north to link up with CA-1 (the magenta line below) which goes past the airport. Unless we wished to go into San Jose and come back out on CA-1. Not on your life.

So we dutifully followed the GPS to it’s first wrong connection to CA-1 – the first green spur below. We sorta figured it was wrong since all the traffic was staying on the main road, but what the hey. Sure enough, after some very bumpy dirt road we got to a place where there had once been access to CA-1. But now there was a big pile of dirt blocking it. If we were desperate and nuts enough, we could have gotten around it, but why bother, we had all afternoon and it was only 12:30. So we turned around and rejoined the main road.

As we drove along, we saw signs to the “aeropuerto” and were reassured even though the GPS was squawking at us to turn back and go the way we had just tried. That is, we were going fine until we missed a turn – saw the sign too late. We could have turned around but were in an exploring mood so just decided to follow the GPS again (it had a new route by this time). So we crossed over CA-1 heading north and followed another spur to a dead end. Then we turned around and followed another one we were sure wouldn’t connect (obstinacy is wonderful) and it dead ended, too.

By this time we were tired of the game and just decided to go toward Alajuela and take another main road out. So that’s what we did. The green line below shows our track from CN-27 to the hotel.

We arrived at the hotel a bit before 1pm – too early to check in – so we went over to the nearby Denny’s for a late lunch. An expensive late lunch. But what do you expect for a restaurant in an enclave of airport hotels?

The final chores of the day were to gas up the car and return it. Done. And with no notice paid to the dent in the passenger side door!!! Then shower and repack our bags to airline mode and take advantage of the hotel service to pay our exit taxes there. They charged $6 each for the service but it meant one less airport line tomorrow morning. Finally some pizza and beer for supper and an early night.

The following morning we were up at 5am and arrived at the airport by 5:40 – the recommended 2 hours ahead of time. And, as it turns out, far earlier than we needed to be there. The exit tax line was long – but we didn’t need to go through it. And the lines to check the bag and go through security were short. So lots of waiting time. Ken said he’s going to have to teach me about getting to the airport “just in time”. Hah!!

The flight back to Phoenix was uneventful but, since the car keys were in Ken’s stolen computer bag, we needed to take a taxi back to his house. Then pick up the spare keys and drive the truck back to the airport to pick up his car. Finally, the trip was over.

We had some bad times, but all-in-all, I would rate our Costa Rican trip as very good and I would be willing to do it again. But there is also so much more of the world to see that I don’t know when that would be.

Have fun and go see for yourselves.