Couchsurfing Costa Rica

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The journey to San Jose was a rather long and boring affair consisting of badly dubbed movies played too loud, overly cold air conditioning (something that was becoming rather normal now) and another strange border town. Sarah wasn´t quite 100% either so her journey was even worse than mine!

We crossed into Costa Rica without problem but with plenty of useless delay...an arbitrary bag search consisting of digging the bags out of the coach, hauling them across to the customs table, waiting around for half an hour for a not very offical looking chap to come and look at 10 partially opened bags before saying all was fine and we could get back on.

As was the norm for border crossings you have 2 stops - the exit part of Nicaragua and the entry part of Costa Rica...Waiting around for our passports to be stamped on the Costa Rican side took another hour and a half (which was not the best for a sickly Sarah I can assure you) However, it did allow me to take the time in the duty free to buy copious amounts of Flor de Cana...the best Rum in the world!

Back on the bus and another inordinate amount of time spent whiling away the hours saw us pulling into San Jose bus terminal 2 or 3 hours later than expected. We called our Couchsurfing host for directions whilst profusely apologising for the state of the busses in Central America.

Arriving at Matt´s place was no easy feat...San Jose does not have road names of any kind and thus no house or place has an address...Taxi drivers know destinations by landmarks, some of which aren´t even there any more, like the coca-cola factory that was shut down 10 years ago or the ´big tree´, a fig tree that was cut down years ago as well! So, the directions to Matt´s went something like this...Find the Super tienda, then go North for 500m until you find another tienda, then take a right at the park and head West for 200m then the second left and its a yellow building on your right (not technically accurate but you get the picture). Safe to say we were driving in circles for quite a while trying to communicate in broken Spanish with a very helpful and enthusiastic taxi driver. We ended up starting from a known position a couple of times before we found it.

Arriving at Matt´s was like arriving at an old friends house (apart from we had never met the guy)...he had food on the go, a bottle of wine ready to be un-corked (the first decent wine since leaving home) and a lovely bed with real sheets and fresh towels...and the jewel in the crown - HOT WATER! The first time in a long time! Regardless of air temperature, a hot shower is a luxury that is greatly appreciated wherever you find it - you never feel quite clean showering in cold water.

Matt was amazing - he had lived abroad for 14 years teaching English Literature and travelling the world living in the most amazing places along the way. We got on so well and we were lucky to stay with him - he wouldn´t have accepted us (having no prior references) however, on request to him we mentioned our hometown of Stamford where his best friend just so happened to live, and he decided to give us a chance! We were so grateful he did. We were so graciously accepted into his house and were made to feel completely at ease. So much so that we decided to stay another night when invited. When Matt headed off for work in the morning he let us lay in which was another great show of his trust and hospitality! He returned from work to take us to a theme park...yes - the only thing that we did in Costa Rica was go to a theme park. However, it was great fun as there were no other gringos there apart from us - the benefit of local knowledge!

We cooked dinner that night and had another great night chatting, drinking and sharing travel experiences - matt had done it all - all the more inspiring for travelling in the future! He was a source of great knowledge and it was humbling that a near complete stranger could open his door and his home to us like he did. It restored a bit of faith for me in the kindness of strangers! It also inspired us to do a LOT more couchsurfing further on!

We headed south the following day to Puerto Viejo, close to the Panamá border, a small caribbean town with a laid back atmosphere...unfortunately, the pricetag was not so laid back and it rained for the whole 1 night we were there!

We headed to the border the following morning and got our exit stamps. It was our first border crossing on foot and was a bit more like what I expected them to be like... A rusty, holy old Iron bridge over a murky river into Panamá... lovely stuff!

We got our entry stamps on the other side after making up some story about our mode of exit and date (you have to prove exit as a cocky yet downtrodden american told us as he was rejected and had to buy a ticket to leave). We were then hustled into an overpriced bus to the town where we were to get a water taxi to Bocas Del Toro, Panamá, where we were to indulge in another 2 weeks of Carribean laidback life and where we were to reunite with our great friend Andries Kooistra.

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