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Published: October 31st 2011
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Getting to Quepos was looking pretty straight forward. A 3-4 hour bus drive from San Jose, and then either a bus or taxi to our hotel. Simple.
The difficult part was that we could never get a definitive answer as to where the bus for Quepos left from! We had asked the friendly receptionist at the Tica bus centre, and he confidently said that the bus left from the Coca Cola bus terminal. We were happy that this information was correct as you would, and nothing more was required. It was only when the taxi driver taking us to the hotel of San Jose asked where we were going next (this whole conversation was in Spanish, so we were quite pleased with ourselves!) to which we replied Quepos that he threw a spanner in the works. He suggested that he take us to the Tracopa Bus terminal the next day in order for us to move on. Tracopa? We told him that we thought it left from the Coca Cola Bus Terminal, to which he replied No. Tracopa.
So, we now had two different suggestions as to where we should leave from. We therefore asked our hotel receptionist…. 2-1
to Coca Cola. We then went online to look at bus schedules, and this took the tally to 3-1. Good, a majority vote, we were to take a taxi to the Coca Cola terminal in the morning.
So we jumped in a taxi the next day, and asked to be taken to the Coca cola terminal. We were taken there, and dropped off outside the sign that said ‘QUEPOS’.
It was then a guy came over and asked where we were heading, to which we pointed at the sign and replied ‘Quepos’. He frowned and then proceeded to tell us that the bus to Quepos did not leave from here, and that we needed to be in Tracopa. Assuming this man was either a con man, or insane (there was a sign for crying out loud, plus there was the 3-1 majority) we feigned gratitude and tried to skulk off without him noticing….this, I’m afraid to say, didn’t work!
He then grabbed a crinkly paper schedule from a street vendor that showed that the bus to Quepos did indeed leave from Tracopa, and not here, and the reason for the sign was that it used to leave
from here up until 2 weeks ago. This did make a bit of sense as to why there were different answers when asking different people. So we took a look at where the bus was supposed to leave from and it did indeed look all a tad bleak, so we put our faith in this guy, and went to get another Taxi this time to Tracopa. However with a complete stroke of luck, this guy just happened to be a Taxi driver all along, and he suggested he take us to Tracopa. So, we jumped in his taxi (we checked it was licenced etc. first) and we were off to Tracopa
I’m glad to be able to say that this turned out to indeed be the correct terminal to leave from, and our trust in this stranger paid off.
We felt a little bad though as now it turned out he was genuinely trying to help us out, we did remain sceptical for a while, and he must have sensed our mistrust. It probably didn’t help our cause when after asking him about which bus to get, he told us to get the 12pm….do not get the 10am
(it was currently 9:50am). It would stop off everywhere, and take ages, the 12pm was direct, and would be much better. We agreed, and said that we would definitely take the 12pm. As soon as we were in the terminal though, we decided waiting for 2 hours was stupid, and we would take the 10am….why not, it would be in our interest, and plus, he would never know.
So we climbed on-board the 10am and it left the terminal bang on time. It was then that Donna noticed a certain taxi driver at the entrance…..he was still there! We turned away and hoped he couldn’t see us, but to no avail. He was looking directly at us. So I did the only thing I could do in this awkward situation….I looked directly at him and with both hands up gave him a ‘WELL, you know’ gesture, to which he shook his head and smiled. The words I imagine flying through his mind at the time would have something along the lines of ‘Crazy foreigners, they’ve got no idea!
With that, we were finally on our way to Quepos.
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