Costa rica practical information

Some more practical information about Costa Rica.

Dollars are accepted everywhere, credit card mostly. Although it is sometimes better to pay in the local currency to avoid additional cost caused by the currency rate used in that or this business. But the prices are overall low, so it doesn't really matter that much. In a restaurant you can get a big bowl of good salad for about 4-5 dollars, the main course for 5-10, depending on what it is and in which restaurant. In Santa Elena, where we are staying right now, we chose to dine not in a restaurant on the "main street", but in one of those who are just around the corner and it turned out to be about 10-15% cheaper and this is just literally 50 meters away from the more expensive ones.

The 3 hours zip-line tour, which included 11 different zip-lines and also the transportation from/to hotel only costed $45!!!! I think it's really cheap.

A 1-hour massage costed $50.

Public transportation is ridiculously cheap, $1 for a ride. But it's not very good developed, it's not so easy to find the schedule and buses are not riding very often. But the buses are fine.

So far we really don't think it's a good idea to rent a car in Costa Rica. Unless you know for sure that you are only going to take the biggest road. Normally the most advantage of taking a rental car is the freedom to get to places off the main touristic routes. Here it's not the case - small roads are really bad.

You cannot buy a sim-card in the Liberia airport. You cannot buy anything in the Liberia airport. There is not a single cafe or a restaurant. We almost starved because we forgot that there was no meal on our 5-hour jetBlue flight from New York and were desperate to find out that the Liberia airport is absolutely empty. There is only one small mini-market, where you actually can buy some pastry, but that is it. Luckily we had as our next transportation a shuttle from the Hilton hotel, to which there is a free shuttle from the airport and where there is a very nice restaurant even with surprisingly reasonable prices. There is also a swimming pool in that hotel, which seemed to be accessible for public (we didn't try though, didn't have enough time). But the hotel itself is not in the city, it's separated from the civilization, so if you get there, I don't really know how to get out of there for free.

Again, English is not very common. You can, of course, always use the language of gestures like I do, but great, if you can speak some Spanish, at least some general phrases and numbers.

Costa rica

So, we left USA for good. I was for some reason surprised that there was no passport control while exiting US. We just went through the security check, boarded the plane and here we are in Costa rica. Don't know why, but I expected some kind of "exit control" to leave the US:)

My first and most important impression about being in Costa Rica now is "Thanks God it's not that hot". We are in the very middle of the rainy season and are in mountains now though. Things might change, we have plans to travel around the country. But for the moment I feel very comfortable (for I hate when it's hot, I don't feel good when it is). It is not raining all the time, but the significant part of the time the air is full of these micro-rain-drops and the sky is cloudy. In the morning it rained though approximately until 11. Exactly during the time we were in the cloud forest. Since we don't have a real rain gear (we wanted to keep our lagguge to as small size as possible) we were totally wet.... but we enjoyed it a lot!!! We missed rain a lot while in California. After the cloud forest we underwent different plans. Johannes went to do the zip-line trip, which I refused to do as I consider myself to have had enough adrenaline in my life already. And I shopped a little bit and went for an 1-hour=$50 massage, which was gorgeous, just wonderful. Shopping was not that successful, we are staying in a tiny town, maybe even a village in a Pension Santa Elena. The place itself is really very small. We came here yesterday by a 5-hour drive with a shuttle bus from Liberia airport. During this ride the football game Costa Rica vs. Greece took place. And the driver was listening and even watching the match during the drive, which made me a little bit nervous. At some point we were passing some small village and he saw people on the street watching the game at some bar and asked for our permission to make a stop and watch, it was the climax of the game. We were only 3 passengers in the bus, we and one more girl from New Hempshire, and we didn't mind. So we actually witnessed how Costa Rica won and how Costaricans reacted on this:

It was touching.

There is one more video of people celebrating, it is made already in Santa Elena:

So, we are lucky to be here during the time when all the people are extremely happy and joyfull:)

People are generally quite nice here. Most of them doesn't speak a decent English. I got lucky and the girl that made a massage for me, spoke English. Apart from that Johannes is using his Spanish skills and I also try to memorize some words and phrases and use them.

Wi-fi is everywhere. Still we bought a sim-card today just in case to be able to make calls. Buying a sim-card was not so easy, because even guys in the electronic shop didn't speak any English, just no English at all.

Before coming here one of our biggest concerns was either to rent a car or not. We are now glad that we didn't rent one. First of all the roads are really bad. Not all of them. Some of them are ok. But there is a big enough portion of those that I wouldn't dare to drive myself. In our current plan we do some distances with the shuttle buses, some with the public buses and we also have 2 very cool transportations. One of them is tomorrow. We are going to the Arenal Vocano area by horseback-boat-jeep. Another is river rafting. We don't just raft, we use rafting to reach our destination.

There are many homeless dogs and cats on the streets. They are allowed (or better to say not restricted from entering all the shops and even restaurants). They are not annoying though.

It is only 20:00 (oh, how happy I am to finally switch back to 24-hour time measure system, km and kg!), but we are already at the hotel, because there is nothing really to do here in the evening. The sunset is around 18 and the sunrise is around 6. Although I'm not quite right. There is a night walk tour here, where you are being guided in the forest and even promised to see a lot of wild life. But we decided no to do that. Apart from that on can sit in one of the restaurants, that is pretty much it.

New York

I already hate this city. Reminds me too much of overcrowded Moscow subway in my youth when I had to take the subway.

Boston

So it is the 4th day we are in Boston and today we are leaving. Although we don't actually live in Boston, but in Cambridge, a small town just across the bridge, where the MIT located. Friends of ours live here and we are staying with them. And because of that we haven't only seen Boston, but also Cambridge and Harvard, which are both nice little towns. 

We liked Boston, also I didn't like it more than Chicago. Chicago seemed to be more beautiful to me for some reason. 

So, we spent 3 lovely days here. First two days we were visiting the city and yesterday we were celebrating Maria's birthday. Her husband has organized it in a cool way - he planned a boat trip to one of the Boston islands for 4 of us and when we came there her other friends were waiting there and we had a picnic. She was of course surprised and glad and the party was really fun. Everybody was speaking Spanish except me (my husband speaks some Spanish too). But they were also speaking English to me. 

So, we had a picnic, than walked around the island (it only took around 20 minutes, the island was tiny but nice), than we bathed in the ocean (only 3 of us - me, Johannes and Efren). The ocean was not so cold, warmed than the Michigan lake in Chicago, where we also swam couple of days ago. 

In Chicago it is very easy to bathe - the closest beach is just 30 minutes by foot from the downtown, it is clean and comfortable. The water was clean and calm. 

So, after the picnic we had the following plan. One of Efren's colleagues, an italian Giovanni was to play piano at the Italian society center and we were going to visit the concert. We were late from the picnic and considered not to change our clothes and go as is, but luckily finally we did it, and I even put on the dress that I just bought that day in Boston (we don't have any fancy clothes with us, we only have very limited luggage). And it was a very good decision. When we arrived to the place where the concert was about to start, we found ourselves in a really noble society. We were also the youngest and even though we changed, we were still underdressed. All the men were wearing suits and women beautiful dresses. And it was not like the concert we were expecting to see, there were no chairs in rows, but the tables. 

So, we joined the table we were assigned to where 2 guests were already seating. They were two aged americans, were nice couple, we enjoyed the evening with them. It turned out that the wife was going to go to St. Petersburg in July, so I exchanged the contact with her and hope to keep in touch. 

Some time later Giovanni joined us to eat something before his performance. 

First there were some official speeches hold, partly in italian. I only understood that there is some anniversary this year and also that they have a new president whom they were introducing. 

Before the speeches there were snacks. During the speeches the snacks were cleaned up and the main dish was prepared. And then the most awful thing happened. 

The speeches were over and Giovanni was invited to the stage to start playing. And at the same time they announced the time for the main course!!! So at the same time with his playing people stood up from their places and went to line up and get the food. It was literally the nightmare of any classical musician - nobody was listening and it was terribly loud in the room!!! We were really shocked to see this kind of treating the classical musician, so we just went closer to the venue to hear Giovanni. He was playing great, several Scarlatti sonatas which are very technically complex and some Chopin. I may imagine how awful he felt with all that sounds coming from all around. I just cannot understand how was it possible to plan the event like this at all. 

So, Giovanni finished playing and returned to our table. After him there was another pianist, who was also playing good, but nobody listened to him either. 

Johannes even came up to one of the speakers and told him that nobody couldn't hear anything and the guy (actually that was some important person, I don't know his title though) started to go around and say tschhh-tschhhh, which of course didn't really help. 

The rest of the evening was nice, we enjoyed the time with our Spanish friends, a new italian friend and new american friends a lot. We went to a bar afterwards for a drink. There we were discussing the politics loudly and at some point while Giovanni was telling us something about the italian government, 2 guys from the nearby table approached him, they were from Italy too. 

Singing in the train

Denver

And this is from Denver:

Laughing in the middle of nowhere

Enjoy this very funny video from our unexpected stop in the middle of nowhere:

Delay, still traveling

June 16, 2014 7:49pm

Exactly 5 hours ago we were supposed to step off the train in Chicago. Now we were supposed to be in the Millennium park listening an open-air concert. 

Didn't work out. We are still in the train and still have about 8 hours ahead. 

So, how did this all happen? 

They told us that this was actually an exception and a really ridiculous accident, because there was nothing wrong with our train or with the rails on our way. 

It all started with the tornados in Nebraska. The California Zephyr opposite to ours didn't get affected by it itself as far as we are concerned, but some part of the rails was. And here starts the ridiculous chain of circumstances. So, the rails had to be repaired and cleaned. It was done. But then the train couldn't just go on moving, because all the rails in US do not belong to Amtrak, they belong to some private party. The owner's representatives had to come over, review the status and approve that the rails could be used. So, it added some more time. After that it turned out that the crew's working hours have expired. That's why we were waiting for that train in Denver yesterday. We had to pick up some of it's cars. So, we waited for those, got them and went on. But then at some point, the working hours of our crew also expired and this was one of my previous posts about. We just had to stay where we are and wait for the re-crew. So why couldn't that one be sent to us beforehand so that we wouldn't have to wait that long? Guess what - they didn't have the real back-up crew, they had to use one of the crew that was working just before and according to the federal law had to get at least 13 hours of rest before moving out for the next assignment. 

Additional delay was added by the fact, that the freight trains have priority here before the passenger ones. So as soon as the passenger train goes out of schedule, it doesn't fit into planned distribution of the rails anymore and has to wait more in some places to let the freight train pass by. 

This all gave us 13 hours of delay in total. 

Our estimated arrival time to Chicago is Tuesday instead of 3 pm Monday. 

IT's a pity that we will miss the concert. Also we have signed up for a free walking tour at 10am on Tuesday and won't be as fit as we planned for it anymore. In the end, we will just miss half of a day in Chicago where we didn't have that much time planned. Our next flight is already on Wednesday. 

We got free meals twice. Once it was that beef stew and second time we received some terrible lunch boxes with disgusting white-bread sandwiches, chips and cookies in it. Oh, yeah, and pickles. There were also pickles in that lunch box for some reason. Better than nothing though. 

It was surprising for us to find out that there was nothing on any of the stations we had a stop. We were expecting at least some kiosk with snacks, maybe even a place to buy a real coffee... nothing. Most of the stops we made were just nothing. Ruined buildings and very hot. 

Another thing that we regret to miss is crossing the Mississippi River. It is couple of hours before Chicago, which according to our new schedule is 2am. 

Overall we don't regret taking this train trip. Even with all these troubles we are enjoying it in many ways. 

But we wouldn't recommend Amtrak to anybody who might get easily upset if his/hers plans get disturbed or has to be in some place strictly on time.

To be fair

They just gave us free lunch. A tiny portion of rice with beef stew. And for Johannes only stew, cause they were out if rice by the time he came (5 minutes later than myself):)))

I already read my book. Good that we have laptop, can watch movies:)

The mood in the train is only getting better. Nobody is complaining, people are polite and friendly. I am very surprised.

We have just had a 5 minutes stop on Lincoln, NE. 12 hours behind the schedule.

Funny thing is that when I write about this to our airbnb host he wrote back "is that going to affect the time of your check-in"? I couldn't think about answering anything apart from "we won't be able to check-in before our arrival to Chicago".

Finally he told he would leave the key to security guy and we can get in anytime, even during the night. Security in the house - sounds promising.

Stuck in the middle of nowhere OR Amtrak sucks

June 16, 2014 7.40am

Now we are sitting in our train, train is not going, we're in Nebraska, in the middle of nowhere, just about 200 miles away from our next big stop in Denver and 20 miles before next planned stop. We're in the middle of nowhere, even on some kind of a hill. The thing is that we  got awaken about 20 minutes ago by the announcement from the train crew. The announcement told us that the current crew is suddenly out of working hours and now according to the federal law they are not allowed to run the train further, They have to wait for the re-crew. And that one according to them won't arrive earlier than 3 hours later. The biggest question we have here is why did we have to wait in this place, why couldn't they leave us stuck in Denver or at least at some other station where we would be allowed to exit the train. Here, in the middle of nowhere,we are not allowed. All the tracks are private and passengers cannot just go out here. No, the biggest question is probably even another one - why do we have to wait for 3 hours at all? The expiration of the current crew's working hours was obviously something that could have been planned, so why didn't they send the re-crew beforehand? 

Now we are sitting with other passengers and discussing this whole situation just like we do in Russia when something like this happens. Although, much more friendly. People are laughing and the atmosphere is overall more positive than it would have been in Russia. In Russia there would have for sure been at least one person who would have started to fight with the crew trying to convince them to go on and insulting them personally. There's at least my experience for example from a 12 hours delay of an Aeroflot flight. Here nobody blames the crew. Passengers are patient and understanding to them. I haven't heard a single accusation word in their direction.

One of our neighbors came up to us right after the announcement with the question "How do you like America now?".

There is no internet connection here, no mobile reception, we cannot go outside. At least, the dining car is working so we won't starve. Although I don't understand, why are they not distributing food for free and we still have to buy it. I wonder if there no regulations regarding that.

I'm afraid we won't get the whole picture. But I personally am of course very interested how did this happen. Is this a management fuck up? Or a procedure? Or a fuck up of a single person? Or maybe the combination of some them or all of them?

Update about 1 hour later. 

Just now we got an announcement: "Dear passengers, we got paramedics here on board. They just arrived being called by someone on this train. If you have called them please identify yourself." So right now the crew member is going through the train trying to find a person who called paramedics.

Looks like somebody just made a joke. 

One thing - so, somebody does have a cell phone reception here!

Update some time later

Finally we started moving. Approximately as truly said 3 hours later.

California Zephyr. Day 2. Part 2 and Denver.

June 15, 2014 9:21pm

It was a gorgeous day. First of all the landscape kept being amazing the whole way. We kept running from window to window and trying to make good photos. Reading didn't go today at all. 

As I said before we didn't plan to eat in the dining car and prepared the meals for the trip. But today we decided to have something warm for a dinner. It works here the following way. There are sleeping cars and the meals are included for those passengers. So, they first have to feed them. Then they go through the coach cars and take reservations from passengers here. The quantity is limited, so it might happen that there won't be place/food for everyone. And you cannot book it beforehand, you have to wait for them. We got very lucky and got almost the last place for a dinner at 5.30pm. Which was basically a little bit too early, but firstly there were no other options, and secondly there was a "long" 30 minutes stop planned in Denver which we wanted to use, because we were already tired of sitting and wanted to get some fresh air. 

Our dinner table we shared with a nice aged couple from North Carolina. We had a pleasant time with them and suddenly noticed that the train was already in Denver, about 30 minutes before schedule. We finished our meal quickly and hurried up outside glad we would have much time than we expected (obviously train wouldn't depart the schedule). So we went outside as we were and first of all came up to a train employee to inquire at what time should we be back. And here he told us that actually there was another train that we had to wait for to pick up some cars from it and that one was at least 1 hour late!!! But it was kind of not official information and he recommended us to ask at the station. So we went there and found an announcement there indeed, that the train 5, which is California Zephyr in the opposite direction, was only going to arrive at 7.40 and the lady at the counter confirmed that our train number 6 won't departure before we get the cars from number 6. So, suddenly we found ourselves in Denver with at least 1 hour time. We decided not to waste time and went to the city as we were. And we were almost in pajamas, just in some simple home clothes that you were on the train. 

We didn't go far, just took the closest  nice street from the train station and back. It was full of people, some of them dressed like for a carnival, street musicians, velo rikshas, horse carriages. There were also lots of nice restaurants and cafes, sculptures, interesting buildings. We really liked it there. 

After one hour we went back to the train station to check the status and found out that we had at least 1.5 hours more. This time we headed to the next park. It was the beautiful small park on the river bank, people were walking there, with kids and dogs. There was also kind of stage where a group of people looking like hippies or street artists gathered and showed their arts. They played drums and it was really pleasant to be there. So we stayed there until dark and went back to the train. Now we are here and they are telling that we probably won't departure next almost 2 hours. In total we're going to be about 6 hours late to Chicago. Which is a pity, cause we planned to visit a free concert in the park tomorrow evening and now it won't be possible anymore. But we are glad we got to see a little bit of Denver. 

About USA

Just wanted to save the information for our friends who might consider traveling to the US. 

1. Don't buy a T-mobile sim-card. IT is cheap, but it is also working really badly. IT's fine if you are staying in the big city, but you loose connection as soon as you happen to be in a small distance from one. Very often have only AT&T, which is being charged as roaming. 

2. Don't bother yourself with receiving an international driver's license. None of ours (neither the Russian one, nor the Austrian) were ever used. Even more, we couldn't add me as additional driver for a rental car once in Hawaii since we didn't bring my national license thinking that the international will be enough, but the company refused to take is as the document at all.

California Zephyr. Day 2. Part 1.

June 15, 2014 1:12pm

Sleeping was pretty comfortable, but very cold. Good that we had our blankets. During the night I woke up several times and the most fascinating views were the factories, which are highlighted and look like something space-alike. I also woke up when we were passing Salt Lake City, because I for some reason thought that would be nice to see. But we were too far away from the lake itself as well as from the city, so it was no point. 

There are by the way lots and lots of plugs everywhere in the train, so unlike our ferry trip I don't have to worry about saving the battery of my iphone, which I use to take photos. Today we are spending lots of time at the observation deck, because there is something to see. In the morning we were still in Utah and the landscape there was not very interesting. Mostly plain and very dry. But as soon as we entered the Colorado it becamce much more picturesque. Our route is lying almost all of the time along the Colorado river. The river changes it's width throughout the way. In the parts where it is wider, it is also very calm, but in the narrowest parts it is really wild. And the river is everywhere deep brown, not at all transparent. There are rafters riding along the river and some people bathing. Also there are mountains surrounding the river and they have beutiful colors, very juicy red/brown/almost orange sometimes. There are animals can be seen from time to time. Horse ranchos, cows, also we've seen several deers and a rabbit. So, if yesterday I was reading a lot of time, now I cannot make myself start reading yet. 

We also have stops, not very often and not very long, but we take any opportunity to go outside and stretch our legs. It turned out, that the windows of the train are a little bit tanned, so when we came out first time today our eyes were struck with the brightness. 

Another nice thing in the train is that today we have volunteers, who narrate along the way. They tell some things about the places we pass, history and geography. 

Trip home. Day 1. California Zephyr to Chicago.

June 14, 2014, 8:21pm

It is the first day of our long journey home. We are in the Amtrak train California Zephyr heading in to Chicago. This ride is a little bit more than 2 full days, so we still have the whole day and a half ahead. 

The train is not full, not at all overcrowded. We have coach seats located at the upper deck. Seats were reserved, but not assigned by numbers. Our friend Oleg brought us to the station in Emeryville, which is about 50 minutes drive from our former home. Since we were very concerned about getting good seats, we came more than an hour too early. There was literally nothing at that train station, but just the one good thing - a cafe serving our favorite coffee in US, Peet's. We like it much more than Starbucks though I suppose mostly not for the coffee, but because they play classical music there and the interior is a little bit old-style. 

So, about the train. As we boarded, we were the first. We picked up some places nicely located by the window and later even moved to other seats, closer to the observation deck. Observation deck is a car, where the seats are facing big panoramic windows. They are not so comfortable, so you don't feel like spending there your whole trip, but it is nice to go there from time to time to enjoy the landscape. At some point we passed the Lake Tahoe region. We were too far away from the lake itself, but saw some beautiful rivers and the rafters in them. Part of the road there are mountains around, sometimes empty fields with only green squares maintained by the watering systems on the wheels. Also we pass some small towns or just settlements of several houses from time to time. 

The seats are comfortable, you can lean the back as in the airplane but much more, there are also foot supports of two types - one on the seat in front of you, another is being pulled up from under your seat and makes the seating part itself longer, so that you can almost lie there. Overall, it's better than I expected. The train is not especially clean, just as the trains in Russia are, which means that the visible parts are clean, but as soon as you look somewhere where you normally shouldn't pay your attention at, you see that it wasn't touched for ages. There are enough restrooms, you don't ever have to wait in line. 

There is also a dining car, but we do'nt go there since we like always brought enough of our own snacks. 

It reminds to some point on our journey by ferry to Alaska, but not exactly. There since people had much more place to walk around, the atmosphere was somehow more social, people walked around all the time and talked to each other. Here we didn't make any real conversations yet. Let's see how it goes further. 

Denali national park

Denali national park is the "must see" if you are somewhere around Anchorage or Fairbanks. It is very different from any of the parks we visited before. The area which is accessible for the tourists is surrounded by tremendously beautiful mountains. I'm not sure if they are always covered with snow like they are now, but probably not or less. And this is an amazing view. You can start enjoying these mountains even before or without entering the national park. We saw them on our way from Anchorage. We were very lucky - the weather was so good, that we could even see the gorgeous Denali (or McKinley) mountain which is not at all always possible. We've explored the travelers advises before coming here and found out, that it's quite often that people don't get to see it even if they come to the park. So, once again, we were lucky. The sky was clear and blue, the sun was shining, but not too much, just enough to enjoy it. On this weird picture with the tree growing from my head the Denali mountain can be seen pretty good.

The are between these mountain chains is quite empty. There are no big trees, in many places no trees at all, only bushes and sometimes even only grass. That's the area can be seen through for a big distances. And that makes the main tourist attraction - the wildlife observation - possible. We have seen several caribou, 4 bears, some sheeps (even 2 lambs), 1 moose and a couple of interesting birds. But most of them from a big distance, so that they were hardly visible and recognizable even with the binoculars. 

There is a road that goes through the park. Earlier it was open for private vehicles. But at some point it was considered to be interrupting the wildlife too much and now you can't drive in with a personal car. There are tour buses and shuttles. We took the shuttle. It drives around 6 hours round-trip. When there is wildlife on the way, the driver stops the bus and let's you watch and take pictures. Strangely the buses themselves are very uncomfortable. The windows are separated in two parts horizontally, so as you sit, you have a non-transparent part right at the level of your eyes. Also, if you want to take pictures, you have to open the upper part, which is quite hard to open. And you cannot afford riding with the open window all the time - it's cold.

We did see a moose very close 2 times. But it was while we were driving state Alaska highway 3 from Anchorage the day before. First time the moose was crossing the street, so that I really had to stop the car not to bump into him. Another time there was one drinking water on the side if the road, very close. We parked our car and went out to watch him. He didn't react anyhow neither at our presence nor at cars passing by. He only jumped away when a big truck drove by with the horrible sound, but didn't run away, just stayed away from the road for some time and eventually stayed in the area.

Unlike other parks in US this one doesn't have any designated hiking trails. But you can hop off the bus anytime (and almost everywhere except one not very large area) and just go hiking any direction you want. 

Get rid of everything

Packed our things into this box and will send it directly to Austria.

We're going to live with only two carry-on suit cases for the next month in out trip. 

Last days

Today is Sunday, and we are leaving next Saturday, June 14th. Just 5.5 days left. We are very excited.

Yesterday we had our Farewell party. Lots of friends came, almost everybody whom we expected to see. We were lazy and didn't cook anything at all. Just bought some snacks, friends also brought some snacks and we also ordered pizza. Ended up with lots of food like always, so no need to cook today:) Also it's almost impossible anymore. We have already gave away/sold most of our kitchen staff as well as all other things we had. It went very efficient with craigslist.com and also with one of the local russian facebook groups. Today we put big signs "moving sale" all around the complex to sell the rest. It's only 3pm yet, but we have already got rid of the most of the things. All day people were coming. Very different people. Once two indian couples came together, once a black women looking and behaving like Whopi Goldberg, another time an aged man from Iran. Once a young boy came, maybe 10 years old or even 8. He didn't buy anything, just wondered around and asked for our boxes:) That said, this turned out to be fun.