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.
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.
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