We plan to do a lot of biking while we are down in CR. I called one of the larger mountain bike tour companies. They are booked from December all the way through March. Obviously, there is a lot of mountain biking going down in Costa Rica. Its also obvious that people are still traveling. Don’t let the financial “crisis” keep you from living life. One thing traveling does is give you perspective. When you have seen poverty in Africa or South America you have a very different take on what “crisis” actually means. I do not wish to downplay the suffering of others but the United States is not on the verge of starvation.
Mountain bike tours in CR are close to a $100 dollars a day. We did that the last time. Its nice to have a guide and van following you with snacks and drinks. However we’re not students of Rex Kwan Do so we’re gonna fly solo this time.
We bought our tickets last night. I have an article about our ticket search here. Spirit raised their prices on me. They went up two hundred bucks on the airfare. It actually turned out in our favor. I ditched the idea of coming back the 31st and started looking at coming back on the 3rd or 4th of January. I went to Orbitz and saw that US airways had the lowest fare. I went to the US Airways website and saw an even cheaper price there. US Airways is also using Bill Me Later. This is service that allows you to pay for stuff later and in installments. They run a credit check based on your name and the last four digits of your social security numbers. My wife is a first time user so we have 90 days interest free to pay the tickets. We have the money to buy the tickets right now but why not space out the payments, interest free, for the next four months? You have 90 days interest free but by the time you get your first statement and all that jazz its closer to for months.
Anyhoo, the tickets came out to $950 for both. This is a tiny bit cheaper than the original Spirit Air(no longer available) price BUT we get to stay four more days! That includes New Years. You are not going to find a much better price than that to fly to Costa Rica during the holiday season. The only drawback is that US airways flies from Tampa up to North Carolina and then back down to Costa Rica. They are still two fairly short flights and we arrive in Costa Rica in the early afternoon. Flying with Spirit on those dates would have cost $500 more. I’ll take the extra flight time.
Some people believe in waiting till the last minute to book their flight. On the one hand you may get a great discount; on the other you may not be able to get a seat. I’ve flown to Costa Rica many times and I know that $475 is a great price for travel to Costa Rica during the Holiday Season. I’ll be keeping an eye on prices and if they drop I will let you know.
1. You won’t get lost. Ever.
2. If someone gets hurt you can mark the location and give the exact coordinates to the rescue team (who will most likely have GPS as well).
3. You can mark locations you may want to revisit on future trips
4. You can make maps of your favorite hiking trails, biking trails, etc
5. You can mark where you parked the car in case you have to walk several blocks to an attraction, concert, whatever.
6. You can have a record of distances and travel times which will allow you to plan future itinerary’s.
7. Its just really cool to have
8. Considering what you get, its really not expensive
Can’t wait till our trip in December. I’m starting to put it all together. One thing I know is that it is going to be very mountain bike oriented. My wife and I went mountain biking around Arenal last year and it was awesome. I bought a basic Garmin GPS handheld a couple of years ago. Its starting to freeze up on me which sucks but its time to buy a new one anyway. The new technology they have is crazy. I’m looking at the new eTrex Vista HCx. Aside from being pre-loaded with maps for all of the Americas it detects altitude and has a built in compass. Modern GPS technology is a Godsend for people like me. I completely blows my mind how I can communicate with satellites to guide myself around. My wife and I took a Garmin Nuvi GPS to Europe on our last trip. It paid for itself several times over. We never got lost (unlike my sister who drove in Italy without one, lost hours outside of Florence) and it helped us find restaurants, hotels, etc. Amazing. Absolutely Amazing.
We also use GPS when we mountain bike. I don’t know how many times we would have gotten lost without it. We like to go deep into the woods and not all the trails out there are all that well maintained. If you travel, if you are active I heartily recommend a GPS device. Their price is as unbelievable as the service they provide. For a couple of hundred dollars I can carry in my hand a device that would have been worth an empire only a couple of centuries ago. A modern GPS device to an ancient explorer like Columbus or Magellan would be to us like a car that could fly to the moon.
San Jose is the capital of Costa Rica. Its usually the cheapest place to fly into. It is a fairly large city with a lot of modern conveniences. I always try to get out of there as fast as possible. Forty years ago you could have walked down the streets of San Jose at night in safety. Things are very different now.
San Jose has all the problems of a large North American city; it is polluted, congested and crime is an issue. Certain areas are perfectly safe but others are very dangerous. San Jose has all the things that I am trying to escape when I come to Costa Rica. If you really enjoy city life you may find San Jose to your liking. The traffic is absolutely horrendous and if you get stuck in it you will not be enjoying life. It’s really bad.
If you have friends in San Jose then you might want to consider hanging around and enjoying the nightlife. If you don’t know anyone here you’re better off heading out to exterior. This much I can promise you; there is nothing in San Jose that can compare to the natural Costa Rica. Veteran travelers to Costa Rica spend as little time in San Jose as possible.
A lot of the crime in Costa Rica is perpetrated by immigrants. Due to the high standard of living of the Costa Ricans they have allowed in foreigners to work jobs the locals don’t want to do. Some people have come to work and others have come to make trouble. Costa Rica is surrounded by countries with very violent histories and unfortunately some of that has made its way into San Jose.
Prostitution is legal in Costa Rica. I agree that an adult should have control over their bodies but that is a depressing industry. I doubt many women become prostitutes because things are going well in their lives. Some of the prostitutes are very young; in fact, some of them are kids. This attracts scum bags from all over North America and Europe. The Costa Ricans have harsh penalties for child prostitution but they don’t have the resources to eradicate it. This is a new problem for Costa Rica that has been created by demand from foreigners, not locals. My advice is to just steer clear of all that mess; bad energy, bad Karma, bad everything.
I don’t want to bash San Jose too much. There are some very nice neighborhoods and some very fine people who live there. I am from Tampa and its not like we don’t have problems. I just want to stress that with all that Costa Rica has to offer there really isn’t any reason to spend much time in San Jose.
