Thursday February 8, 2018
We are very sad to leave this lovely hotel, Casitas Sollevante, and Montezuma however we must carry on with new adventures.
We rise at 5:00am and meet Marco at the pool enjoying an incredible pre-dawn view. Within minutes he has whisked us down to town where we will catch the bus enroute to San Jose and our final destination before heading home. We say our goodbyes with a promise to return soon.
We are the first at the ‘bus stop’, more of a large parking area with a large bench, but before long others gather and soon we are a small crowd. At precisely 6:01am the sun peeks over the horizon and the bus arrives although we don’t leave for another half an hour. We get a pungent whiff of marijuana and someone comments ‘ahhh good old Montefuma! Love the name, not the smell.
After everyone has clambered on to the bus we are off to the larger centre of Cobana. This is a local bus, so children heading to school and those going to work get on & off the bus. A short time later we are at the ‘bus station’ and change to our but that will take us in to San Jose.
The ride to Paquera where we will catch our ferry is very pleasant and much longer than I remember on the way in. Paquera is a delightful town and it is buzzing with tourist from all over the world. We are not allowed to stay on the bus during the crossing, so we board on foot and pick a choice seat at the front of the vessel. The ferry is similar to the Bowen Island ferry, although I think a wee bit bigger.
The journey to Puntarenas is relatively short and very pleasant with a beautiful breeze. Oh so Costa Rican is the latin music blaring from the concession stand, even serving beer at this time of the morning!
We rebound our bus in Puntarenas and it is now, hot, hot, hot. We manage to get 2 seats behind the driver and with the window wide open we enjoy cool air. By noon we are at San Jose Airport located in Alajuela, some 20 km west of San Jose. We chose to stay in Alajuela as it is a smaller city and close to the airport for our journey home on Saturday.
Several red Taxis (official taxis) meet the bus and we make a deal with Maximiliano to take us to the Hotel Martino Resort & Spa. It was a great ride and he took pride in giving us a ‘tour’ enroute to the hotel. We made arrangements for him to pick us up Saturday morning as well. His family owns the taxi and we wanted to support him.
We were a tad early to check in so we decided to have a nice lunch at the hotel. It is Italian owned and known for their restaurant. The pesto pasta dish was the best I have ever tasted!
Checked in, time to chill and take advantage of the incredible pool. Maximiliano had mentioned a great restaurant serving local dishes. Although not very hungry we thought we would try it out and just have a few appetizers. OMG, were we mistaken, each dish was huge and very, very delicious! We literally bit off more than we could chew.
The air is much cooler here in the evenings and while waiting for our taxi back to the hotel we were almost freezing – what will happen when we return to winter in Vancouver – yikes!