I arrived on time and in good spirits at the San Jose Airport (SJO). As usual, there was a line at Immigrations, however, this line went all the way to gate 3 (about 75 yards). I was stunned. I always take the later flight our of Dallas leaving around 6 pm and arriving in San Jose around 10 pm. I had never spent more than 20 minutes getting through immigration. Grrr.That's what I get for taking an early flight, which arrived at 2:10 PM.
After waiting in line for nearly 90 minutes, I get to where the turn into the immigrations area is and there is a Tico standing there saying "No Tico go to Left". I go off to the left and find that the 4 "non-nationals" line are virtually empty. This moron had all the non-nationals wait 90 minutes to tell us we could breeze on through. I could have strangled him.
I got my bags, which were by this time stacked off in a corner (this is common, as space is limited in the baggage area, and they take good care of them). Headed into town. I was to be picked up by my Gringo business partner at the Del Rey the next morning.
I hit the BM, saw many of the usual gals and some new ones, but only saw 2 or 3 that really turned my crank. This is unusual for me since I usually hit the deck at a full run in SJO.
After some extensive negotiations, I ended up with a little Columbian cutie named JoAnn. $70 USD for 1 hour. About 5'1" and 95 lbs. Good CBJ (if there is such a thing), fair kisser, which is harder to find there than in most Latin countries and a good turn in the sheet.
Went back down to the BM and looked around. Only one or two Ticas even interested me and they would not come off their $100 USD price. I won't pay that price, so I went down town for a tour of the Theatro Nacional (what a beautiful building)and the Museo de Oro (Museum of Gold).
6 Years ago when I first went to CR, any girl in the BM would have crawled inside my pants with me right at the bar for $50 USD. Sad that so many gringos practically tear their pockets off trying to take advantage of that $100 barn burner sale their first time in. Ruined the market for those of us that go there a half dozen times a year.
Anyway, turned in fairly early and onto business the next morning. Won't bore everyone with business. Oddly this is the first trip I have ever made to CR where I had to be on both coasts in one trip. Went south through Cartago to the southern end of the Puntaarenas Region.
Here I experienced another "first". We were on the
PAN-AM hywy when we came to a sign warning us of a...Banana Crossing! We look up and here is this giant cable running from side to side. It is steel and about 2 inches in diameter. It sat about 20 ft. off the ground. Just as I was thinking that there were no banana buches that were 10 tall and therefor not likely to hit my car, a neverending string of banana bunches starts whizzing by. The weight was such that the bottoms of the banana bunches ended up a meer 5' off the road. It was strange. Strange turned into an issue of concern when the line started bouncing and swaying. It then skipped the seriously worried stage and hopped straight over to Holy Shit when 2 or 3 of these bunched bounced off their hook. One of them landed on the hood of my Prado (Mid sized Land Cruiser). It left a nice big, deep dent in the hood. The other bunches somehow landed on the 8k lb. winch mounted on the front for no harm. The only saving grace I had in this whole mess, was that I had agreed to sell the Prado to my business partner on my previous trip (one of the things I had to finalize while down this trip), and HE was driving at the time. Whew!! It will set HIM back about a grand
Needless to say, he was not a happy man! Next day, I had to go over to a small Carribean town called Cahuita. This is on the opposite coast from the banana bunch beltway, which is on the Pacific side.
It was really raining which although a regular event in CR, does not usually happen ALL DAY in the dead of Summer. We made it to Cahuita. As we were preparing to leave, we came to a roadblock. The Policia wwere turning everyone back to Cahuita. This is not a good sign as there is only one road from Limon south to the Panamanian border. When we finally get up to the Policia, we are told that one of the many bridges on the road has been washed completely away from the flooding in Limon. We ended up loosing two days and I barely got back to SJO in time for my flight.
What a friggin' disaster. Oh well, next time down will be all vacation
Val
(Message edited by Valterreekian on January 17, 2005)