So we got to Costa Rica on June, 17th 2009. We flew into San Jose, scooped our packs and rolled out through customs with ease. We found the shuttle to Alamo and picked up our car. I rented a local cell phone from Alamo for about the same price as the place that screwed me and I don’t have to worry about their sketchy delivery process. We decided we’d head straight for Puerto Viejo. It was about 3 hours or so from San Jose. Puerto Viejo was pretty much the only place we knew much about. The guy I bought my boat from told us about a place called the lotus garden. They had food and a room, so we called to reserve a spot. We have since learned not to reserve rooms if you want the best rate.I got sleepy along the way so we got some energy drinks called max malta from a gas station.
We arrived in Puerto Viejo around 9:30 local time and chilled and got some dinner. I had some pretty bangin all you can eat sushi and Lauren had tilapia with lemon and honey. After dinner we got a room called Hiro and dropped off our stuff so we could check out a couple local bars and sample the local beers, imperial and pilsen. I prefer Pilsen and Lauren prefers Imperial. Then we each got a Long Island Iced Tea and stumbled back to the hotel.
So now you’re probably like well yeah, you can talk to people but how are you going to find your away smart guy? Ha! I’ve got that covered too. We have a 4 wheel drive SUV reserved (with rental insurance of course) so we will be driving the long distances between regions and then we will explore on foot for a couple days. Costa Rica is only a few hundred miles long and a couple hundred wide. For offroad, I downloaded an awesome and FREE TOPO map for my Garmin from