Yesterday was a long day of travel. Wake-up at 4:15 for the drive to the airport (thanks Angie!), then 2 1/2 hours to LAX and a 4 hour layover before the 6 hour flight to San Jose. Everything went pretty smoothly.
The airport was busy, but there were no lines at the Alaska bag drop or with pre-check. I was done with both within 10 minutes of drop-off.
On arrival in San Jose, I activated by Airalo esim and after restarting my phone I was up and running. I used booking.com to prebook a ride to the hotel, which worked without a hitch. They communicated great before the trip. I provided flight info, my name, and asked the driver to communicate by WhatsApp. The driver WhatsApped me pretty much as soon as the plane landed to let me know he was there and waiting . Immigration lines were pretty long – about half way full, but after about 20 minutes i was through immigration (they want to know where you are staying first night, how long you’ll be in country and see your return ticket)
My bag was waiting for me, the line at the single atm was long so I skipped that step, waited in a short line to have the bags scanned at customs then exited the terminal and found my driver. He was very nice, didn’t speak much english, and seemed to get a kick out of my much more limited Spanish.
30 minutes to Hotel Balmoral, which is used by the company that is guiding the hike. It’s in the heart of downtown and has seen better days. But the room is clean, the bed comfortable, the water hot and only a few small ants in the shower. Tomorrow we head to the Caribbean coast!
