Wednesday, 9 August 2023

Episode 7 - Do you know the way to San José?

Well.  

Only I could make a one-and-a-half hour journey take... seven hours?! 

I breakfasted at my quirky budget hotel.  I think it is 'in San José' in the way that Chislehurst is 'in London', so I quite surprised how long it took to get to the bus station.  

I walked to the bank first thing to get some colones which is the local currency.  My Revolut card delivered and I was soon the proud owner of a whole bunch of these.  There are 586 colones to the pound, making it extraordinarily difficult to work out how much anything is, unless you are a mathematical genius.  I remember, back in the day on my first trip, whilst volunteering in Ghana in 2002, the biggest note was 5000 cedis, which was about 50p.  I used to have to change travellers cheques (remember them?) in the bank, then emerge with inches of cedis stashed in my rucksack.  Cash cards and things like that hadn't been thought of at that point, certainly not cards linked to apps, which is what Revolut is.  In case you are going abroad soon, I can give you a referral link for Revolut, which will generate a fundraising donation for the Guides, just let me know.

I breakfasted and enjoyed a few free coffees - things always taste better when they are free - then checked out.  The people on reception had been lovely.  As I checked out, they said that they had enjoyed having me stay and that they thought I was kind.  I thought this was lovely, considering that we had had very few interactions and I had only been there for a few hours.  It made me happy - even the tiniest interaction can have an impact.  They had wanted to take a $50 damage deposit on a credit card, which I didn't bring with me, but we compromised on $25 cash and the fact that I am a Girl Guide.  

My taxi driver took me to the Tracopa bus station, a remarkably calm place where even the staff aren't really sure where the buses are going.  I purchased my ticket and couldn't be entirely sure what was said, only that the stand number would be announced fifteen minutes before departure, which was at 11.45am.  When the time came, I went back to the ticket office to check the stand number - '3' - the man assured me.  I went over to stand 3 - 'Tarcolés?' - 'Si, Tarcolés' the driver assured me, as another directed me to pop Bluebird into the hold - I never like parting with baggage when you can't see it - in Kenya in 2004, I put my rucksack in an overhead locker in a long-distance bus and never saw it again.  The saddest thing was that I lost a load of lovely letters from a group of students I had been studying with for a semester in Uganda.  Hey ho, most belongings can be replaced, and that's why it's important to have travel insurance.  Although you can't claim on travel insurance if you miss your flight because you misread your departure time - devoted blog readers may remember this situation from a few years ago.  

Anyway, the journey seemed to go on for a long time - it was meant to be an hour-and-a-half.  I don't mind, I love journeys.  I love observing the landscape, watching people going about their business, seeing things which look different from elsewhere.  If you rush so fast to get somewhere, you miss half the fun of getting there.  I didn't write that line, it's from a poem called 'Slow Dance' which you should read.  

After an hour-and-a-half, we stopped.  'Tarcolés?' I said to the man next to me.  He laughed.  'Baños', he said.  Well, that is one Spanish word I do know - this was a toilet stop.  Great.  We then continued on the road for hours and hours.  I had a sudden thought - what if I've booked to go to another Tarcolés, in Argentina, or somewhere?! There are A LOT of places with the same name here.  When I was planning my post-family travel - hard to believe, but I do plan - I had looked up how far it was from Los Angeles to San José and got very confused as there are eight million places called San José.

So the journey went on and on.  When it got to more than three hours, I asked the man across the row, 'Por favore, Tarcolés?' He looked blank.  Then the woman beside him said, 'This bus, it is not going to Tarcolés'.

My heart sank.  How could this be? Where on earth was it going? She said it was going to Parrita and that I should alight there and change buses.  If you look at a map, which would have been a clever thing to do first, I know this now, Parrita is much further round the coast.  The bus had gone straight to Parrita, through Tarcolés, where it had never planned to stop.  

Crestfallen, I sat at the bus station, having purchased another ticket from a man who seemed very annoyed.  I don't think he was happy in his job, but it wasn't the time to explore this with him.  I say bus station.  It was two long stone benches.  Two hours past, then a man that I had exchanged a few words with assured me that this was going to Tarcolés.  He was correct, but awkwardly, this was a stopping service which took a further two hours as it stopped about every five minutes.  It also retraced the exact same route which the Parrita bus had taken.  

Readers, please be aware that had I had charge of a large group of teenagers as I very often do on international trips, be assured that I would have thoroughly researched the transport options including the route and actual location of places.  When by myself, I don't tend to bother.  

It gets dark early here due to the proximity to the equator.  I never like to arrive at a new place in the dark, but I very nearly did tonight.  So I write to you now, from my cosy budget hotel in Tarcolés, which is on the west coast of Costa Rica, which is on the left; well, I suppose it depends on where you are standing.  It hadn't occurred to me to go to the west coast because I didn't realise there was one, despite it being fairly obvious on a map, what with it being Central America.  It would have taken about five hours to get to the east coast, instead it took me seven hours to get to the west coast.  

If you go to the east coast though, you can't give blood for 4 months; with the west coast, it's only 4 weeks.  I have special, magic, in-demand blood; my blood group is B negative, which is the opposite of what I try to be, but my blood is in demand, so west coast it was.  

I coated myself in Deet Femme, then enjoyed sumptuous fish, straight out of the ocean - the one on the left - I'm now sipping a cool red Fanta and making friends with the resident canines whilst accompanied by a chorus of chirruping cicadas.  

Let's see what adventures tomorrow brings.  Thanks for reading.  

No comments:

Post a Comment