Wednesday- bus travel to San Jose

Wednesday- travel

Last day in Costa Rica. We had a little more time to get ready this morning as bags didn’t have to be out til 9am and we left at 10. Time for looking around, time for seeing the birds and flowers.



I walked by the Mariposario (butterfly farm), but it wasn’t open yet, And we saw a man sweeping with a palm frond. Sorry the picture is so blurry, but he was really doing a good job.


We received a bit of medical information about Costa Rica this morning on our ride to lunch. Costa Rica has socialized medicine, which means that emergencies are taken care of speedily and with efficiency, however NON-emergencies take a long time, sometimes a month and occasionally up to six months. Jose told us that many people from the US come to Costa Rica for plastic surgery, eye surgery and dental work. At supper last night he mentioned that his son had thought about going into medicine, but felt that there were too many doctors for all to make a living.

We also were told that the country is refurbishing the Railroad system that was built in 1910. It was abandoned when people preferred to travel in their own cars, but with the price of gasoline, the country is trying to find a private company to take over the RR system.

He saw someone on the street selling yucca blooms and he said that people eat them with scrambled eggs at Easter.

We stopped for lunch at a very interesting large open-air sort of place. N and I ordered tortas de queso (which I would call quesadillas) and horchata (a drink we enjoyed in Spain, made of pine nuts, I think.)

Our next stop was in the town of Sarche where a 90-year-old oxcart factory has become a monster souvenir shop. We saw how the wheels for oxcarts were still made the old way with a forge and straps of iron around each wheel. There was a water wheel moving the machinery to 30 rpm and the metal ring was heated to 800 degrees Celsius before being placed on the wooden wheel and cooled.

We loaded the bus and headed for our last night’s stay in San Jose.

The group from Bwd has a flight leaving for Atlanta at 7:15 am, so we catch a shuttle for the airport at 4:15 AM. And breakfast? Who knows or really cares at that hour.

Let me tell you there will be lots of sleeping on the plane. We have an hour and a half in Atlanta to get our luggage, go thru customs, recheck our bags and find our gate to DFW. If we’re late getting home, you’ll know why.

And we’re all really excited that the person who bought 2 large wooden rocking chairs and planned to schlep them thru the airport, changed her mind and has shipped them home.

We spent about an hour or so and some $$$ in this shop.