Costaa Ricaa! #1

Costa Ricaaaa!

First impression?  Warrm! But rainy. Short showers are kinda refreshing though. It kinda reminds of Uganda because of similar climate. Buut, from beginning. Let’s make the story full.

Introduction

Destination:  Costa Rica

Time: 10.12.13 – 10.01.14
Crew: 10 ppl, Peter Csonka, Nina Csonkova, Ondrej Krivanek, Lukas Cervinka, Milos Trnka, Peter Schoerfel, Matej Boda, Valer Metei, Jano Slancik  /tusim/ & me

We decided to go to Costa Rica on the beginning  of September when we met our friends from this country at World Championships , it was hard decision for me as I had to pick to either go with big group of friends for something new or to go to my beloved Uganda for Freestyle. Especially  as we know that there will be dam destroying all treasures of white nile. But I’ve decided to follow my friends and to visit new place also because it’s  lead also by idea to find new alternative for winter when Uganda will be gone. 

So. Let’s roll.

As our crew is mostly from Czech & Slovakia, and there are usually better flights deals from Vienna, we decided to fly from there.  Which means I had to get there somehow from Cracow. Our flight was  departuring at 6 in the morning  and closest connection I had was leaving at 11:40 am previous day.. after 13 hours in bus I had to wait another 4 hours until others got to the airport which was already kinda exhausting. But always meeting up with friends cheered me up and excited again for trip which was ahead of us. Jano & Valer were trying to bring their own boats with them but it wasn’t possible!  But we managed to send all our paddles for 70$ without any problems. We were flying with American airlines first to Milano (MXP) then to New York (JFK) and finally to San Jose (SJO). I got pretty disappointed as it was first time I took long flight and there weren’t any personal tv screens also food wasn’t as good as at Turkish airlines. Our flight to NY was longer then predicted and we had really short time at transfer to Costa Rica but security led us through without any problems. On last flight we had kinda big storm around Mexico and turbulence were quite big but we i was so exhausted that I didn’t care too much and slept most of the time.

We arrived at evening and we had only one car prereserved. We tried few rentals but all prices were around 4000$ which was very high. Luckly guy from local rental company found us and offer Mitsubishi Montero for 1800$ with full insurance.  Then we slept at nearby backpackers hostel.
Next day we got up pretty early as we are not used  to this time zone yet. We went to pick up boats – we got them for 400$ for whle month. I’ve got Jackson Rocker, Im really curious how is it going to work for me! Then we had to make roofrack which we remade to thule wooden prototype J also we got chain for boats and bought machets so we are ready for jungle jams! 

Now we are on the way to turrialba, though it’s Only 70 kms from San Jose – the traffic is really heavy here at this time so we are still in capital city.. Oh well, cant wait to get on river tomorrow!  Stay in touch for more updates and photos!