Introduction

Costa Rica has been on my radar for a number of years. Many friends have visited and raved about its natural beauty and joy de vivre for many years. One of my best friends has been splitting her time between Montreal and Santa Teresa for a number of years and finally last year, after much hard work, was able to move to Costa Rica full time. She has been pushing me to come visit for as long as I can remember. Mrs jv66 went to visit her a couple of years ago and the plan was to go visit our friend this March. We started looking for tickets in February and found our YUL-MIA-SJO RT for 660$ each for which our friend told us was about as low as you could get for March.

Now Santa Teresa is located on the pacific coast of the Nicoya Peninsula and there are two ways to get from San Jose to the coast. One being a 7 hour bus ride. Two, taking a 1/2 hour regional flight plus a 45 minute taxi ride. Now a RT regional runs about 200$ each plus a 50$ cab ride, and the bus is 30$ RT each, but you have to factor a night in San Jose for each bus route leg (plus taxis from SJO to hotel). Mrs jv66 doesn't mind a 7 hour bus ride. I on the other hand don't mind paying an additional (let's say) 100$-150$ for the ease and convience of arriving on the coast for cocktail hour plus the fact that we would be flying on a Cesna 208B Grand Caravan plane both ways over some stunning scenery! I used my nexus phone camera and my old Canon Powershot SD 800 IS for this TR so some photos are inherently grainy and out of focus.