JACO, COSTA RICA

The next morning I got the Interbus van to the surfer resort town of Jaco on the pacific coast. The rain continued all evening and into the next morning so I was only a little sorry to be leaving the lovely small town of Fortuna. Once again, the van showed up early. This time the van was almost full, but there was still one empty seat between me and the other person in my row. I was originally going to head back to San Jose for my final night in Costa Rica to wait for my flight to Peru, but I decided I’d rather see another dimension to this country and San Jose wasn’t too impressive anyway.

Growing up a few miles from one of the most famous surfing beaches in the world made me less excited about Costa Rica’s reputation as a surfer’s paradise, especially since I have never actually surfed myself, nor do I ever intend to. Jaco is only about 100 miles from San Jose and it’s the largest and most easily accessible resort town in the country, so it was there I decided to spend my final night in Central America.

This time we switched vans at sort of a hub for Interbus, but it was the same group of 8 that left Fortuna that all piled into the different van, while several other groups of people switched into vans according to their final destination. Interbus is several times more expensive than the large, crowded buses the locals use, but they are still pretty cheap and worth the extra money for the air conditioning and organization. Their slogan on the side of every van is Really Good (seriously).

We left Fortuna a little after 8 a.m. and I arrived in Jaco just after noon. Fortuna was still cold and raining up in the central valley, but Jaco was hot and steamy. I didn’t have a hotel reserved, but the second I got out of the van I knew I had to have A/C, not so much just to be able to sleep, but to survive. I wandered down the main street and came upon the Hotel Lido, where I got a very nice room for $35 total. It had A/C, but no TV for the first time on my trip. My plan was to watch USC play in the championship football game that night, so I’d have to find a sports bar with a satellite anyway as regular cable would never carry the game.

I put my stuff in the room and then just wandered around in the humidity. I had read that this was a well established “beach resort” and I suppose it was, but it wasn’t nearly as fancy as I had expected. The town definitely is set up for surfers and people who just want to hang out near the beach. There are a couple of large resort hotels, but they are pretty isolated from the normal goings on of the town.

Later that evening, I was one of the first few people to arrive to watch the football game at the Beatle Bar, which was only about 150 yards from my hotel down the main drag. The place was one of a few bars in town that seem to have that “spring break” feel with multiple bars throughout a large, open room. I sat at a small bar in the corner manned by a young girl who looked a lot like a preoperative Salma Hayek. She told me she dreamed of going to Sweden, which I found odd, especially considering she admitted she has still yet to ever leave Costa Rica, and Nicaragua is only a few hours away via a cheap bus.

The place was still almost completely empty in the first quarter (around 7:30) except for about 8 or so other Americans (who were also all routing for USC, thankfully). I asked my bartender when people arrived and she matter-of-factly told me the place would be full of hookers and their potential clients by nine. I was a little shocked that a grungy surfer town also had a thriving business in legal prostitution. As the evening rolled on, sure enough, the hookers came in and sat at the outer tables and a large group of men had assembled at the bar in the center of the place. For a while it looked like an 8th grade dance with the girls on one side and the boys on the other, but after the alcohol started kicking in the two sides started mixing. Since I had been there watching the game from the beginning, I was pretty much left alone. I kept chatting with the bartender and then these three young guys who’d just arrived from Long Island that day.

USC destroyed Oklahoma so all of us gringos were happy. I walked two minutes back to my room and fell asleep quickly. On my way out I noticed the girls were almost all very pretty, although not as good looking as the ones at the casino in San Jose.

The next morning I woke up early and after another walk around town, the Interbus going to the San Jose airport picked me up. They were early, again, and after a short stop at their hub about an hour away, I was dropped off at the airport ahead of schedule.