We woke up at 3am for 6:30am flight to Miami with a 4 hour lay over before catching our connecting flight to San Jose. Our layover in Miami was uneventful and we had some expensive crappy airport food in the only restaurant that was in our terminal. Once we got near San Jose the pilot told us that San Jose was having some really bad rain and that we would need to circle around for a bit and hope that the rain would let up so that we could land. After one aborted landing attempt where we were about 100’ off the ground before having to shoot back up into the air the pilot told us that we only had enough fuel to make one more landing attempt or we would need to divert to Panama to wait out the weather and refuel. Fortunately we were able to land at about 9:00pm, an hour late. The lines through immigration and customs moved fairly quickly and as we exited the airport we were greeted by a mob of people waiting just outside the doors to the airport. At first we thought that Madonna or some other VIP must have been arriving but we quickly realized that WE were the VIPs. There were people taking pictures, a swarm of people asking if we needed a taxi or a hotel room.
Fortunately, Wilson, the driver from our hotel was waiting for us right outside the door of the airport and quickly took my wife’s baggage and cleared a path though the crowd and took us to his van. The drive to the Orquideas Inn took about 15 minutes from the airport and it is located in the suburbs of Alajuela. The people at the reception were friendly and our room was simple and clean. After freshening up in our room we made our way to the restaurant/bar for a late snack and drinks but unfortunately we arrived just as the kitchen was closing so we had to settle on familiarizing ourselves with the two main local beers Imperial and Pilsen. Alex the bartender kept us pretty entertained and explained some of the local customs and told us some good stories about the hotel.
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