Day Trip by Bus

Riding the busses can be a great adventure. It’s possible to get almost anywhere on a bus – cheaply. It’s not necessarily easy to figure out how to get from one place to another by bus. One method is to ask strangers. This doesn’t necessarily work all that well because everyone wants to be helpful and give information even if they don’t know the answer. The result can often be confusing. Our usual technique is to walk around looking for a bus that boasts a destination that sounds like it is in the direction we want to go. It’s all part of the adventure.

Today we decided to get on a couple of busses and see where we ended up. So we jumped on a bus in downtown Heredia headed in the general direction of Santa Barbara de Heredia. The bus took us through San Francisco, San Joaquin, and on into Santa Barbara, where we got off the bus to walk around for a while. There wasn’t a whole lot to do or see in downtown Santa Barbara, so after a leisurely walk around the usual Parque Central, and a look at the usual beautiful old church by one end of the parque, we decided a good way to escape the rain was to jump on another bus!
When we spotted a bus that said “Alajuela,” we jumped aboard. A rainy day may not be the best time to visit a city for the first time, but today’s rain was really just a drizzle, not the torrential downpour of yesterday, so we at least got a look at the town. “It’s a mini-San Jose,” says Gene. I don’t think he really meant it as a compliment. We wandered through the market, which had shops with good-looking fruits and vegetables, meats and fish. Since the rain was only a drizzle, the little kids were having fun feeding the pigeons in the park, several groups of older men were carrying on political discussions or playing checkers on the built-in checker/chess boards on the park benches, and a few young lovers were kissing and cooing on other benches. It was a normal day in a Costa Rican park. There was the usual impressive church at one end of the park, many people wandering around enjoying life. So different from Florida where most people are hiding out in their air conditioning and the parks are used mostly by homeless people! The Pops by the park in Alajuela had no tables and I was craving iced cream, so we found our way back to the main bus station and found a bus bound for Heredia. In only 45 minutes, we were back in downtown Heredia, eating ice cream sundaes (mine had great coffee ice cream). It just doesn’t get any better than this!
Our expenses today:
3 busses 710 colones
1 taxi 400
Breakfast 2300
Coffees 300
Sundaes 1200
Total 4910 colones ($13.60)
Not a bad price for a full day tour including food!