The Fab 5+1 in Costa Rica

Fab 5

San Jose

Leg One

My brother Jordan won in a lottery  a week stay in a house that sleeps 8 located in Dominical Costa Rica. Yeah I was in my wife suggested I go. Sure why not free time away from the family, a chance to take some amazing photographs, hang with my brothers and brush up on my Spanish. Yeah I was in! I understand that the rum there is good! The whole group of us were six: Jord, Nick, Heather (Nick’s girlfriend) Jeremy, Zach and myself. I only met two members of the group before.

To get to Dominical we had to fly into San Jose, Costa Rica. Which Jord, who had visited before, informed me that it was the armpit of the country. Since we all had slightly different schedules we needed a spot to convene before we all headed to Dominical. I Goggled hostels in San Jose. The Lonely Planet recommended Hostel Pangea. Sounded good to me and relatively inexpensive. Everyone was on board for Hostel Pangea. Sweet! I arrived in San Jose around 9:30pm and needed a taxi from the airport to the hostel it was about a 20 min ride as we were approaching the hostel I was thinking holy crap am I going to get robbed and dropped in the middle of San Jose! The area around the hostel was pretty rough not like inner city Detroit back in the day but rough.  I mean the entrance to Pangea is a steel door with a smaller peep door to see who was ringing the bell. There were no other markings as to the hostel other than a small stencil painted ” Hostel Pangea” in orange in the huge steel door. There is no way that I would have been able to find this place on my own.When I read the small stencil on the steel door I knew things were ok.

Outside of the foreboding exterior the hostel itself was a labyrinth of rooms and full of color. The rooms were spartan but clean as was the whole place quite clean. The staff was very warm and attentive “Pura Vida” as it goes in Costa Rica. The coffee was great the food was top notch and the drinks were pretty inexpensive.We met some interesting people from all over the world; Great Britain, Ireland, Denmark, The Netherlands and Costa Rica! But our favorite at Pangea was Jessenia wish I had a photo of her. She was awesome always happy had the best smile and was full of useful information.

After a couple of days of drinking and eating, the others from the group arrived it was time to go to our destination Dominical. We all grabbed a taxi to the bus station and boarded a bus to San Isidro. The trip was rather uneventful which was nice I grabbed some sleep. We arrived in San Isidro and when we got off the bus we were swarmed by men who wanted to take us to our next destination. They did not care where we were going they knew we had cash. Since we were 6 with luggage there was only one guy who had the vehicle for the job and that man was Rocky Balboa.

 

The photos below were all taken while my brother Nick and I walked around the center of San Jose. I have to say that on two different occasions two guys approached us and said it was not safe to be in this area with cameras. Luckily we both got out with out incident.

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