And We're Off!

So it's Costa Rica tonight! Well, Mexico City for a five hour layover then Costa Rica. The schedule isn't great, but tickets were cheap so what can you do? The parts of our itinerary we've finalized are at the bottom, but we skip town tonight at midnight, fly for three hours into Mexico City, where we have a five hour layover (5:30 local time to 10:30 local time), then a three-and-a-half hour flight into Costa Rica. We arrive at 12:35PM CR time (they are two hours ahead I think, but I should check on that). I've booked us a private shuttle - a bit of a splurge but I figure with the weird travel times and Beth having Ambein and me having Atavan (sleeping pill lightwieght that I am they gave me an anti-anxiety pill that still kicks my butt) we're going to be too stupid to figure out how to find the bus - so there will be a driver with a sign who will throw us into a van and drive us the 3.5 hours to Santa Elena. Here's what we've booked so far:

Mexicana Airlines Flight MX111
LAX - Mexico City
12:05 AM (Dec 28) - 5:35 AM
Mexican Airlines Flight MX379
Mexico City - San Jose, CR
9:15AM - 12:15PM

December 28, 1:00PM pickup
Desafio Shuttle to Santa Elena, CR

December 28 - December 30
Hotel El Sueno
Santa Elenta, Costa Rica
Direct Phone: 2-645-5021
(Booked through Anywhere Costa Rica: 011-506-2479-8811)

We then go to La Fortuna, but don't have our transfer booked yet (we plan to do a jeep-boat-jeep across a lake and book a room while in Santa Elena). We'll be in La Fortuna from the 30th - January 2nd.

January 2nd
Nature Air Flight 5C-14351 (I think, there are a lot of numbers on this thing)
La Fortuna - Tambor
1:20PM - 2:25 PM

Then we'll be in either Montezuma or Mal Pais, both supposedly surf/beach towns. Again, we don't have hotels booked but plan on asking people where a good place to stay would be (we require hot water and a private bathroom!).

We fly to Drake Bay on the 7th, but we had to book two flights as there are no direct flights to Drake Bay, so we go back through San Jose and then on to our destination:

January 7th
Nature Air Flight 5C-3140
Tambor - San Jose
8:30AM - 8:55AM

Nature Air Flight 5C-1430
San Jose - Drake Bay
11:30AM - 12:10PM

January 7 - 11
Jinetes de Osa
1-866-553-7073 from the US
506-2-231-5806 in Costa Rica
or reservations@jinetesdeosa.com

Here, we have a night tour of the jungle on the 7th, scuba on the 8th and 9th, a national park tour on the 10th, and we fly back to San Jose on the 11th:

January 11
Nature Air Flight 5C-1440
12:20PM - 1:00PM

We don't have a hotel in San Jose for our last night yet, again we'll figure that out on the fly.

January 12
Mexicana Airlines Flight MX386
San Jose, CR - Mexico City
7:30AM - 10:35AM
Mexicana Airlines Flight MX902
Mexico City - LAX
3:05PM - 5:25PM

Excited! Beth is still sleeping and I am starting to stress out a bit, but mostly beacuse they won't let us check in online and I hate that. We have separate tickets for the flights tonight and I hope we can get seats close to one another, or that I'm in first class and Beth is back by the bathroom or something (just kidding). I wonder if the rumor is true that alcohol is free on international flights? I'm sure Beth will let me know as soon as we're on the plane.

This will be a very different trip than Peru I think - Peru was culture-heavy, lots of history and museums and reading ahead to be prepared for the sights. Costa Rica seems like more of an enjoy-nature kind of a thing, with as many activities packed in as we can get. There's going to be a ridiculous amount of interesting flora and fauna, very excited about that - Beth mostly excited about the monkeys and I have a request from Tiffani to find a sloth...

I will keep you posted! Sounds like most hotels have internet access and we're bringing one computer and I'm certain there will be lots of down time for updating!