Last night we confirmed where to hop on the bus to Liberia this morning. Which was right next door to where we where staying. At exactly 5:30 a bus rolled up, but the driver said it was going to San Jose. This could be a more direct bus to our ultimate destination of Grecia than the Liberia bus. The price was still only $8, it was a nice full size tourist bus with air conditioning, so we hopped on, thinking we’ll figure out the rest of the trip later. Settling into our comfortable reclining seats, I was back asleep in no time. The driver made a few stops but not nearly as many as we had made on the trip into town last week. Three hours into the journey we stopped at a roadside restaurant for a restroom break and food if we desired. Since we brought our leftover dinners and some fresh pineapple, we were set and opted to just take in the beautiful view of the ocean during our break. The scenery offered during this trip was breathtaking. Another hour we were cruising through the capitol city of San Jose and pulling up at the end of the line, where we were going to have to figure out what to do next. The sky was overcast and Sean was already fussing about the chill in the air. Thankfully I had downloaded bus schedules and a map of the city on my phone last week, because we were able to piece together our next steps for today without internet access. We had to walk a few blocks and with the assistance of some helpful local Ticos, we found the correct bus stop to take the last leg of our trip today, which was only about 1.5 hours away. I was so happy the windows on this bus were freshly washed so that I could snap some crisp pictures from the windows, like this one. As you can see by the time we got out of the city, the skies had cleared and it was once again a beautiful sunkissed day.

When we reached the last stop in Grecia, we exited the bus and didn’t know which way to start walking. I remembered reading that our next hostel was near a large church, so we just started looking for the spires. Two blocks in we saw them reaching up to the sky beyond the nearest buildings… So we continued in that direction to the church square.

Once we turned the corner, I recognized the logo for our hostel. We were greated at the locked gate by our host Hans, who was most welcoming and showed us around the house and grounds until our private room was almost ready. There is a lovely back yard garden with plenty of places to sit back and relax. Hans gave us the WiFi password and we were able to catch up on email and blog postings before we dropped our bags in our room. We had arrangements to meet with some online friends, Jen and Greg Seymour who moved to Costa Rica almost two years ago. We met them at the church fountain and walked to a restaurant they had suggested, called Casa Del Miguel. (Another excellent meal, by the way!)

We were both happy that they did not appear to be freaked out by us thinking we were crazy stalkers. (Well maybe they think that, but they didn’t appear to!) Back in October, on a chilly rainy Saturday morning, I had curled up with Jen’s book, “Costa Rica Chica” that had just arrived in the mail. I read the story of their move from Texas to Costa Rica in one sitting. It made me miss the country so much, the very next day, Sean and I started planning this trip. Thanks Jen! and thanks Greg for spending the time tonight and sharing your story! It was a pleasure to meet you both. You can check out their blogs at www.costaricachica.com and www.costaricacurious.com Plus you should go to amazon and order their books… they BOTH have books that have recently been at the #1 and #2 slots on the Amazon’s Travel Central America category. Congratulations you two! Jen also maks a beautiful handmade bracelets that she calls Jen’s Arm Candy. I bought a few of them for the girls, the quality of her jewelry is superb. (If they read mom’s blog…surprise is spoiled!)
After dinner we walked together back to our hostel, they gave us some great pointers on where to have breakfast and some things to do tomorrow. Then, Sean and I stopped by the grocery store for some evening treats and we have been chilling on the balcony ever since.

We are staying on a busy street that is pretty lively with hustle and bustle of city life. I am happy that our room is in the back of the house where it will be a little quieter. We ended the night by joining a couple of guys in the back yard gardens that work here. One played an acoustic guitar the other sang beautiful harmonies. Always fun to meet new people!