Transportation Tales from Costa Rica
Transportation Tales from Costa Rica
Getting around Costa Rica and my hometown of Heredia is certainly an adventure. Between navigating the town on foot and in buses, taxis, trains, and Ubers, I have some interesting stories.
Walking
Most mornings, I walk to school. It takes me about 25 minutes to make the uphill trek to the LIU Global Costa Rica center from my neighborhood in the Mercedes Norte sector of Heredia. Unfortunately, the hottest point of the Costa Rican day is early in the morning. Instead of the day heating up as it goes along, it gets cooler as rain sweeps in early in the afternoon. Below is a video of a time-lapse of my walk.
When I’m lucky, I pass people walking their dogs in the mornings. If you have a dog with you, you and your furry friend automatically get a “buenos dias.” Extra points if you let me pet your dog. If I’m not lucky I get honked at and catcalled on my walk to school. Yep, and I get even more honks if I’m wearing shorts. The other day I even got a bike bell along with a catcall from a cyclist. Fun times.
Walking around the city at night earns you even more creepy stares and lewd cat calls, so the girls make sure to stick together and message when we get home. I have never felt unsafe walking around in Heredia or even San Jose, but we do ere on the side of caution when going out.
The Bus
I was very confident when I first attempted to take the bus from Central Heredia to my neighborhood of Mercedes Norte. My bus stop home is right outside of the school, so I just hopped on the bus and looked out the bus window for familiar landmarks near my house. This first attempt was made on my 5th day in the country around 6:30pm. This isn’t very late, but it gets dark here around 6pm. So, in the dark, I rode the bus. My host mom had given me instructions for the bus, but I rode it and saw nothing familiar. It wasn’t long until I found myself at the last stop with a bus driver yelling at me to get off. In Spanish, of course. I attempted to explain where I needed to go, and he simply told me to go straight up the road I was on.
So I went straight, and had no earthly idea where I was. After walking in a strange, dark area by myself for about 15 minutes, I gave up and found a taxi to take me to my address. Good thing, too, because I was NOWHERE near my house.
Since then, I have learned that there are three different bus routes from that stop, and that I need to make sure I get on the Monte Bello bus in order to get anywhere near my house. Valuable information to know. So now, I ride the bus in the mornings when I’m too lazy to walk and I take the bus on Tuesday nights directly after Spanish class. A one way trip on the bus costs about 50 cents, so it’s definitely worth a ride when I’m lazy or exhausted, or both. Often, the bus gets very full, and I give up my seat for adorable little old ladies. I do this because the young men in Heredia do not seem to have enough respect to give up there seats. But I’m not bitter.
Beyond my bus home, I have taken buses to and from San Jose and up into the mountains surrounding Heredia (see my hiking misadventures post for that ridiculous story). The bus ride from Heredia to San Jose only takes about 30 minutes and costs about a dollar. My classmates have taken buses all over the country – out to the coasts and national parks. I have yet to venture out too far from Heredia, but overall, the Costa Rican bus system is reliable and easy to navigate.
Taxis
Taxis are always an adventure. They’re everywhere, and they’re easy to flag down on the street with a simple “abierto?” or “are you open?” However, it gets trickier when you actually need to tell them where to go. Why, you ask?
Oh yeah, because Costa Rica doesn’t have real addresses.
Nope, the address for the school is 200 meters west and 125 meters south of the Heredia Red Cross or 50 meters north of the Richard Nixon school. Everywhere you go, you have to know the landmarks near your destination.
On my 4th day in the country, I went out at night and needed to take a taxi home. Two other girls and I got a taxi together and I attempted to explain to the driver where my house was. At that point, I was dumb and couldn’t remember the name of my gated community. I eventually made it to where I needed to go, but apparently after I got out of the cab, the driver asked my friends if I was roofied. No, kind sir, I just don’t know where my house is and my Spanish sucks.
Anyways, since then I have figured out my address and how to get to most places in the city. The school pays for us to take taxis after each of our night classes that let out after 7pm, of which I have 4 a week. A taxi to my house only costs about the equivalent of $2, so that’s pretty great. Taxis are a reliable, cheap way to get around if you happen to know how to give a Costa Rican address that isn’t really an address.
The Train
Costa Rica has one train line. Heredia has a stop that will take you to San Jose, and from there, you can switch trains to take you somewhere farther out. I have no weird, interesting stories about the train because I actually managed to figure it out with the help of an LIU staff member the first weekend. The train to San Jose will only cost you about a dollar, and will take less time than a bus if you show up to the station around when the train is leaving. After learning how to take the train the first weekend, I managed to get a group of friends and I into the city on the train. Success.
Ubers
So, technically Uber is illegal here. The taxi drivers have licenses and unions, and have a working knowledge of landmarks within their areas. As a result, the Costa Rican government has outlawed Uber. But people still use it, and Uber drivers and taxi drivers regularly get into fights. Being the rebels that we are, LIU Global students often use Ubers because they are even cheaper than taxis, and you can pinpoint exactly where you need to go on a map. This is especially useful for students that don’t speak Spanish well or don’t know landmarks near where we need to go.
Overall, transportation in Heredia and Costa Rica as a whole is pretty fantastic. Or it is after you’ve actually figured it out. I absolutely love living in a place where I can feasibly get around on public transportation for very little. If you know, me you know I don’t like driving, primarily for the reason that I can’t multi-task while driving and I’m easily bored. So, it’s likely that after graduation I will live in a city where I will not need a car and can get around by foot, train, bus, etc.