San Jose, Costa Rica

I made it to San Jose! Yesterday, after I checked in for my flight, I realised that my ticket included a 'technical stop', which turned out to be Guayaquil. Guayaquil is the largest city in Ecuador, and is a very prosperous (and apparently also very dangerous) port city near the southern coast. So my route to Costa Rica turned out to be Quito-Guayaquil-San Jose. Much time spent waiting. And speaking of waiting, when we were in Guayaquil, we got word that San Jose airport had suddenly closed, and will remain closed for 3 hours because apparently a plane broke down, or had some sort of incident. I'm still not sure exactly what happened, but we had to wait at Guayaquil airport for another 3 hours! I was so bored. The airline compensated us for food though, which was nice of them to do so, seeing as the delay wasn't their fault. The food wasn't that good, it was just a croissant and a softdrink from a cafe, both of which I now regret consuming as the croissant had cheese and the drink was overly sugary and artificial. But I was hungry at the time, and you can only have morals and values when your needs have been met. Oh the shame.

We arrived in San Jose at 8pm local time. Costa Rica is 1 hour behind Ecuador, so that makes it a 16 hour difference between Australia. On the plus side, my phone actually has reception here, what a bonus! I hadn't organised a hostel to stay in yet, as my credit card, for some reason, has decided to stop working, so I was slightly stressed about not having anywhere to stay! I need not have worried. Outside the airport there were a few people holding accommodation signs, and I just picked 1 of them, Costa Rica Backpackers. I had intentions to go to another place, but couldn't get any confirmation for availability, so I just went with the people at the airport. BAD decision. I really don't like this place. First off, I got completely ripped off with the exchange rate. I paid for the hostel in USD (it seems to be widely accepted here) thinking that I would save my CRC for markets etc. It was $33 altogether, and instead of giving me $17 back, they gave me change in CRC, at a rate worse than at the airport! It was ridiculous! The room I'm in has 4 bunk beds, but there's not a lot of space for everyone's luggage. Plus they didn't even provide a pillow! I had to use my sleeping bag for a pillow. There were no matches/lighters in the kitchen to light the stove either. I'm very disgruntled with this place, and am not recommending it to everyone! Needless to say, I went out and found another hostel this morning, the one I had originally planned on going to anyway. I should've gone there to begin with, there were no space issues. Plus they're cheaper and offer the same services.