2013 began as all new years should… stepping onto a plane about to be taken somewhere I have never been before; somewhere hot, exotic, and filled with copious new surf spots, animals, people, and places. I flew to Costa Rica in January 2013 with Matty to escape the freezing cold winter that was inevitably going to envelop England for a few months.
Having wanted to visit Central and South America for years I was pretty excited to finally have the chance. Whilst over there I decided to keep an online diary in order to keep in touch with family and friends; simultaneously reminding myself of my travels months later as I read it all back.
We finally arrived in San Jose; Costa Rica's capital, the day after we set off from London Heathrow. As soon as we escaped the terminal we were greeted by a cool refreshing breeze blowing through San Jose's nighttime air, instead of the hot, sticky, humid heat I had been expecting to hit me as soon as i stepped off the plane. On the way to the hostel in Alajuela, a district of the capital, we were introduced to something different to what I had been expecting. The streets were quiet, with only a couple of cars driving past the other way. It felt like a bit of a ghost town, until we turned a corner and saw some people hanging outside a bar, the dark doorways oozing smoke and a few women leaning up against blacked out cars pulled over on the side. Our hostel was opposite a park where a few nighttime characters were hanging out. Unloading the taxi we hauled our backpacks out of the boot and waited for the hostel to unlock its doors to let us in as the taxi drove off. After arriving later than planned at 12am after a few days worth of traveling, we were knackered and the only thing troubling us was how much sleep we could get in the next few hours before we started our journey around Costa Rica. We headed straight for bed, intrigued to see what tomorrow was going to bring.
