When you travel through a country you know that there are the days known as transfer days. The transition or transfer days are the ones when you go from one region to the next, from one hotel to the next.
In general, I, personally don’t like them!
First of all is a packing day… Bummer! There are some of us who simply don’t like packing… For me, usually there is a lot of nostalgia… You are actually leaving a place where you were happy in mostly all cases…
Then you have to make sure you are taking everything, complete luggage, phone, tablet, fanny pack, camera, passport, cards and of course money! And there is always this stress of counting stuff over and over, not to leave anything behind.
And then comes the one time that I, particularly hate the most… Waiting for the transportation that will take you to the next place. If they are on time… It’s all good, but if they are delayed five or more minutes… then I start wandering if I got the date and the time right… and “what if… they don’t show, if I got it wrong, if it was earlier and they already came… etc.”. Good thing about Camino Travel is that from the very start you know that they will be there.
And well, already on the transportation…there are two possibilities… Either is private, or is a sit in basis shuttle…
If it is a sit in basis shuttle you are doomed to be where you are sitting from the very start… (In the middle of a tiny bus… on a jump sit… and right behind the one traveler who seems to think that water is merely a drinking thing… and never something to put on your body, and much less with soap!) And if the trip is through the mountains and curves… then you have to hold on to… ehmmm… your hair!?
But it gets even more frustrating when you see this ox-cart with two children on the back… or this amazing volcano view… and you really want to take the picture… I mean! Badly! And nobody looks at you! The person next to you is already sleeping on your shoulder, the driver is listening to some babbling sport on the radio and you are there, with your camera on hand, frustrated because you couldn’t simply take a shot of a very unique sight…
And no! Don’t get me started on the bio-stops!
By now you can tell I am not really a fan of collective transportation when it comes to traveling from one region to the next.
So! This means that I am a total fan of private shuttles… Oh yeah! Even if I am solo traveling! Of course the driver has a lot to do with that… And it is not that I want Hugh Jackman to be the driver… (Of course that would be a plus!) But, if you have a good driver that knows how to speak your language and that is willing to share his country with you… You got it! Jackpot!
Because then… a boring traveling day becomes a tour!
Traveling days simply have to be tour days! And in Costa Rica more than anywhere! And let me tell you why! There is one simple reason…
Costa Rica is small. But! Is super diverse!
You travel for an hour in Costa Rica, and you find at least one compulsory photo stop, a fruit stand to taste weird delicious things, a volcano view and/or a valley amazing landscape… and of course a sloth, howler monkeys or a couple of toucans!
It is hard not to get some of that on a traveling day… and then there are crops… and the people! Pineapples, papayas, coffee or flowers… sweet plantains and the man that sells them… You want to talk to them and know about them…
And as funny as it may seem, tours sometimes fail to show the real culture and the real every day person. Not that they are not authentic… But they are for the tourism… while on the road… they are totally the everyday people in the everyday business!
That’s why in Camino Travel we definitely insist not only in having private shuttles for our passengers! And! Drivers that are into showing, taking, stopping! For us, each driving traveling day has to be a tour!
And each traveling hour a learning, discovering and amazing experience!
I mean… what is traveling about then!?
Written by Olga Sáenz-Carbonell for Camino Travel