www.CostaRicaTicas.com

Okay... so I am not staying anywhere near the gulch... is it safe to taxi into San Jose from Belen at night and safely get a ride back around 10:00/11:00 or even later? Also does SL do rooms by hour or just HDR?

Thanks for the insight

1 Yes, but Uber is cheaper / cleaner / not thieves.

2. Neither the HDR or SL does rooms by the hour.

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Any opinion or observation in the post above is purely presented for entertainment purposes and does not promote "sexual tourism" or "human trafficking". The laws of Costa Rica apply to all activities in Costa Rica. No warranty is expressed or implied. Void where prohibited by law. Your experience, observations or perspective may be different.

In exile in pu*sy prison

Thanks for the info... didn’t think of Uber... price seems reasonable at around $10.

Uber is also safer, they have computerized records of your interaction with them and in spite of CR's false accusations, they are vetted by the company.

I've heard some horror stories with taxis, like driving to areas where their buddies rob you and pretend they know nothing about it and were victims as well, and later get their cut of the loot.

I also found uber drivers more professional, more courteous (you get to rate them after the trip) and nicer newer cars with air conditioning. You can lock the doors driving through shanty town and on the highway not get all that hot air in your face.

My experience with cabbies here is many will at least rip you off if they detect a newbie and drive an extra couple miles the long way and run up the meter, and many rig that meter so gringos pay more.

Many taxi drivers I've had were nice and honest, but many lied through their teeth, and more than a few endured my furious rebukes and then suddenly remembered where our destination was...

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Don't try to understand 'em, just rope 'em down and brand 'em...

I picked up a chica at the HDR and she wanted to eat, so I took her to CAFE MUNDO. Ask the waiter to get us a taxi and it seemed to take a long time. The guy shows up and parks across the street. He was a young guy and the chica got in but I didn't like the way he was looking at me. It wasn't a taxi just a regular car. I was in vacation mode and got in. I told him to take us to the HOTEL PRESIDENTE(this was about 2004 and the hotel was still chica friendly) She tells me he doesn't know where the HOTEL PRESIDENTE is. The he makes a quick left turn and I knew I was in trouble. She and the driver started screaming at each other and she was sticking her finger in the back of his neck. We got in heavy traffic and we jumped out of the car quickly. I was lucky to get out this mess and every since then I am very careful about what taxis I get in.

Wow... okay... Uber it is lol. Hopefully I’ll make it out for some fun tonight. I’ll post on my adventures.

With Uber, though, you just gotta make sure that you've sorted out of the details of getting your phone unlocked, before even getting on the airplane, so that you can easily slip in a cheap data sim card from a C.R. shop and have no concerns over surprise charges from your regular cell company when you get back. ( unless there are better ways I don't know about ).

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If you let the devil ride, he's gonna want to drive

Also true for T-Mobile which is in merger talk with Sprint. As a European company T-Mobile has always had best international roaming deals. As part of the merger talk, Sprint has access to T-Mobiles roaming deals internationally.

I find 2G data slow but adequate enough. Most of the time I’m on WiFi at one of the local establishments. The one recommendation to deal with slow 2G speed is to pre-download maps so you have them available offline. Google maps are downloadable, or I also use an App, City Maps 2 Go. Takes a little pre-planning, but well worth it.

GPS doesn’t need cellular to work. It does need data or stored data to put it in the useful context of a map. I use the downloaded map and GPS while in a taxi or Uber to see where the driver is going. Even drivers I trust, helps me make association with what different roads look like to where I am on the map, helps me learn SJ outside the gulch.

I have AT&T. Waze and Uber work perfectly fine in SJO. Pick up is fine but make sure that you can find your destination in Uber since addressesare lacking in SJ.

I have Verizon and the charged me $10 a day to “keep my current plan” with .5gb of data... all in all not a terrible idea... but surely not the greatest. Uber was the way to go... though coming and going to Belen was not their favorite destination... it was <$15 for trips that sometimes took almost an hour.