I'd Rather Be Canyoneering

Plan your own trip to Costa Rica

• Carma Evans • Episode 7

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Daydreaming of jungle canyons with turquoise water? Listen as Katie shares all her tips for planning an amazing canyoneering trip to Costa Rica.

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Katie:

Hey everyone. Thanks for joining us. I'm Katie

Carma:

and I'm Carma and you're listening to, I'd rather be canyoneering.

Katie:

We're best friends who totally geek out about canyon rigging and beautifully slot canyons. Basically we'd always rather be canyoneering. But when we can't, we spend every spare minute, we have talking about it.

Carma:

This podcast is for entertainment purposes only. Please seek professional instruction and practice technical skills in a controlled environment before entering slot canyons. Your safety is entirely your own responsibility.

Katie:

Welcome to our canyon crew!

Carma:

Welcome back to the podcast everyone. I cannot stop thinking about Costa Rica. Katie shared. Her highlights album with me on Google Photos, and I just got lost looking at pictures and videos. I really wanna get myself to Costa Rica and I want to help you all to go to Costa Rica as well. So today I'm going to be drilling Katie about the nitty gritty of how to plan a trip to Costa Rica.

Katie:

And I am willing to give you all the details and all the tips that I've picked up from my last two trips and how to make it run super smooth and have a great time.

Carma:

Sweet. So how did you even go about finding canyons in Costa Rica? How did you even get, pulled there? Of all the places in the globe,

Katie:

Well, I've always been interested in the rainforest. As a little girl, I thought I'd grow up and build a tree house and live in the rainforest. That was my big plan to be with the monkeys and the two cans. So that place has always had a draw for me. And then add on top of that, I found out there was canyoneering there, and it was just a, this is gonna be my place kind of. So I got interested and then I joined Facebook groups, so I found like canyoneering in Costa Rica type of groups and started just kinda looking at the pictures to see if it's what I thought it was. And as I looked through those pictures, I was like, yeah, this is exactly what I'm looking for. And started to dial in some of the canyons that I wanted to go see. As I'm looking at pictures that are tagged and starting to get an idea of the canyons that I'm really think are beautiful, what areas are they in? Are there any that are clustered together? do I wanna be in the north or the south? And kind of got a feel for.

Carma:

So then you knew you wanted to go, you kind of had an idea of what canyons you wanted to hit. How did you choose when to go?

Katie:

I chose my canyons first, and then I started talking to people on those Facebook pages and seeing if anyone had recommendations for guides And then I got hooked up with a guide and I went down both times with, Johann and really enjoyed that. I didn't know anything about him to start with. And so I actually asked him to send me some pictures of his anchors to see if we were on the same page about how we rig and we start talking through WhatsApp. WhatsApp is kind of like Google Messenger, type of thing, and it's just what everybody in South America uses for free texting. So you wanna download that and you'll want to contact people.

Carma:

so you found him on.

Katie:

I did. And then we started talking and he sent me some pictures of some anchors and what things look like down there. I also found when you do get down there, you wanna be really specific with your guide about what your expectations are, or what you're hoping for and what you'd like. Because they go with a lot of people and some people. Don't know how to whistle up to shorten rope or lengthen rope. And so maybe they don't do that with every single client cuz it's more confusing and you might end getting the rope too short. So just talking about what skills you have and getting your communication online and what you're wanting and I feel like when I'm getting a guide in a foreign country, I am mostly looking for someone who is familiar with the canyons. I really like jumping, I told you all about that. important to me to have a guide who'd bend down the canyon a lot of times and knew where the hazards were so that I could jump. And then Also, weather is tricky when you don't know the weather patterns. I know the Wasatch weather patterns really well. I know what desert looks like when it's rain and when it's probably gonna flood. I know that by sight. But I Don't know those patterns around these mountains in Costa Rica. And they know the catch basins. They know what the clouds look like, they know what it looks like when it's gonna dump. And that was something that was really important to me as someone who could interpret the weather. And I felt like I can accommodate rigging and say, oh, let's switch this and use this anchor, or let's do this with anybody. But what I really wanted was knowledge of the canyons and knowledge of the weather patterns.

Carma:

Yeah

Katie:

When I'm checking the weather, I also learned to use the windy app, and I really like that one. I pay for the premium subscription and then I'm able to check weather and winds and how fast things are moving, and that app works really well in South America.

Carma:

Sweet.

Katie:

So then once I started talking to a guide, we kind of got the areas and the canyons that were the ones I really wanted. Then we picked the dates that were best for those canyons and he let me know what would be the best time with the best chances of getting to go down them because even though it's the dry season, it's still gonna rain 50% of the time. So we are trying to choose the best window there. And then also when the guide's available to take off from their regular job and come and do guiding cuz I mean, it's seasonal. They only have two months of guiding and they probably have something else

Carma:

right? So did you have any trouble like getting a passport or booking your flights?

Katie:

My next step after I've picked the season is that I book those flights and I use flights from home. It's something in Utah and it's kind of spreading. To get me some cheap flights, I ended up with$250 roundtrip flights, was awesome. And that's why I got to go twice cuz my husband is amazing and, he, subscribes to the cities that we want to go to and then whenever that pops up for the right dates, we can nail it down, and, get those flights. And that's usually six months ahead of time, sometimes almost a year ahead of. If you wanna get a good deal it's not usually any sooner than that, but kind of in those windows that they can pop up. I make sure I have a passport that's gonna be valid for the right dates as well.

Carma:

Yeah, you don't wanna be scrambling right before your trip

Katie:

Yeah. And as you're having this conversation and getting those dates down, that's kind of a circular conversation with whoever you're going with because you're picking the dates and you're picking your flights. And then you need to let your guide know how many canyon days you want and be flexible cuz you might need to take a break in between for. And have some backup plans. I'd mentioned this in the other podcast, but having some backup plans for going to, national Parks to biological reserves, any things that you might wanna do surfing on a rainy day. Just different things that you might do if you need to take a break in the middle of the canyons.

Carma:

How did you go about booking your overnight accommodations in the country? What's the best way to do that?

Katie:

So There actually are a lot of accommodations in Costa Rica that you can choose from. I didn't think there would be, but I looked up on bookings.com and Airbnb and I found some really great places to stay in Bahost del Toro and around the airport and all these different places. So my best experiences have been with bookings.com and the app, and if you book in the app, you get a little discount and that's nice. Airbnb, there's some cool places to stay, but I have had trouble with that in the past. They have. A background check that's kind of sloppy. And one week before my trip, I had booked Airbnb like six months before we left, and one week before the trip they did a background check on my husband and he just has a common name and somebody in a completely different state, nothing to do with us, had a felony or like eight felonies. And they just, they sent us a notification that something was going on and they're like, send us your social security number and your driver's license and all this stuff. And I thought it was a hoax. And they're like, can you have 24 hours to submit all of this or you lose your accommodations? And I was doing research to try to figure out what is this what and

Carma:

it even real?

Katie:

right who's asking for my social? I'm not doing that. And they just canceled our accom.

Carma:

Uh,

Katie:

And someone booked right in the middle of ours while I was figuring it out. Honestly, what I probably should have done was book it in my name instead of my husband's, like immediately might've helped out there, but it was just so frustrating. But I have really liked bookings.com and I haven't had any trouble with that. And I was able to find a lot of places that were really good I prefer to fly in in the afternoon when everybody in the city is of awake and happy and it's not rush hour in the morning and it's also not getting to the evening. There are less people on the streets. I kinda like the safety of a group. so I do that when I can. Sometimes you can't, sometimes you can't. But also everything's open. So like I'll fly in and,, my rental car place will be open and all that stuff. If I'm able to come in the afternoon, then I'll usually drive out to my first place and get out of the city and pick a place out there. In fact, I wouldn't stay in San Jose very long because it's hard to drive around there too. The roads are really narrow. It was made for people and not cars. And so when I first get there, I don't wanna hang out there. Get used to the driving in the country first and then come back, is my suggestion. If I have to fly in, in the evening or night, then I'll usually pick my first accommodation to be somewhere close by and I'll pick an accommodation with a shuttle. If I have to get in late or if I have to leave first thing in the morning, then I really like to have, an accommodation with airport shuttle so I can just blurry eyes as I am, get on the shuttle and go to the right place.

Carma:

What amenities do you look for in a place that you're gonna stay overnight?

Katie:

First thing is wifi because then you can get your weather reports and you can get Google Translate. WiFi's number one then. Over in the places where I'm gonna do my canyons. I like there to be a big open room somewhere or a patio space where I can dry my gear. And that's really the second thing that I'm looking for. and then other than that, parking is kind of a thing in Costa Rica. So, especially like the big towns, you wanna make sure that there's a parking spot available. There's not street parking in those towns. There's very skinny streets and there's really not street parking. So that's why I like to take a cab or an airport shuttle to the first accommodation, so I don't have to worry about that and then go from there if I'm staying overnight in the city.

Carma:

Yeah.

Katie:

But if I'm just picking up the rental car at noon and I'm driving out, then, I'm happy. And the parking will be a lot more available and a lot of'em have gated parking so that they close a giant gate and you're in like a little bit of a, little ranch area and that's nice.

Carma:

Yeah. Nice Versa, security and to ensure that nobody's gonna take your spot or whatever.

Katie:

Yeah. Mostly for security. it's a little mini fortress. It's kind of fun.

Carma:

Yeah. When you're getting ready to actually get on the plane and you're gonna be in the country soon, how do you keep track of, all your reservations and do you just have it all electronically on your phone or what do you do to make sure that it's gonna run smoothly when you get to a new country?

Katie:

I have a lot of stuff on my phone, and the apps are great, but I also know that I could lose my phone or I could drop it, or I could smash it, or I don't know. We got locked out of an iPad one time that we were using because like, the button got pushed so many times in our luggage that locked us out and you had to log back in on a computer to recover that. So I bring hard copies. I'm old school. I go to the store and get one of those little folders with the little three hole punch tab, things that you can stick through. And I print everything out. I print out my itinerary with all my flight plans and confirmation, so I have those tickets and I can scan'em if I need to. I print out any travel insurance that I got. I print out my rental car booking, I print out my rental car collision damage waiver that I get from my credit card, and that's something that allows you to not have to pay for the extra insurance in the country. I've been running the last two times with budget and my Visa travel card, one of the benefits is it'll cover rental car insurance in foreign countries. I just need to print this. And so I just call they're concierge and they email me a copy of it in English and Spanish, so I haven't had to pay for that when I go down there.

Carma:

That's nice because yeah. Push you to get that extra coverage and if you can't prove that you have it, they may require you to pay for it.

Katie:

Exactly. You have to be able to prove that you have it. And then I print out all of my hotel confirmations, and if I am doing any guided services that have a booking website, then I'll print those too.

Carma:

We did the same thing when we went to New Zealand. like I had all the confirmations in my email. I also put everything into a Google Doc that I could log into any computer and pull from it and then we had hard copies of everything. Cuz I didn't wanna end up on the other side of the world with no way to get the stuff that I already paid for.

Katie:

Right. And sometimes you just need'em right away. And it's easier to flip through something. Like some countries, when you get in, they want to know at the airport where your first hotel is. That's very common to ask for, for like, illness tracing. Or also some of the socialized medicine countries, they wanna know that you're not just coming to be a vagrant and so they wanna know that you have a hotel on the files. So that's just nice to have it.

Carma:

When you're going through customs

Katie:

Yeah, exactly. And you're trying to Carry all your bags and you're trying to get your phone out and you're trying to manage everything.

Carma:

you're scared because the people look really serious,

Katie:

They look really serious, even though they're really nice., I swear, Costa Rica has the nicest customs people though. They were super friendly even at midnight,

Carma:

It's not like coming from Canada back into the US and you're swear I'm a citizen.

Katie:

Yeah. Super cereal.

Carma:

How do you get all of your canyoneering gear on the plane? How do you fit it all? That's a ton of gear on top of what you would already bring for a trip to a foreign country.

Katie:

Right. We packed kind of minimally and if you're going with somebody it kinda makes it easier. My husband and I usually pack together and we'll do one checked bag that has our wetsuits and our rescue knife in there. Be really cognizant of where your knife is obviously And then we'll try to keep all of our essential gear, Like our harnesses and at least a repel device and our helmets in our carry-on so that we're not totally screwed if a bag gets lost.

Carma:

So all your essential gear. What about your boots? Did you wear your bestard's on the plane?

Katie:

Okay. I wish I was cool enough to wear my boots on the plane, but I'm not. And they take a, a ton of room in your bag too. So I usually compromise by packing my boots in my checked bag. But I wear approach shoes on the plane, so I'm not totally screwed if they got lost. we were actually canyoning and, a a group got combined with ours and their check bag did get lost and they were without canyon boots for a couple of days and that sucks.

Carma:

Oh yeah.

Katie:

And then they're like, do you have to drive all the way back to the airport to get'em when your luggage actually does show up? wastes travel days. It actually turned out that the airport took care of'em and actually sent their boots two hours away and dropped'em off for them. So that was really cool, but at least if you can wear a pair of approached shoes on the plane, that, kind of covers your butt a little bit.

Carma:

What about the rope? Did you have to provide your own, or did your guide provide the ropes

Katie:

you know, that's a tricky one because it does take up room in your pack and it's a lot of room if you're doing a lot of canyons. And so that really is a personal choice. My preference is to bring my own rope whenever I can, cuz I know that rope backwards and forwards and I know how my devices work on it.

Carma:

Thinking. Back to all of your pictures that I've seen, it looked like every single one of the canyons you did was very wet. It was very splashy. So how do you get all of your wet gear home at the end of the day?

Katie:

First off, I absolutely recommend be a small tarp or tent footprint or a piece of plastic to put into your rental car so that when you're putting wet gear in the back, you don't later get charged a cleaning fee for all the mud that you left behind.

Carma:

Yeah.

Katie:

And that's why I kind of sacrificed my checked bag as my dirty bag.

Carma:

Okay.

Katie:

and what I do is I do try to plan the last day or two as a rest day, go visit a park kind of day so that gear can be drying out. And I do give it a chance to, but I also do bring a couple of trash bags with me, and I recognize that my bag will be heavier on the way back. Now, even with all my canyon gear in there, I was still not over my 50 pound limit, so it's not crazy heavy, but I do try to let'em dry out and I do bring bags for boots that might be muddy and for things like that just to, help keep things clean. I also found a new trick this time around because my canyon bag has holes in it and I wanted to pack my clothing in there, not with the muddy boots. I actually found these laundry bags at Walmart and I actually packed my clean clothes in those inside of my canyon bag so that my underwear and bras is not like getting tarmac on it and airport grossness in it. But I had just this little thin canvassy bag that protected my actual clothes in that bag. That was nice.

Carma:

Gotcha.

Katie:

It also made a great laundry bag for while we were spending our week there.

Carma:

Right. Well, we're talking about laundry and what clothes to bring. Were you able to do any laundry? Did you have to bring enough clothes for every single day? How did that work out?

Katie:

yeah, There are not a lot of places to do laundry and there are some people locally who could help you wash it, but most people hang dry their stuff, so people don't own a lot of dryers. So I would recommend bringing a change of clothes, and especially like underwear and sports bra is usually what I put underneath my wetsuit. And it takes like three days for a sports bra to dry out. So I would just recommend bringing one for each of the canyon days so you don't have to put on a wet one and have it chafing or bugging you or anything like that. Guys, probably same thing, whatever under clothes you're wearing under your wetsuit, just bring a fresh pair for each of your canyon days. It also surprised me in the mountainous areas that I wanted, like a fleece. It's chilly there. It's not sandals weather. So I liked bringing a pair of dry shoes that I could wear in the evening and a few pairs of pants, and a couple. Of fleeces. Now I like, being able to change my clothes and I found that I was wearing a fleece every night. Once you're done with all the packing, it's time to actually get on the plane and go to Costa Rica, and I just wanted to share with the listeners and with you karma about what that looks like as you're landing and what you kind of need to know as the sequence, for getting going after the first day. Everything calms a lot down, but that first day and you're landing and you're blurry eye and trying to figure things out, I just kinda wanna give you an idea of what that looks like so it can move smoothly for you. When you land in Costa Rica, we flew into San Jose and the first thing you do is you get off the plane and you're coming into this luggage carousel area and there are money exchangers there and they speak English. So that was really nice. And the first time I went I thought I would get my local currency at a bank and that turned out to be a pain in the butt because we got in at 6:00 AM and I was hoping to just get it at the money changer place, but they don't open until a little bit later. So that really early flight meant I had to go get money at a bank and I had to wait for the bank to open then cuz they didn't open until 10. And then I did all this work to go through the bank process and in the end they had me go outside and get money from the a t m and there was like this guy standing behind me, like practically looking over my shoulder and I was around the corner from, where my husband had parked and I just didn't love that. So if you can't get money at the exchangers, that's better. I like to get a little bit of local currency. But people really do take a lot of us money. And so the second time I went, I just got like I think 50 bucks total, in Costa Rican colons. And I, I really didn't mess with that much. I didn't worry about it very much.

Carma:

What did you need the local currency for? If most of the places will take US dollars

Katie:

It's nice to have colon colonies when you get farther out of the city and there's maybe less English and people are trying to put stuff into calculators and figure out what you want. Sometimes it's just nice to be able to pay for Gatorades or trinkets or things like that just in the local currency. Then There are also some toll roads that go out to like Bahost del Toro and I totally recommend driving on the toll roads. They're totally worth it and they're really not that expensive. I don't even think we spent 20 bucks the entire week on the toll roads. they will take us dollars it's nice if you could just hand them the colons because then you don't have to worry about if someone was not giving you the exchange rate. But I never had a problem with it.

Carma:

All right. So a lot of places will take, US dollars. Can you just get around with just a credit card or do you really need to have cash money?

Katie:

I was actually really surprised by this. A lot of places they won't take a card, even hotels, and part of it is because there's a high tax on that. There's a 13% tourist tax on most things, and if you pay in cash, then you don't have to pay. And if you pay with a card, you do. And then some people don't even wanna pay the merchant fees for what costs them to run your card. You actually need to bring cash dollars or cash colones to pay for your accommodations and I just verified on bookings.com with each of the owners. A lot of times they'll have it in the fine print that they only take cash or I will just verify with them if they will take a card. Sometimes I'm willing to pay that 13% to support recreation and tourism and things and to not have that much cash in my pocket.

Carma:

you don't wanna take the chance that a big chunk of cash could get lost somewhere or stolen on the trip.

Katie:

exactly.

Carma:

Generally, did you feel safe in Costa Rica? Were you worried about your stuff getting stolen or anything like that?

Katie:

In general, this is one of the safest countries I've ever been to, and right in the main city, it's like any big city like Salt Lake, San Francisco, New York, where it's, a big city, but as soon as you get out everyone just seemed friendly. I do choose to keep my wallet that I use day to day separate from all of my funds. And so usually I'll keep that somewhere else at a hotel or whatnot, and I'll carry a daytime wallet and that'll only have like$20 in it. And I'll put in like an old license or something like that, and one credit card. And that way if that credit card information were to get taken somehow, or if maybe I was gonna get robbed, that I could give someone that wallet. And I'm not giving away everything I have, but they got what they were after. And my idea is that I would just chuck that wallet and I would run the other way and we would not have any more confrontation. And that's kind of how I do that. And one of the reasons I mentioned I do bring at least two cards with me is because in Costa Rica, it's one of those places where someone fills up your gas for you and so you have to hand your credit card away or your debit card and so there is a time when you don't have control of your card and you can't see if somebody is copying the numbers or anything like that. Or there's some of those machines that are like card readers and they can really quickly read the information. So I just kind of keep track of the one card that I'm kind of handing out, and then I have another card in my wallet if I need to turn off the hand it out card. If it starts pinging stuff that I didn't purchase, then I'm able to turn that one off and use a different one.

Carma:

So you're not left stranded with one card that you have to turn off and nothing else.

Katie:

Exactly. Mm.

Carma:

You mentioned in the first episode that we talked about Costa Rica, that you get around Costa Rica in a rental car. Can you tell us more about how you went about doing that and what worked, what didn't work?

Katie:

Certainly. In Costa Rica, the rental car facility is quote unquote at the airport, but you actually have to take a shuttle like a mile away to get to it. So one thing that's really important is that if you are getting in late, you need to make sure that the shuttle service is still running when you land. On my first trip not a problem. They were open at 6:00 AM and that was great. The second time I flew in and I got in at like 1145 and most of the shuttle places closed at 11. That's why I used a shuttle service from the hotel to take me to the hotel. And I came back in the morning and picked up my rental car. and That's why I chose budget because they were one of the ones that is open at 6:00 AM. And again, that's one of the reasons that I also like to do a hotel nearby with a shuttle. Because what I did is I dropped off my rental car the evening before and then I took the shuttle to the airport from the hotel so that I didn't have to worry about returning my car while I'm also trying to make an international flight.

Carma:

yeah. You don't wanna do that.

Katie:

It, it's just too many things on top of each other. that just makes it really smooth for me. I chose budget because of their hours and I've used them before and I reserved it and paid for it on a travel credit card. So I have a Visa signature card that has travel benefits it has to be booked in my name. With that card and then paid for with that card. But if I do those things, then it comes with certain car insurances and travel benefits and roadside assistance and things like that. So I did that and I called Visa their concierge, and I also got the rental collision damage waiver benefit sheet. I know that's a lot of words, it's the, it's the auto rental collision damage waiver sheet. And they emailed that to me in English and Spanish. And then I was able to just show that to budget to show that I already had the insurance coverage and I didn't have to pay for it twice.

Carma:

we also had to do that in New Zealand where we had to show a copy of what our credit card actually covered before they would allow us to waive the additional insurance.

Katie:

Exactly. It's the same way in Costa Rica. I also went back to budget because they had a lot of really good English speakers and I already knew that. And I knew that I could just talk in English at the rental car facility and that was nice. I rented a four-wheel drive and I was very specific about that because I knew I was going out to the canyon areas. And there are some really steep hills out in Bahost del Toro, and I mean really steep grade like you've never seen in the United States. So it's nice. There's only a couple of spots where that happens. But it was really nice and it was nice to have an automatic, because I've seen three cars now get stuck trying to shift while going up those hills, and I didn't wanna mess around with that. just easier not to. oh gosh, one of the best things I did, And this is like, my top advice for anyone going to Costa Rica is get the in-car wifi. And what they basically do is give you a cell phone with a hotspot, but it has the local cell towers. So the two main ones are c Claro and Movie Star. And someone was trying to explain it to me. I think I've got this right, that Co Claro is the government one. And so it covers some areas where maybe the commercial ones haven't bothered to put cell towers, so it had more coverage. And that's what we used over in like Bajo Deltoro. Last time I went, I bought a chip, one of the movie Star chips and put it in my phone. But the new iPhones don't allow you to do that. So depending on what your phone can and can't,

Carma:

Right.

Katie:

I got the in-car wifi, it was like 50 bucks and it was great for navigation and I could be looking up beta if I needed it. I could be checking weather really, really handy. I could even be using Google Translate at a hotel if I stopped and translated it by the car and then walked in. So really helpful. The only thing to pay attention to is lag times and go ahead and change the language, on, your, maps product before you start driving. So I'm just gonna

Carma:

Katie? Why?

Katie:

once you start driving, even if you think you're pretty good with your left and rights in Spanish, you might miss a turn. We used Waze, which is really helpful. Google Maps does okay down there, but Waze is really what everyone actually updates down there to let you know that a bridge is out. The first time we down there, we were using Google Maps and we drove out this one direction and there was no bridge. And the lady like came out of her house. She's like, that's being down for single Onos. And I'm like, oh geez. That's, it's been down for years, right? anyway, ways is just updated more often. That's helpful, but there might be a little bit of lag time. And that happened to us while we were out at a canyon over at Paris Mania and we were headed back. it was a two hour drive back to our accommodations and, we missed a turn, but I didn't notice it cause it wasn't saying it in English and it didn't look like we missed a turn, cuz my route still said go straight for like five miles. And that's what the instructions said when I looked down and looked at it and read it. Well, it said go five miles for your first opportunity to make a U-turn.

Carma:

Uh,

Katie:

And I could have made a U-turn a long time before that, but not according to the maps. So I didn't notice that I'd missed the turn. And had I been listening to the English version of it, it would've said Go five miles and make a U-turn. And I would've heard that and realized that I missed my turn faster just looking at the little image I needed to back up to realize that it was telling me to go straight and turn around.

Carma:

Right.

Katie:

Normally that wasn't an issue. It was just you're in a really tight section of where two mountains came together. So I normally didn't have that problem, but just go ahead and take the time to switch it to English before you pull out of the parking lot. help out.

Carma:

How were the language barriers? Like what did you do to be able to communicate, with locals?

Katie:

I kind of fell back on my Californian Spanglish. Um, people really do try to help and they're, really nice. A lot of the times you could use Google Translate if you needed something special. And I would ask people, do you have wifi? I just be like, T is wifi. And then we could try to, you use Google Translate? And a lot of times that did good enough in restaurants. I'm not allergic to anything, so I can just point to number one on the menu if I'm really stumped. And have'em just bring something out, you know surprise and just go with it.

Carma:

Yeah.

Katie:

And speaking of food, that was one of the things that took me a while to figure out how I could do that best in Costa Rica. In aa, they have a Walmart, and you can buy a lot of things right there. There's also a grocery store in Sarchi on your way to Bajo del Toro. And then when you get to Bajo, still Toro, there's actually three restaurants and then a convenience store. The one across from the soccer field, we always did dinner there. And it has some American options like hamburgers and things like that. They also have a typical restaurant that has more of a typical Tico kind of vibe, and you'll get your rice and beans and things there. We would do that a lot of times for lunch. The typical restaurant, because they close early, they're not open late at night. And then for breakfast, we usually went to this little store that's like a convenience store in the front and a restaurant in the back. And they always served us breakfast and they were so nice and so sweet. And I remember my Spanish was really struggling there and I got out, Google translated and we had a good time. I asked them for something quick in the morning, just said and they were trying to help me figure out what would be fast. And they're like I was like, yeah, eggs, that'll work. Or how. A breakfast burrito and they just looked at me like, Nope, don't get that. And so I put it in to Google Translate and I, and I showed it to them and both these cute little ladies started busting up laughing. And I was like, is this not a thing? And they're like, no, this is, and I like started searching eggs and sausage and tortilla and she's like, we can make that. But that is not a South American thing. That is completely American.

Carma:

Of course.

Katie:

They got a good laugh out of it and they're just sweethearts.

Carma:

So like that is, that's not a thing here. That doesn't exist.

Katie:

No, no, that is not. If you're willing to go with the flow, then you can get by with almost no Spanish and just try to be friendly with people. But, Google Translate does help. There's other apps out there that are better and translate more accurately. We did get stuck at one point when we were trying to ask if we could pay with cash or needed to pay with a card, and we had a hundred dollars bill that we were like, oh yeah, we could pay for this. And then the lady was shaking her head no. And she was trying to ask us a really difficult question she was trying to ask us, I don't know how to give you your refund or I don't know how to give you your change. And it was like five or 10 bucks, like out of a hundred dollars for staying at her place for two nights. It wasn't a big deal, at all to us, but she was trying to be you know, honest with us. and at the same time we're like, we'll just give you a tip because if we have to pay with our cards, we'd have to like log in online and figure out how to do something there. And we were trying to ask the wifi and she didn't know the word wifi. A lot of people do, but I probably should have tried using the word internet, but she was a little bit older and so anyways, that was the only time where it was a hangup and we had to like, go back to the car and get the wifi just to ask her what her wifi password was. But we got around it and you can do a lot with the internet and pointing at screens. That's what she held up our reservation and went, you know, is this you? And we're like, yes, that's us. Okay, that's our reservation. And she's like, okay, go ahead and check in. Here's the keys.

Carma:

Nice.

Katie:

Another thing that was really awesome is one of our hotels actually gave us a script in Spanish and English to be able to ask the taxi driver to drive us to their hotel. And that was cool because they also paid the taxi driver for us so they knew what the rate should be to their hotel. And you know, airport taxi drivers are probably the ones that could be the most sketchy sometimes. And so they told us to go get into one of the orange taxis. That they would pay at the front desk, and so we hand them the script and then I said it in Spanish and they knew where to drive me. They knew that they would get paid at the front desk, and then that was just included in the cost of my accommodations, so I didn't have to worry about anything on that first run.

Carma:

That's really nice. And was that the hotel you stayed at near the airport?

Katie:

Yeah, that was the hotel near the airport, and it's called Hotel LaGuardia Inn in suites, and they have a cute little picture of a pool on their bookings.com app. So that was really cool of them and I really appreciated that. They were great to work with and super accommodating. They had a night person who was available all night if I needed something really nice.

Carma:

One you would definitely go back to again.

Katie:

Yeah. And they're right outside of San Jose, so they're in a alla and that area is a little bit more calm compared to the capital city, so that's nice to just kinda get a little bit away, but they're actually really close to the airport too.

Carma:

Oh, nice.

Katie:

That kind of covers all of your normal run of the mill stuff for getting around Costa Rica. To kind of end us out here, I wanna talk about some of the unexpected things that could come up. So I wanna talk medical insurance really quick. I know a lot of people are concerned about that and probably should think about it when we're doing sports like this.

Carma:

Yeah.

Katie:

It's a little bit tricky, the first place to start is to see what your own insurance will cover outside of the country. So if you already have something that'll cover it. I remember when I went to Peru I was in college and I got diarrhea really bad and I got dehydrated and I ended up in a hospital getting some fluids and antibiotics. And that ended up billing straight to my insurance at home. It took like six months for them to send the bill, but I left them my address and that all billed right through my insurance. But every country is different, and every insurance carrier is different. So call your healthcare provider and see what they will cover. To start with This last time I went, I also talked to my medical provider before I left and my primary care physician actually hooked me up with some antibiotics and some prescription strength Imodium just to send me out the door so that I would have something that was right for me in my bag that was already prescribed to me. So that was really nice of her to do that. And a lot of, physicians will do that for you when you are going inter. Then I actually found that I can add travel insurance and I was able to do that on my first trip straight through Delta. And it was like$50 for my husband and I to get$50,000 in insurance. And it also covered things like$300 if your trip gets delayed or things like that. And there were a lot of things there. It was really cheap insurance and covered a lot of stuff. So you could do it through your airline or there's also international insurances that you can have for the whole year, like a policy that covers any country. And those are really cool. If you travel a lot, you might consider just getting that because I looked at things like the garment inReach and I was like, oh, I'll get that helicopter insurance. That's awesome. And then I was talking to Johann and he's like, well, when I do expeditions and I'm opening up New Canyons, The best and closest helicopter to actually come, help out is in Mexico, and that's a ways away. And so some of those things, while it'll cover it, it doesn't mean there's anyone who's coming. So I also like to look up where the local hospitals are that, I might end up going to and just kind of getting an idea of their schedules. The smaller clinics will close for holidays, like Eastern, things like that, and then the larger hospitals will be open. So I, I like to know where those are.

Carma:

Yeah. Good to know. Do you ever take, with you like any over-the-counter stuff specifically for traveling?

Katie:

so I do, and right along with that, we also turn on the air conditioner. We are in a tropical zone and some of the advice that I got from some of the locals is to turn on the air conditioner because it keeps the bugs down. Mosquitoes can't fly when their wings are too cold. And that's actually one of the main things people do is they turn on the air conditioner because a lot of the windows don't have screens on them. Some bugs just get in. And so instead of trying to fight the bugs down, they just cool down the temperatures. I like to have my own first aid kit that has my own personal, like antihistamines. I use Benadryl, but my husband. Josh doesn't like Benadryl as much, so I like to have an antihistamine in there that works for him. I like to have some regular Imodium, some Tums, and just some of those things that you generally use because it's really difficult to try to. To Find it in a foreign country, they might have it, but you might not know what it says or which one is which, or the dosage might not make sense to you. So it's just nice to have some of those that you already know what it is and you've got it with you already.

Carma:

Yeah. And the reason why I asked that question specifically is cuz we ran into that in New Zealand. Jared got stung by a bee and got swollen like crazy and we went to go find some Benadryl, but. In New Zealand, it turns out Benadryl, they don't use for like allergy stuff. They only use it as a sleep aid. And so the only reason we were able to find it even is because I'm a nurse, so I know the generic names for a lot of common medications. And so I was able to ask the pharmacist for the generic name because all of the brand names are different in New Zealand. And he was like, oh, we don't use it for that, but we use it as a sleep aid and you can get it over the counter if you're over a certain age or whatever. And um, so we got it, but then Jared took it and it was double the strength of what you would normally find in the us And

Katie:

Oh,

Carma:

the pharmacist had warned us like, if you take this, you shouldn't drive. And so Jared had to take it cuz his shoulder was getting all swollen

Katie:

Oh

Carma:

then I had to drive for like eight hours that day all the way across the island. So, I just wanna double down on what you said, Katie, like bring your own common stuff because you might not be able to find it. Or if you do in another country, it's gonna be different.

Katie:

Right. And there's no problem bringing your prescription and your carry-on or checked bags. That's all good to go. If you're bringing massive quantities, they're gonna question and yeah, I dunno if you have a prescription for cannabis or something, check and make sure the country's cool with that. But otherwise, most of your prescriptions are gonna be able to come through, just.

Carma:

You've given us a ton to think about, to help us get to those amazing canyons in Costa Rica. Do you have any last advice that you wanna.

Katie:

Label your crap.

Carma:

What?

Katie:

I did not think this would be a problem. you know, all my gears labeled, all my carabiners, all my stuff has got my purple and yellow marks on it and everything, but I had not considered that one might want to label their shoes.

Carma:

Oh.

Katie:

All right? So I don't know why, but I swear that all of my canyon airing friends. All the women wear a size seven and a half. And apparently so did somebody else who joined our group when two groups got put together with a guide. And I remember I came out of one of the canyons and it was actually the last day that we were all gonna be together and we're all sitting there eating lunch and we'd all been putting our gear away and everybody had kind of been helping everyone put their gear away. My husband put some of my stuff in, and her husband put some of her stuff in and I remember I was sitting there and I saw this pair of boots that was like getting rained on out in the dirt. And I was like, who left their shoes over there? then Josh is like, well, where are your shoes? And I was like, those aren't my shoes. He is like, well, maybe you should go check. And I, I was like, well, these are the same size, but these are not my shoes. And we're like, oh crap. She left her shoes. And took my shoes

Carma:

Oh.

Katie:

and while they were the same size, they were not the ones that I broke in and I did not spend the rest of my trip in somebody else's shoes. but logistically it gets hard cuz you can't just call someone on their cell phone and have'em pick up anymore. Their car didn't have in-car wifi, so I had to keep trying to call and they were going across the country to another spot and it was just like so hard. It ended up being that she left my shoes at like a gas station restaurant place. And then I ended up leaving her shoes at a hotel for her to pick up. And it just became this big kerfuffle and it's hard because you don't have extra room in your luggage to like just bring'em back to the US for her. And it just kind of turned into this whole thing where never considered. You know, you don't normally have other people wearing Bestard's or Adidas, you know, you're like, they're so unique. But then in the Canyon community, they're not unique.

Carma:

Yeah.

Katie:

So that was kind of ridiculous. But I, now have my name on my shoes.

Carma:

Good to know.

Katie:

Totally random. But you know, the things you learn from experience and I think that could happen again, if I go to like a rendezvous, you think your shoes are unique among your group, or you think some of your gear is super unique, but then you get with a whole lot of people who are used to doing canyons and a lot of the gear repeats.

Carma:

Thanks Katie. That's a good tip.

Katie:

Oh man. So to summarize the episode, basically pick out your canyons, get a guide if you want to get your passport in order and print all your hard copies. And then Get a car with four wheel drive and wifi, and it's a great country. You can really get around pretty easily down there.

Carma:

I can't wait.

Katie:

Let's go.

Carma:

If you're totally hooked on canyoneering like us, remember to subscribe, so you don't miss any episodes and you can also reach out to us on Facebook. with questions, comments, topics you wanna talk about, or just to say, Hey, cuz We would love to hear from you. Thanks for dropping in with us and we'll catch you on the wrap side.

People on this episode

Contributor

Carma Evans

Host
Contributor

Katie Allred

Co-host