Zancudo Travel Guide

No crowds here, just lots of good swimming and surfing. The farther south you go, the bigger the surf.

At the time (1998) domestic flights in Costa Rica were on two airlines, one of them government owned and the other private. At any rate the domestic terminal was a short shuttle ride away from the International Terminal. The flight attendents told us that we should catch a shuttle and the cost is $1 US. So we hustled down, got our luggage and proceded out the door to the "shuttle" service. A Tico grabbed our bags and put them in the back of an old SUV. I handed him a dollar and we climbed in and took a one minute ride to the domestic terminal.
We got out collected our bags and went inside. Once inside, the scene was a bit chaotic. Lots of people sitting around. Our hotel had purchased our tickets for us so I went to the desk to inquire. The attendent pulled out an old accordian file box and dug through it and found nothing. A bit of panic set in, so I decided to call the hotel.
At about that time there was a big commotion outside and a big man entered looking straight at me and holloring, obviously to embarrass, something like, "Cheapskate, where's the dollar for the shuttle." Ok, how was I to know who to pay. So the shuttle ride cost two dollars plus a load of embarrassment.
Anyway, there was a big production over weighing the baggage. Didn't seem to be a problem, though. Then we marched to the plane ducked out heads and seated ourselves in a little twin engine Cessna whose tail was propped up to keep it from tipping backwards. Not a good sign, I thought.
Upon taking a seat we strapped ourselves in with seat belt and shoulder harness. Not another good sign. But it was a nice flight to Golfito, over the beautiful mountains with the Pacific and green valleys passing beneath us. Very noisy, but much to our delight one of the passengers had visited Eugene many times because his son worked and went to the University there. Small world.
Don't know how much as changed, probably not too much.