Driving Car at NIGHT - San Jose to La Fortuna

No, No, No

Rule #1, do NOT drive at night in CR.

No lights, no shoulders, can be rainy, mountains, all 2 lane....

Wait until morning, not to mention the scenery is spectacular. Its easy enough to get lost in perfect daylight.

Avoid San Jose.

Ticotim is absolutely correct. DO NOT DRIVE AT NIGHT. You will probably get lost driving during the day without the ground fog reducing visibility to 50 feet. Tim didn't mentioned the cows laying in the roadway or the horses running loose. And, we can't forget the whole families dressed in black, walking two and three abreast, on your side of the road.

If you are not familiar with driving in Costa Rica then night driving is best avoided although all the route to Fortuna from San Jose is well paved and the above dangers are a little overstated- you would certainly need to proceed with the kind of caution that would be difficult after a long journey and yes its very easy to get lost. Stay near the airport, get a good nights kip and head off in the morning.
There are no comparisons between Monteverde & San Jose experiences. One is a cramped cloud forest with dripping canopy and lush fauna and the other is a traffic strewn metropolis with bustling nightlife and lush women. Take your choice.

I just got back from CR. We rented a car and driving IS really bad, specially coming from US. We had read about it but it was a lot worse. If you arrive at 9:00 pm it will be at least 10:00 pm before you clear customs and get to your rental car. I recomend staying outside SJ for the night. We stayed in Heredia in a small hotel called Hojarascas, it was not expensive and they offer pick up at the airport. It is a small hotel but we choose it based on recomendations from another forum, it was spoteless clean and the family that runs the hotel is very friendly. We decided at the last minute go get a GPS for $ 8 a day. I think it really saved us and for us it was definetly worth every penny. The roads to La Fortuna are not bad, but they are in the mountains and they curve a lot, a lot of small bridges where you have to give the right of way to the cars coming in the other line, and we did run into a couple of caws.

one BIG warning: coming back to SJ from Guanacaste in the main road we were stopped by the traffic police. They said we were speeding( wich we probably were at some points) the speeding limit is sometimes 40 KPH, wich is about 20-30 MPH and then it changes to 60-80 KPH. They threathened to take our driving license away and send it back to Liberia so that we could pay the ticket and get it back at their station. After driving for three hours the last thing we wanted to do was to go back to pick up a driivng licence and then drive again. They say that if we just paid the ticket they would not write a report so they would not have to take our license away. Needles to say we did the dumb thing and paid. At the hotel they told us that they really go after corrupt police officers and that we should have called the regular police, or write their name and file a complaint. They can't take your license away. We were just really tired and got caught not thinking straight. Just be aware of this. They had also stopped another american family ahead of us.

It is about 4 hours from SJ to La Fortuna and 4 hours from La Fortuna to Monteverde and 4 hours from Monteverde to the beach. It rained a lot in the afternoon and the mornings were usually clear and nice.

I hope this helps.

Always have your documents to hand and don't get in any way flustered if you get stopped by the police, which is very common. Be polite and confident. If you have committed a moving traffic offense like speeding or overtaking in a restricted area then be prepared to take the ticket. Apologise, it might help, but make it clear you are not going to pay an on the spot fine. Once they know that you know then the problem goes away. CR traffic police are actually very low conflict but Gringos insist on handing over wedges of cash on the slightest pretext which is a ridiculous temptation.

<blockquote>Quote
<hr>one BIG warning: coming back to SJ from Guanacaste in the main road we were stopped by the traffic police. They said we were speeding( wich we probably were at some points) the speeding limit is sometimes 40 KPH, wich is about 20-30 MPH and then it changes to 60-80 KPH. They threathened to take our driving license away and send it back to Liberia so that we could pay the ticket and get it back at their station. After driving for three hours the last thing we wanted to do was to go back to pick up a driivng licence and then drive again. They say that if we just paid the ticket they would not write a report so they would not have to take our license away. Needles to say we did the dumb thing and paid. At the hotel they told us that they really go after corrupt police officers and that we should have called the regular police, or write their name and file a complaint. They can't take your license away.<hr></blockquote>

I've peen flagged over many times in Costa Rica. I've found that if my passenger takes a picture of the traffico's as they walk up to the window they send us on our way with out trying to get a bribe

If you were speeding, which I am sure you were, as most are, then your already guilty, and your a foreigner, so its up to you, pay a bribe of $10-20 and move on, which is wrong but but a easy out, or go thru the legal channels, and be delayed. They do shoot radar in CR, and I have have been caught speeding many times, my problem, not theirs...

Oh... it was very informative!

We will definitely overnight at a hotel in SJ and drive safely without speeding up...

Thanks everyone!

Also if you are Driving at night you should be aware of people riding their bikes on the side of the road.