Guidebooks sometimes rave about the scenic wonders of the countries train system. Especially tempting are descriptions of a spectacular railroad trip from San Jose to the Caribbean city of Limon. However, when you read about train trips in Costa Rica, you know the book is a bit out of date. Since the earthquake of 1991, passenger trains no longer journey to Limon or anywhere else, for that matter. Sad, but true. Some roadbeds and a few ancient bridges slipped downhill common occurrences in Costa Rica earthquakes but this time the government decided not to rebuild. The lines were losing money anyway.
Its possible that service to the Pacific port of Puntarenas could be resumed sometime in the future, with a private company taking over the operations. In early 2000 a test run to Puntarenas had people sleeping overnight in line to get tickets. Two hundred disappointed would-be passengers watched the train roll away without them. The train to the Caribbean Coast, however definitely appears to be history. The cost of repairing the bridges and tracks would be prohibitive.
Buses are another story. In addition to excellent city bus service, eight intercity bus companies provide frequent service to just about any place youd care to go. Unlike the situation in the United States, where monopolistic intercity bus fares sometimes border on extortion, tickets between Costa Rican cities are downright cheap. A four-hour ride from San Jose to Limon, for example, costs little more than $4.00.
San Jose has no central bus station; bus lines depart from separate terminals, ranging from a new, full-service terminal to a curbside parking place in front of a small ticket office. For example, to go to Quepos and Manuel Antonio, you take the buses that leave from the Coca Cola terminal. (The Coca Cola terminal gains its name in a typical Tico fashion:
There used to be a Coca-Cola bottling plant in the neighborhood.) Buses for Limon, Cahuita, Puerto Viejo, and other Caribbean destinations have their own terminal on Calle Central, 6 blocks north of the Metropolitan Cathedral. Often reservations need to be made a day or two in advance. The better tourist guidebooks list the bus terminals, destinations, and travel times.
A number of smaller bus companies (often with only one or two buses in the fleet) carry passengers to all imaginable sectors of the country. Few towns or villages in the republic lack Bus Transportation of some sort. Often while I was negotiating impossible backcountry roads, bouncing through deep potholes, skirting boulders in the trail, and wondering whether my Rental Car could ever make it back in one piece, a passenger- laden bus would appear from out of nowhere, sound its horn impatiently to move me aside, and then rumble past as it hurried on its way.
These country buses tend to be of an older, rattletrap variety, usually secondhand school buses bought at surplus in the United States. Sometimes the owner-drivers dont bother to change the paint, and the bus finishes its transportation career bouncing along dusty trails in Costa Rica with the legend MAPLEWOOD UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT still painted on its side. Sometimes you will be pleasantly surprised by an air-conditioned vehicle of late manufacture, which makes the backcountry surprisingly luxurious. Of course, there is nothing to guarantee the driver will actually turn on the air-conditioning, which draws power from the engine. And since Ticos open the windows from force of habit, the air-conditioning is redundant.
Since the distance between San Jose and any destination in the country is not very far, bus trips dont take too long. From San Jose to Quepos, a popular tourist destination, bus travel time is less than four hours. By air it is only twenty minutes or so, but by the time you get out to the airport an hour early, wait for the plane to leave (always a half-hour to an hour late), and then wait for a bus to take you from the airstrip to town, you havent saved all that much time. Plus youve missed a lot of interesting scenery. However, be aware that different bus lines have varying schedules. For example, travel from San Jose to Puntarenas takes two hours on one bus line but four hours on another line.
I knew Costa Rica had a lot of competing bus companies, but for a while I was astounded at how many different bus lines there appeared to be in and around San Jose. It seemed that the bus lines names were very creative. Then I discovered that the name painted on a buses side or on the back wasnt the name of a bus company at all but, rather, an imaginative name given to the bus by its driver as an expression of his individuality.
The Tico Times ran a feature article on these names, at which point I realized that the Papa Lob bus that passed by my house every morning as I waited for my ride was not owned by the Papa Lob Bus Lines but driven by a driver with the nickname Papa Lob. Some buses are named after family members; other names are exercises in Imagination. Additional names the article noted were Desert Storm, Krakatoa, El Principe Azul (the Blue Prince), Mil Amores (Thousand Loves), the Dancing Queen, and El Guerrero del Camino (the Road Warrior).

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