About a month ago I was walking down the train tracks over in Sabana Sur when I thought I heard a train whistle (horn?). Must have been the previous evenings cerveza confusing my hearing as I’d only seen one train in 6 months. I checked behind me and here was a 6 car train bearing down on me at the incredible speed of maybe 35 kph. I stepped off the tracks with plenty of time spare and watched it pass. There were people (old & young) hanging out the windows waving and smiling. Hmmmmm… I thought it would be fun to ride a train sometime. Where would this train be going, and how could I get a ride? I thought I’d done my homework after moving here. Obviously I’d missed something. Finding new experiences in a new land is exciting.
The next weeks Tico Times had a small article about the train I saw. I visited their web page http://www.ticotraintour.com/ and liked what I saw and fired off an Email. I received an almost instant reply in English and they sent 5 or 6 pictures of the train ride which are not on the website. Two small problems with the web page. Page says the train goes to the East coast but it goes to Caldera (west coast) and two of the Email addresses (both RACSA) do not work . The working address is: americatravel@ice.co.cr Anyway, we along with 4 friends took that train ride yesterday (8th of May) and had a good time. This was a spur of the moment decision. I received a phone call around noon on Saturday (7th of May) from a Tico friend asking if we’d be interested in taking the train the next day if he could get tickets? “Of course”, I said. Less than an hour later I received another call saying everything was set and a taxi would be picking us up at 7:15 am at our front door. It was on time and we were off! I had no idea where the train station was in Alajuela but the taxi driver did and when we were dropped off, another group was waiting on the platform at the (seemingly) deserted train station. It’s difficult to describe but everyone on that platform appeared quite exited for the upcoming train ride. I know I was and my expectations were rewarded nicely.
The company has an office in Alajuela in addition to the one at the Pacific train station in San Jose and they claim tickets must be purchased in advance. One of our party joined us at the last minute and purchased her ticket on the train. Since we all reside in Alajuela we really did not wish to go into San Jose to catch that train at 7:00, we asked for another pick up location. The train stopped and picked us (and 6 others) up at the station in Ciruelas (spelling) here in Alajuela at 7:45.
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