As my last day in San Jose has arrived I have been pondering of all the ways my 6-week stay in Costa Rica has changed me. Among all the different experiences we lived, I have come to realize that the one that oddly colored my daily life here was using the public transportation. The daily rides from the CRLA to home in Curridabat, on the La Lia bus, have been so unexpectedly diverse from day to day. During the first week I felt that taking the evening bus home was a “necessary evil”. However, day after day I started noticing all the smiling and serene faces in the bus. After the second week, at a time when I started to comprehend increasingly more Spanish, I would try to guess what people were saying to each other and at times I would notice their facial expressions and hand gestures while they were speaking. It was fascinating to see how calmly and simultaneously very enthusiastically these people I didn’t know would describe everyday things to each other. Before leaving Athens, my dad told me “You know, Costa Ricans are considered to be among the happiest people in the world”, and these bus rides helped me realize that. From college students hopping on from the San Pedro area to doctors, physiotherapists, salesmen and housewives, I noticed that a very diverse group of people use the local buses, people with unique stories, thoughts and worries who share a vehicle for almost 30 minutes everyday, and produce dialogue, laughter, cries, sighs, the sweetest smiles and all sorts of emotions. Although I can’t explain it, wherever I looked in the bus the passengers’ faces always seemed to be hiding something they only knew, perhaps it was that secret to inner satisfaction and happiness my dad had mentioned. These rides helped me immerse myself more into the Costa Rican culture and what it really means to lead a laid-back life. By the time the CRLA shuttle bus started operating I had already fallen in love with the Ruta 59 local bus, thus, I had to keep on taking it.
