Costa Rica - August 9-22, 2008

On August 9, 2008 I took my first trip to Central America! After two flights and a lengthy connection in Charlotte, I arrived in San Jose, Costa Rica at about 1:30pm. The usual customs madness ensued and I was worried about trying to communicate properly in Spanish, but they spoke to me in English only so I guess that wasn't a problem. Once I had reclaimed my bag and made it out of the airport I quickly found Emily and her Mom who had come to the airport to meet me! It is certainly nice to arrive at an airport and have someone waiting there to meet you! Especially in a foreign country.

Getting back to the hotel was an experiment in bargaining. The three of us piled into a cab with some guy who offered us a ride into San Jose. Unfortunately, it seemed like his price of $25 was a bit too high, after all it only costs about $15 to get from San Jose to the airport. Emily's Mom forcefully convinced him to drop the price down to $20, but he wouldn't go any lower than that. So, we got out of the cab and walked back to the main terminal to the official cab stand. You have to go to a ticket window and buy a ticket in advance for your cab. As might be expected, taking an official cab is $25, so we should have gone with our good deal. At least we learned that people are willing to bargain with you.

We eventually get back into San Jose where we were staying at Hotel Aranjuez. It is a decent hotel with basic acommodations and fairly close to the center part of the city. Not much for sitting around, the three of us take to the streets and explore a little of the city. There seems to be some sort of art show ending where there are drag queen and stripper cow statues in the streets. We walk past all the cows and go to the Mercado Central in search of wooden bowls and a straw hat. We succeed on one count and find a straw hat for Emily, yay! Now after having wandered around for a couple hours it is time to get some food.

We decide to dine at La Nuestra Tierra, where you can eat "The Most Typical Food in Costa Rica." This toursit restaurant destination did indeed have typical Costa Rican food and it was delicious. How can you go wrong with chicken, rice, and fried plantains? By the time we were done with dinner it was dark out so we opted for a cab back to our hotel. However, since it gets dark at about 6pm, it was still quite early and I wasn't ready for bed yet.

Looking for more adventure, Emily agreed to go out to one of the local gay bars with me, La Avispa, which came highly recommended from Sean. We took a cab down there at about 8pm. The woman at the door kept saying "El primero," which I took as a question from her wondering if this was our first time. So I just said "Si" and walked in with Emily. What it actually meant was that we were the first ones there. There was absolutely nobody other than bar staff, and they all looked at us funny. As it turned out though, it was a great bar. There was a pool table upstairs so we played several games of pool while the place filled up. Then, once the music got pumping and the dance floor had some people on it, we joined the squirming mass dancing to hot Latin music.

We had to get up early to go to the airport to get Katie and Becca and start our trip, so we didn't stay too late and safely took a cab home. All in all, a very fun and exciting first day in Costa Rica.