Day Two - Party in San Jose

Yes! We had another wild day today. Thankfully, however, it started out nice and slow. We we able to sleep-in and sat outside at Molino Rojo to eat our traditional Latin American breakfast - coffee and and bread with jam. Fruit flies were SWARMING the table, but thankfully someone had smartly put a towel over the food, and we were able to wade through the little guys. Then we headed over to what was originally to have been our hotel, Cinco Hormigas Rojas.

Mayra, the owner, is wild, but the place is quite nice. She has made it into a sort of bird fortress that you can't see in to from the street. It has thick walls of tree branches and a staircase that climbs up through the trees to a small deck where you can watch birds and bats eat the bananas she leaves out for them. She has additionally decorated the entire place with her art work, most of which is breast-themed. If I were to name a few pieces for the purposes of sale, they would probably be called things like "Waterfall of Breasts" and "Buxom II." Our room is very cozy and has a window looking out on the rich, if not small, bird/bat paradise.

We then headed out for a stroll around the city center and through some very nice parks. The sky was beautiful and you can see the mountains rising all around the city. We had a delicious lunch in a cafe downtown that makes traditional Costa Rican food, including coffee brewed at your table by pouring very hot water through a sock made of t-shirt material filled with ground coffee and suspended with a wooden frame over a metal pot, which is then used to pour the coffee. We will clearly be bringing one of these home. From there we went to Avenida Central, a pedestrian walkway, strolled some more, and then made our way to a little cafe (several hours later) for some beer and pizza. Costa Rica's national beer is Imperial, and it is healthier than water.

I would like to make a note that Jason's Spanish has improved in leaps and bounds from a starting place of no Spanish to "dos cervezas mas," and "la cuenta por favor," and much more. He is doing awesome.

Then, after a short respite at the hotel, we headed out to a jazz club, which we arrived at about four hours early. We tried to kill some time by walking up and down the very busy highway-like street looking for somewhere to have dinner, but weren't hugely successful. Additionally, when we left the jazz club initially, we were told the surrounding streets were filled with thieves. So we eventually returned to the jazz club to eat dinner and sit for three hours waiting for the show to start. When it did, it was well worth the wait. This will be hard to describe so I will just say a few words and phrases: Costumes, four percussionists, wildness, noodle dancing, 8 foot tall puppets, sweat, awesomeness. The band, whose genre I'd describe as party latin, was super good and Jason and I danced with a rather cool group of people for quite some time.

We did have a bit of trouble with the cab on the way home, first being detoured by halloween houligans, the policia, some trash on fire in the street, and finally a cab driver who was going in circles. Finally we had to get serious, and thanks to all our walking, were able to direct him to the hotel, where we are now. Tomorrow morning we are getting up VERY early to head for one of the most active volcanoes in the Americas.

Day One: Philadelphia to San Jose, Costa Rica

We started the trip off with a banner day! It was amazing! A lot of things went wrong. A lot of things went right but we are finally here, not sleeping in the hostel we had intended and booked, but in a nice one nonetheless.

Our flight left Newark, NJ at 9:20 AM so our day started with an early awakening and a drive up through the Jerse. We were following google maps and of course it referred to an exit in a way that was not marked so we missed our exit and had to make our way through most of Trenton to get back on our way. A similar thing happened at another exit closer to the airport and we ended up having to get on and off the NJ Turnpike again. They really hit you up with the tolls! In spite of all of this we made it to the airport in time and, surprisingly, zipped through security quickly.

The first flight was pretty normal and we arrived in Dallas, TX for a four hour lay over! We found the TGIF's nearest our next gate and pigged out on some beers and burgers. We took our time and after a little bit of book shop browsing boarded and took off for San Jose, Costa Rica. The flight was very long of course and we had a very creepy middle aged man sitting beside us who seemed to hit on any female that would walk past us, and had some Tourretic-like movements at that. As we got into Costa Rica we could see that it was very foggy out. We descended through clouds until Kate could see out the window that the ground was very close. Suddenly we pulled upward very quickly though and a minute later the captain made an announcement that because of the fog and bad weather we had missed the first landing! We climbed again, made a very big loop and came in for another one. Strike two! Same thing happened again.

Everyone was starting to grumble. The captain made another announcement. They were uncomfortable with the safety of the weather conditions. We were going to fly to Panama City, Panama, refuel and return to land in San Jose. Everyone on the plane was upset. Immediately the flight attendant was on making another announcement. There was a medical emergency, are there any nurses or doctors on the plane? Kate leapt up but so did four others so she did not have to use her medical skills yet. We think that someone just had a panic attack because, you know, we had two unsuccessful landings, we were running out of fuel and we were just going to jet down to the closest country, refuel there and come back.

Forty-five minutes later we landed in Panama City, refueled, took off and landed another forty-five minutes later back in San Jose. Finally! Everyone on the flight was exhausted and just happy to be at our destination. We got off, immigration, luggage, customs, currency exchange and the looked for our driver.

We had booked a hostel in downtown San Jose for out first two nights and they had someone to pick us up at the airport. Kate and I were very excited about this because the man was to be wearing "a colorful sombrero with a bird on top of it, holding a sign with my name on it." Wild! However we were now over three hours late and colorful sombrero man was nowhere to be found. Someone, whom I first assumed to be airport staff, asked us if we needed a taxi. We obliged and he picked us up in his personal car. Not a taxi but his own personal car with black tinted windows. We had already agreed to a price so we felt pretty good about the situation.

His name was Pedro and he turned out to be super nice. He was giving us a somewhat guided tour the whole trip. Kate's Spanish came right back to her and she was even teaching him some English words. Pedro drove fast. Really fast! His car was decked out with neon interior lights, tricked out sound system and fire extinguisher mounted on the interior. After a near death traffic incident and a whirlwind tour of San Jose we arrive at our hostel Cinco Hormigas Rojas (Five Red Ants) to find it dark and no answer at the door. It was midnight but we were extremely disappointed. Pedro drove us (through the red light district) to another hostel he knew of not far away called Molina Roja (Red Hill) and that's where I sit now typing this!

Buenas Noches