Houston to San Jose and first day - San Jose Costa Rica, Costa Rica
San Jose Costa Rica, Costa Rica
Houston Texas to Costa Rica. Great airport at Houston, plenty of food options before the last leg to Costa Rica. We arrived in Houston at 4.30 pm to wet and cloudy conditions. Departing at 6.30 pm. We should be in San Jose by 9.30pm. The group is travelling well, are upbeat and having fun. Looking forward to a sleep. The boys have pre-paid the first two nights in the city and are staying in two private dorm rooms in the hostel. Everyone is really looking forward to that sleep and even more so a shower. Cheers Tegyn for the burgers at Pangea, amazing. Good swim in the pool too! Our first morning. What an amazing place. Everyone slept well, very hot but still a great sleep. Free Costa Rican coffee, beautiful stuff best we have ever tasted. Its a hot sunny but changeable day here today, sunblock and rain protection will be the winner today. Some of the lads have head off to the market to buy some breakfast and lunch supplies others are working on their areas and generally taking it easy. Looking forward to exploring the city later in the day. Mean breakfast boys, cereal, bread fresh mango, honey and bananas. Nice. Just finished the morning brief. Getting things organised for the upcoming trek. Meeting Claire from the UK ops room at 11.00 am along with our in-country go to person. Hola from Mr Renna. The word of the day is PURA VIDA, the Costa Rican version of our sweet as. Been in country for less than a day and we have already heard it heaps. It also means good life, pure life or all good. A simple term that epitomises the nature of Costa Rica. Pure clean and welcoming :) While some started to get on with the bookings others took a trip to the music store. Nice electric pink guitar purchased. Very cool to have live music on the trip. Bit of a delay on the market trip today as the group organises the next few days menu, bus bookings, transport and all important accommodation. George is playing an excellent role as head interpreter floating between the organisational groups when needed. Louie has a guitar in hand and he is giving more to the group than he knows, cool talented sounds! Sachien did a great drumming demo at the local music store The decisions are starting to come together as we realise there is not much point in starting the next activity until everything else is organised. Not bad for the first day. Sachien, Harry and Riley are developing a great sounding menu. We are planning to buy the ingredients in liberia on the way to the National Park. Time to explore the city. A careful eye is needed to negotiate the traffic. We had 30 mins to make one of the National banks (they charge minimum commission on money purchase) and thanks to Tegyn and Braydons map skills we got there. Ryan and Greg exchanged an amount of US dollars into the local so we could purchase the bus tickets for tomorrow and the supplies needed for our first camping nights. Well done to Greg, Ryan, George, and Ryan G for the solid effort in getting the bus tickets, nice Spanish ! What a team. Great market in central San Jose. We all had a good look around. Definitely a good place for anything leather, cool belts and boots. Good effort to Riley, Curtis, Harry, Ryan and Ethan on the corn cheesey fried bread thing.....nice. Everyone is looking forward to a local dinner out tonight. Greg and Ryan are off searching to buy a local sim card or two for our communications when out of the city. From Mr Renna: Wow, just a few hours in San Jose and we are already out on the street mingling with the locals on a warm Friday afternoon. While the local where busy walking on the streets and doing pre-weekend shopping, we basically explored the markets, banks and squares minding some of the organizational tasks to be done in preparation of the next few days. All and all a full day. The team hit da ground running so kudos to them. Muchos saludos! For dinner tonight: Colombian restaurant next to our hostel. Sachien, Jake and Harry have already scoutted the placed and given their OK on the menu and prices. Yumm dinner ahead of us. Ooops change of plan restaurant shut so back to the Hostel for burgers, sweet. William Daniels-Nef here: Just did the haka in front of a startled looking restaurant, not the best haka I have ever seen but the free coke made it worth it and the restaurant staff loved it! Embarrassing video inc. The hard part starts tomorrow with a trip to omatepe island! .