The trip to Costa Rica has officially begun. I'm at the airport now waiting for the flight to board. Had my customary shot of Jaegar and a beer. It's definitely not a vacation without that. I'm psyched to be going on a vacation again.
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I've landed in San Jose. The airport is small and, being so early, clearing customs was really quick. Of course, I'm here pretty early, and I have a while to wait for the rest of the crew to show up. So, I've ventured out the a Denny's near the airport. I've realized how little I've prepared to be in this Spanish-speaking country. I don't even have a Spanish-English dictionary, especially since I've already encountered people who don't speak English well. I didn't even bother to learn anything about the country before I got here. I don't even know the exchange rate! It may have been a good idea to pick an iPhone app or two. Luckily, this Denny's has WiFi, meaning I don't have to pay for international roaming/data service. So, I downloaded a few apps just like that. Gotta love that. I also just realized that I may be able to make a few calls for free using Skype. Of course, that depends on a reliable connection. Anyways, I don't really plan on being connected to the outside world too much during this trip. This trip is all about relaxing and clearing the min and to be inspired. Once I get back, I have a lot of personal things still left to do, and I need to get focusted. So, that's what I hope to regain during this trip. Now, I just have to wait for these fools to get in. Still have three hours to go.
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I got back to the airport and met up with Sahil. We had to wait for Kapil so we ended up getting the rental car squared away and did a little exploring. Finally, Kapil's plane shows up and we're off to Arenal. Took us a couple of house to get there. The roads weren't as bad as I expected (like Peru), but had plenty of stops, one-lane roads, small towns on the way.
We made it to the Arenal Lodge, after a 3 km steep drive from the entrance. We had wanted to stay the Tobacon, but was little more expensive than we wanted. So, we ended up at this place, and it's not too bad. Our room has a great view of the volcano, although the cloud cover isn't helping today.
We grabbed some food at the restaurant thinking we'd just eat quickly and then hit the hotsprings at the Tobacon, but then we found out that it was $45 to get in. We decided it wasn't worth the effort for a couple of houses. So, we decided to chill, especially since we were pretty tired anyways. One cool thing we got to do was to get one of the two parrots to stand on our arms. We got the pics to prove it.