Our First Day

I woke up in the middle of the night, rolled over, and looked at my clock. It read 1:29 a.m. Oh my, I could not believe I was getting up in half an hour to head to the airport! Around 3 hours later goodbyes were said and we were headed through security. Things went pretty smoothly except for our flight being late. We ended up jogging through the huge Houston airport to get to our connection flight in time, boarded the plane, and were on our way out of the U.S.

Around 11:40 a.m. Costa Rica time we finally arrived.  We had gone from 40 degree Ohio weather to wonderful 80 degree Central American weather. They do not participate in daylight savings time in Costa Rica so we weren't one hour behind Eastern Time, but two. The sun sets around 6 and rises around 5 in the morning. We met our bilingual guide, Ariana, at the airport and she took us to our driver. We were all pretty famished from all the traveling so Ariana took us to a typical Costa Rican diner, not much different from a place you'd see in the States. Ordering our food was a little confusing but Ariana helped us. I ordered the steak dinner and was not sure what it would be like.

Oh I was not disappointed, it was absolutely wonderful. All of us still agree that our first meal was one of the best meals.

Afterwards we went to our hotel, dropped off our luggage and went out to see San Jose. You know how you often encounter crazy drivers here in Ohio? You haven't seen anything until you leave the States! My dad calls himself a professional driver--he should take lessons from the guy who drove us. They have very lax traffic laws in Costa Rica, and the traffic is quite heavy at times. Hey, when the roads are packed, why not create another lane? I would never ride a motorcycle or bike there. They weave in and out of the traffic and go wherever they please. To keep drivers in check there are speed bumps everywhere. I think our driver knew where every speed bump in San Jose was. It took us a very long time to get through traffic after lunch. I didn't mind though, there was plenty to observe around you.

Later, we went to another restaurant and had dinner. I got chicken and rice with fries.

I tried guanabana juice, which is made from some fruit they have there. A lot of the meals we had during the week involved juice, which is wonderful to me. I looove juice. During the course of the week I tried:

• Cas juice (which I think is from some kind of guava fruit)
• Guanabana juice (which had an almost slimy, yet delicious texture. It tasted almost like a Caprisun juice pouch)
• Pineapple juice (it's absolutely AMAZING)
• Watermelon juice
• Blueberry juice
• Mango juice
• Blackberry juice (one of the best)
• Mixed fruit juice
• Passion fruit juice (tastes a bit like orange juice)

The meals were always great. After dinner we had dessert. The dessert was rice pudding; I don't remember it's exact name. Not everyone liked it but I think it was my favorite dessert the entire trip. I ended up eating Ruth's portion because she didn't like it and I loved it. After dinner we rode back to the hotel and settled in. It was a great ending to a great day.