I made it!!! day #1,2

24 hours of travel from the train to la, public bus to lax, overnight flight from lax to charlotte with a 6hour layover where I met my new friend sarah. Then off to costa rica we went. getting off the flight we just stood there and stared at eachother ¨now what?¨ everything was in spanish and we looked like deer in headlights. We found our way to our luggage and there was carlos with our names on a big sign. it was pretty easy.

carlos who speaks very good english thank god took us to where we will be staying in san juan until sunday. his daughter took us out to dinner and we had rice and beans of course. i was exhausted by that time i am pretty sure i was asleep by 10.

there is something about the driving here....i think stop signs are a suggestion, some intersections have stop signs and stop lights and there are days you can not drive in the city depending on what your license plate ends with.....gas 6$ a gallon. driving on the roads today was a little bit scary, between the pot holes and sometims only room for one car to pass when there are semitrucks going both ways..its a little sketch. but i made it.

today was a good introduction to costa rica. 630 am the door bell rang and i got in the shuttle to start a highlight tour. >we started off at siempreverde plantacion de cafe bed and breakfast. It is said to have the best coffee in costa rica...but what am i to know since i dont drink coffee...so i had my first ever cup of coffee, one sip plain, one sip with milk and the rest full of sugar, it wasnt bad but i cant say it was good, and what do i have to compare it to?. i also ate a ripe coffee bean off the plant.

Next stop was the poas volcano national park at 8,200 feet. we walked up to where you can see in the volcano, well in between the very dense white out fog...and let me tell you, it was cold and windy up there. took some pictures with some large leaf plant, known as the poor mans umbrella and continued on our way.

Down the hill we stoped and ate some fresh picked straberries, got stuck behind a bunch of cows being hurded off the road and stopped at a waterfall that i dont remember the name off and took way too many pictures. we continued on our way, saw some hummingbirds...much more colorfull than sandiegos, I held a terantula...dropped a trantula (made sarah jump on the table), and held it again.

selve verde a lodge and rainforest reserve was next on the list. this is when the weather became what i thought it would be like, hot and humid. it is pretty much a hotel in the middle of a jungle. we took a walk thru the jungle, saw some deadly frogs, spiders and lizards that run on water. Then we had an awesome lunch on the river that runs by it...of course it included beans and rice. saw some monkeys in the trees frolicking across the river from us as we were eating.

last on the tour was a float down the sarapiqui river where we saw iguanas, bunch of birds, monkeys that throw poop if you get too close, the smallest bats in the world, a sloth, a baby croccodile and some other thing related to the croccodile. I was on the look out for the man eating croc but none to be seen. locals were playing in the water, only a few a year die of the croc.

then the adventure ended and we drove back to san juan.

sarah and i took a cab to dinner and i bet you cant guess what we had...rice and beans. It was the first cab experience and our first meal on our own and it was not too bad. >And back home we came just to not be able to unlock 1 of 3 locks to get into my place...yes i am safe here. after trying for what seemed forever and thinking we are now alone on the streets of the city....oh i rang the door bell and someone opened the door and of course the key worked for her.

i think i almost have the money colons down 1$= 550 colones. everything just seems very expensive since the numbers are so big, but really its pretty cheap. 10min cab ride =3 $, dinner =6$. isnt it automatically $2.40 in sandiego for a cab even before you drive anywhere? and tip $6? tip is included here, you tip extra if you want.

thats all i have to say and i definetley am not going back to spell check or read over this, most stuff is not capitalized when it should be because this keyboard here is way too complicated and i am tired and going to bed because i have another long day tomorrow

happy halloween!