Make it count: Costa Rica

Costa Rica Trip

Day #3 - Saturday, January 10th

It’s about 2pm local time - we’re in a shuttle bus nearing our drop-off location in San Jose, Costa Rica. After grabbing a hot tea from a Starbucks across from our hotel this morning around 9am - we took a pre-booked shuttle (InterBus) to drive us the 5-hrs from Liberia to San Jose, Costa Rica.

Today is the start of our 7-day G-Adventures tour in Costa Rica. We’ll be meeting our guide this afternoon and then meeting up with the rest of our tour group for dinner tonight. Logistics are taken care of the next 7 days - now it’s time to just have some fun and start adventuring. I’ll check in later tonight.

Later

We rolled into the hotel around 2:30pm. Radisson Hotel - really nice in the heart of San Jose. Greg and I went out for a little walk around the city (3 miles or so). We made it to the center of the city - the National Theatre area. Neat spot with a courtyard. We walked a few of the busy, pedestrian-only streets around the main city square. Back to the hotel.

We met up with our tour group at 6pm. The trip members include the following: (10 total)

Yacdany - Trip leader - born/raised in Monteverde, Costa Rica. Married with 2 kids - lives in Switzerland part time.

Gus - lives in California (near LA). Done a bunch of traveling to Europe.

Len and Heather - older couple who resides in Edmonton, Canada

Pam and Mindy - mom/daughter combo from Ft Wayne, Indiana. Pam (mom) is retired - former speech therapist. Mindy (daughter) - works in a museum

Kip - 43-year old from St. Louis, Mo. Lives in Maplewood and went to DeSmet High School. Spent a few summers in Alaska - big hiker

Ursula - from Vienna, Austria. Has been to Everest BaseCamp.

We had a really nice dinner and got to know each other a bit. Always one of my favorite parts of traveling - learning new people and getting inspired by their stories. After dinner - we grabbed a drink and watched the end of the Packers/Bears playoff football game.

Tomorrow - breakfast at 6:30am - then we’re departing for Monteverde at 8am. Excited to get the party started. Good night from San Jose, Costa Rica!