Welcome to Costa Rica!

If your dreams don't scare you a little bit, they're not BIG enough. Connie Haley

I am in Costa Rica!!! My flights from San Diego to Phoenix and Phoenix to San Jose were pretty uneventful. I was so excited to arrive and get started on my adventure. Getting through customs was fairly easy with only one little hiccup. I needed to provide the address I was staying at. I didn’t have a specific address as CPI made all arrangements. I had only a description of the location. 50 m from basilitas yellow house on the right. I showed the customs official my letter and he said that was good. Later I found out they don’t actually use specific street addresses and what I had was typical.

My CPI driver, Diego, was waiting for me outside the airport with a sign. He took me on the short drive to my B&B. He was awesome. He spoke slowly to me in Spanish and then repeated what he had said in English. However, once he dropped me off, the owner of the B&B spoke to me strictly in Spanish and I didn’t have any idea what he said with the exception of “mañana.” Then, he left me and I went into my room. That is when I felt a sense of complete dread and sheer panic. What had I gotten myself into? Maybe I had bitten off more than I could chew. I wish I had Diego back! I decided to listen to my book on tape and after about 15 minutes, I was fine. Sometime in the middle of the night I realized that he had said something about breakfast tomorrow morning at 7:00. I think.

I woke up feeling much more confidant. After breakfast, Diego drove four of us to the Interbus which would take us to our destinations. I had to laugh at the drop-off location - the Fiesta Casino and Dennys with a huge cactus in the front. Had I actually left Vegas or not? Ha, ha! Although I was the only one going to Flamingo Beach, four of us rode the first Interbus to a rest stop/connection point. There we had a 20 minute rest stop and I changed buses. We drove another 2 hours. Finally I went onto my homestay family in Brasilito near Flamingo.

I am staying with a couple who speak basically no English. It has been interesting making gestures and using a very limited vocabulary to communicate. Magda fixed me a delicious meal of chicken, rice, beans, salad, plantains, and avocado. After that, we went to playa conchal and swam in the ocean. The waves were quite high and the undercurrent was extremely strong so I played very close to the shore. The sand was actually lots of broken shells with their edges smoothed from tumbling in the water. The water was truly delightful but so salty!