Costa Rica Day 1 and 2

Greetings from Costa Rica!

Yesterday was a long day of traveling - but it wasn't too bad. We took a little prop plane to Guatemala City and then a big jet plane into San Jose. We felt very adventurous because instead of taking the $20 taxi ride into the city from the airport we found the public bus on the street and took that until we were near our hostel. Then after a few attempts of figuring out which way was north, we found our hostel. The hostel is really nice and comfortable. It has a really nice communal area that we can use the kitchen, watch TV and play Rummy cube (great game!). Last night we found the grocery store, ate Peruvian food - man was it good - and then fell asleep by 8:30 - we were so tired!

This morning we slept into until about 7:30, enjoyed our breakfast and slowly got ready. I think I'm going to be addicted to coffee by the end of the trip - because wow the coffee is good here! So, after at least two cups of coffee we headed out to explore San Jose. The downtown area is FULL of people, lots and lots of clothes stores, and tons of parks. We went into a Jade museum - my grandma will be proud :) and also went to the zoo. I think there were only about 10 people walking around the zoo and it was kind of sad because all the animals seemed depressed. The cages were small and smelly. But, the animals were cute and we even got to watch the lions being fed which was neat to watch. A couple of the snake cages looked empty which made me nervous :). The monkeys did an acrobatic act for us - swinging upside down by his tail and arms. San Jose was nice, but it was mostly just a big, busy city.

We found the bus station and tomorrow morning we leave around 11:30 for Fortuna - which is at the base of Mt Arenal - an active volcano. We're hoping for some good shows from the volcano.