Entry...

We arrived Thursday night after spending most of the day getting here. We´d booked flights on Continental Airlines which still checks a first bag for free, screens movies for free and serves (free) hot meals. All I can say is yeah Continental!

After clearing immigration and customs, we were met by a driver who drove us out to our hostel. The streets were covered with signage from international corporations and filled with lots of new-looking compact cars. As Costa Rica began to grow it´s economy (beyond tourism, it´s exports include micro chips, bananas, coffee and all sorts of fruits and flowers), a dedication to conservation took hold. SUVs and mini-vans are only driven full (often with tourists) and well-maintained public buses are typically filled to capacity.

I´d booked rooms at "Hostel" Toruma which is so upscale that our rooms have flat-screen TVs, there´s free internet, a bar-restaurant and a pretty swimming pool. After sleeping off the flight, and having some breakfast, we partook in an apparently very common Costa Rican adventure (finding a location in an address-oblivious country). We set out by foot to visit the agency that had booked a bunch of our activities. I´d been given directions which were something like, "go to the original entrance of the county hospital, they walk to the north 2 meters, then walk west a half a meter." Soon we found a woman with a bit of time on her hands who showed us the way to the hospital. Then the true adventure began as various ambulance drivers, hospital workers and construction workers attempted to decipher where we should go. After walking around in circles for about 15 minutes, we eventually found a building (with no public signage) and pushed the buzzer for Exploradores Outdoors. We met Betshilva, the woman I´d been corresponding with the last couple of weeks. She handed me a packet with a series of activity-vouchers and after Dennis took photos to document our visit, we were headed out to explore San Jose.