San Jose, Costa Rico

Friday, March 9 & Saturday, March 10:

San Jose, Costa Rico

Thursday night we were back at the B&B near the International Airport in Guatemala City.  Cal was able to, via the computer, to listen to the Mt Pleasant Boys Basketball game – they were playing in Des Moines at the State Tournament. For those who do not know, during the regular season, whenever possible due to our schedule, Cal does the public address announcing at home games for both girls and boys basketball.  Therefore he has seen this team throughout the season and is pulling for them. He was thrilled to be able to hear the game.  As I am writing this late Saturday afternoon, Cal is hoping to hear and possibly watch the State Final game tonight from here in San Jose, CR 

Friday morning we flew into San Jose, Costa Rica.  First, was doing some laundry so it had time to dry.  Second, we wanted to try to find another camera!  This is not easy! Cal is very interested in another Nikon, but we have not found any and have been told that Nikon is not in Costa Rico.  Today we finally found a Cannon that may work, but when looking on the internet it explicitly says that the warranty is good only in the country of purchase!!  So I guess we will keep moving ahead with our smaller Nikon.  It is doing ok, but we are use to a larger camera.

So we have not done a lot of exploring San Jose itself - just the malls.  Today, Saturday we continued to look for a camera.  Plus changed hotels! 

As of tonight we are beginning a tour in Costa Rico with Caravan Tours. The Tour begins with dinner followed by an Orientation at 8:00 pm. With Caravan we are staying at the Real Inter-Continental Hotel, a little upscale for us, so last night we stayed at a Courtyard by Marriott (a little cheaper) just up the street.  As I said earlier, at noon today we moved hotels.              

This afternoon after more shopping, we returned to do more research on the internet, and made our decision to not purchase a camera here. 

Cal & I have never been gone with a Tour group, so we are hopeful this will go well. We have talked to numerous people who have used Caravan and are extremely positive.  We still like to drive so we can stop and go wherever we desire. But due to the language barrier (we know no Spanish) we thought this may be a good way to go.  However I must say that the days we had the car in Guatemala and were on our own, things went very well.  Even the last two days while shopping, we found very little English, but managed very well.    

There are no photos today – just the inside of malls that all look like the US – so many of our stores.