Blogs from Heredia, Heredia, Costa Rica, Central America Caribbean

We’ve been in Costa Rica for about two weeks. I don’t think we did a lot, but we have done a few things. We left Panama City early last Tuesday morning. We wanted to drive as close to the Panama/Costa Rica border, spend the night in David, and drive on to our new home in Heredia, Costa Rica, just north of San Jose. Because McDonald’s was closed early Wednesday morning, we couldn’t get our morning coffee. We should have taken that as an omen. We thought that, since we were going through the same border, it would be easy. Not so! We got to the Panama border at 8 and it was about 10:30 before we were finally done. 2 ½ hours to go through Panama – the time we budgeted for going through both Panama ... read more

Visiting Costa Rica is like boarding a ship for the first time. The deck moves strangely beneath your feet. Sometimes you even feel a little sick to your stomach. Everything seems somewhat “off” and it takes a little while to get your bearings. There are many things I have experienced this first week that strike me as peculiar in comparison. Plugs and light switches look completely different. Door knobs are optional. Locks and faucets turn backwards. It is not common to have a set of dishes that match. Each plate can be a different color and size. Even in restaurants. There are no bathtubs, just large beautifully tilled showers. Very, very little air-conditioning. And the toilets fill up incredibly slowly! Colors seem livelier. And there is color everywhere! Detailed, deep-colored tile is not only in the ... read more

Holá!!! oder Buenos dias!!! Das sind zumindest zwei der wenigen Worte, die ich mittlerweile sogar aussprechen kann:-) Wir, das heißt Björn, Manuel (zwei Komilitonen von mir) und ich befinden uns gerade im "Hotel América" und warten auf unseren Mietwagen, der in ca. einer halben Stunde hier eintreffen sollte. Mit dem Mietwagen versuchen wir uns dann auf den Weg nach Puntarenas zu machen, um dort den restlichen Tag am Strand zu verbringen. Aber erstmal von vorne. Am 10.4. ging es um halb 11Uhr in Frankfurt am Flughafen los. Mit einem Zwischenstopp in Dallas, tausend Kontrollen auf den Flughäfen, sonst aber keine weiteren Schwierigkeiten, kamen wir mit 8 Stunden Zeitverschiebung um 19.10h am Aeropuerto "Juan Santamaria" an. Nun kam unsere erste Hürde. Wir wollten um Geld zu sparen mit dem Local-Bus nach Heredia fahren. Die Bushaltestation befand sich ... read more

Costa Rica – Jeff After a very comfortable (in comparison to the chicken buses in Nicaragua) eight hour bus ride from Rivas, Nicaragua to San Jose, Costa Rica we had crossed our first border. We immediately went to a familiar hostel in Heredia and reserved a room and headed to Barva to see my host family. We surprised my host parents as they were expecting us the following week-but the welcome the family offered made us feel like we were home. The weekend was full of family birthday parties. My host brother’s wife had a small get together at a local bar with some local live music. The rest of the Tico siblings joined in on the festivities that night as well as some aunts and uncles. Inevitability, Erin and I were asked to dance several ... read more

It has been yet another eventful week here in the magical Costa Rica! On Friday I took advantage of a free day and headed to the beach with my friend Helen. We got up at 6:00am and took a two hour bus from San Jose to a beach called Punta Leona, about twenty minutes north of Jaco. When we arrived we found a little place for breakfast called Soda Nimar which had the best gallo pinto and jugo de piña I've had yet! After breakfast we called a cab to drive us to the beach and we ended up venturing through this gorgeous jungle on a little dirt road and winding up at this small, pretty much empty beach called Playa Blanca. It wasn't the beach we had intended to visit but we were pleased with ... read more

Today I explored the city of Heredia with a fellow student, Shayla. We walked to the center of town and allowed ourselves to get lost. We ended up in Heredia's one hundred year-old cemetery. It was absolutely beautiful. The graves had been kept clean and were adorned with statues, flowers, and plants. Some of the tombs were made of lava rock, some of stone, some of marble, some of tile, and some were just simple crosses in the ground. Then we found our way to two of the town's churches. We also went through the market and bought agua de pipa (a fresh coconut) and had chicken empanadas and pineapple juice for lunch. We met a really nice older gentleman named Fernando and I talked to him for a while about studying in Heredia. I'm taking ... read more