Blogs from San José, San José, Costa Rica, Central America Caribbean - page 32

I got through my two weeks at school and "graduated today!" Those were the schools words not mine. I was told by my teacher that each student who finishes gets a certificate and collects it in front of all the other students and gets a round of applause. I told him that if this was really going to happen then at 3pm when class was over I'd be on the bus home! So thankfully, very kindly, he gave me my certificate in the class with an audience of two..this I could handle. If I felt like I'd studied for months or years and had taken some kind of exam and was able to say more than "hola mi llamo Karen ..." then maybe I would of taken the applause. But hey I do have a certificate ... read more

Went to the butterfly garder today. Took taxi at $2 because the hostel said it was too far to walk. We paid $11 total to get in and we saw the most amazing butterflies I have ever seen. Big, electric blue ones and all other types and colors too. Will upload pictures soon, not sure if photos will do them justice. There was a trail outside of the enclosed gardens to view more butterflies and was very muddy and lots of vegetation. Macayla was freaking out. She slipped and fell, mud everywhere and she had had a enough. I kept telling her that this was nothing compared to other things we will be doing. We then took another taxi to the childrens museum. It was okay but something you would see in the states except it ... read more

We added some pictures finally. They are available on our main travel blog page - click on "gallery" near the middle in blue. If you can't figure it out, here is a shortcut: http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/therabes/Gallery/10747/ ------------------ On Monday, June 30, we arrived in San Jose by small airplane from Golfito. Some people have said San Jose is dangerous, but we have found it to be quite nice, not at all scary. We stayed at a great hostel called Costa Rica Backpackers. The hostels have been a lot of fun, we have met a lot of interesting people from all over the world. On Tuesday, July 1, we took a bus to Siquirres, then a bus to Cano Blanco. On the bus to Cano Blanco we passed through fields and fields of Del Monte bananas. The bananas are ... read more

Ive been in Costa Ricas capital for 3 nights now. The journey from Puerto Viejo was pretty easy in a nice air conditioned coach which made it all pleasant with the air con etc. Being warned about my arrival that there would be lots of pickpockets around I left the bus, grabbed my bag and got straight in a taxi being very aware of who was around. Didnt stop someone managing to take my camera from my knee length pocket. I was very annoyed at that time. So I stayed in San Jose an extra day til it stopped raining heavily so I could walk into the centre and buy a new camera which I did today (Im going to spend more on Cameras than accomodation at this rate). The city itself is advertised as one ... read more

Day 234: Think of a journey time and then add three hours Up at the crack of dawn, I was hanging around the bus station waiting for my bus at six o'clock this morning. Having been through everyone's paperwork, it was over an hour before we finally pulled out of the station, heading south towards the border. We had a few scheduled stops to pick up various other people en route, reaching the first part of the border crossing at about ten-thirty. All handing in our passports, we hung around for an hour, buying overpriced snacks and changing money, before recollecting our documents and heading off on our way again to the Costa Rican entry point. At this point, it was all seeming a little bit too easy. And then we saw the queue to get ... read more