It’s Pura Vida Time!



Today was mostly a travel day. After a good night sleep we had breakfast at 10:00am and met two of the former students traveling to San Jose, Costa Rica. We are all on the same flight so we decided to Uber together to the airport. We left the hotel at about 11:15am.  A 70 minute flight got us to San Jose. While we’re perfectly capable of navigating on our own, it’s great to have friends help out. 



Tonight we’re staying in downtown San Jose.  We booked through Priceline and are really happy about the hotel we chose — sometimes it’s a crap shoot.  It’s a very nice hotel next to a plaza and the National Theater of Costa Rica.  There’s a major shopping/pedestrian street a block away. And, we got to our room only to get a call from the front desk — the TV in our is broken and they want to fix it, so they moved us to a suite overlooking the plaza. 



After settling in we took a stroll along the pedestrian street. We bought some snacks and drinks to take with us tomorrow.  San Jose has such a different vibe than Panama City. Where Panama City felt more like Miami, San Jose feels like a smaller LA. It’s Sunday and people are out and about.

There happens to be a show at the theater tonight and they were having some festivities as it was getting close to showtime. 



Minor (the former student who we flew to San Jose with) and his friend Lis took us out for diner.  Jim had lengua in salsa (tongue in a red sauce with yucca and plantain). Kristi had Costa Rican style chile rellenos (filled with meat instead of cheese). We had a great evening with them!







Tomorrow’s adventure begins at 6:30am!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Reunion Finale Dinner

Image
Tonight was the reunion finale—a dinner and celebration. The CASP/CASS/SEED program brought nearly 300 young people from Central America, the Caribbean, and Mexico to Reedley between 1988 and 2013. It’s great that a small group still gathers for reunions. This was our second time attending. The first was back in 2010, when the reunion was held in Reedley. Tonight, it was announced that the next one will be in El Salvador in 2028. We hope to be there. The lasting memories and friendships this program created are truly remarkable. Even though most of the students at this reunion came through the program well before Jim worked as the coordinator, the shared experiences naturally create a strong bond between us. We’re honored to have been part of it. The hospitality shown by the students has been incredible.
Read more

Arrival in Panama

Image
“What led us to Panama?” you might ask. Jim’s first job at Reedley College was coordinator of a program that brought Central American/Caribbean/Mexican youth to study in Reedley. He even had classes with these students when he was a student at RC.  Every three years alumni have a reunion. This year it’s in Panama. In 2010 they held it in Reedley — the only time it’s been in the U.S.  This is our first time attending a reunion outside of the U.S.   Our flight to Panama City departed LAX at 2:00am today. It’s a 6.5 hour flight and a two hour time difference (ahead of CA); we arrived  at about 10:30am  local time.  An alumnus from 1992-94, Edison, picked us up from the airport and dropped us off at the hotel, which is in the heart of the city. It’s very nice to have a friend greet and welcome you to a new country.  As you might imagine, we didn’t sleep much on the flight or at all over night. While it’s not a crazy long flight, our long layover in LA made...
Read more

Welcome to the Jungle

Image
We were up at the crack of dawn this morning to be picked up in front of our hotel for a journey to Tortugero National Park. There are several lodges in the park where people can stay. We really didn’t know exactly what to expect but it sounded like fun. We finally left the city at about 7 AM after picking up others at other hotels — we traveled in a comfortable bus. The driving portion took about two hours until our first stop for breakfast, which was included in the trip. This first part of the drive took us through another national park, the Braulio Carrillo National Park, and over the continental divide as it is in Central America — the highway crosses the divide at 5250 feet in elevation.  The views were quite spectacular — dense jungle covered hills among misty clouds. The picture below shows the confluence of two rivers of distinctly different colors caused by where they originate; the Rio Sucio originated from an area of volcanic rock and the Rio Honduran originat...
Read more