Limón, Costa Rica

Ahora, estamos en Limón, Costa Rica.
The link is in Spanish, but I am sure there is an easy way to reference it in English.

After a sleepless (but fun) night in Atlanta, I departed for San Jose, Costa Rica yesterday morning, after a brief layover in Houston. I stood in the longest immigration line ever (it took two hours to get a stamp on my passport), and was relieved to finally see a familiar face upon exiting the airport. Sara, her host sister Kumata and friend Jeff picked me up, and we spent the night in San Jose. Early this morning, all of us (sin Jeff) took a 3 hour bus ride to Limon, which is where we will spend the Christmas holiday before Sara and I depart for the Parque Nacional, tentatively on the 28th. From what it sounds like, from then on, it will be several days of pretty hardcore trekking, so I will probably be offline from then until the new year.

The streets of downtown Limón

Limón is much warmer than San Jose, so it is nice to once again trade in my jeans and winter jacket for board shorts and slippers. It is not as warm as Cambodia and Bali (it was in the 90s in both places), which is a blessing. Also, I hear that there is warm water in the house we are staying in tonight, so I don´t need to attempt and fail to take a cold water shower like I did last night.

Thus far, Costa Rica is unlike any other place I have been to. I thought SE Asia reminded me a lot of Hawaii, but Costa Rica is slightly different. It has the same tropical feel, but is still quite unique in a way I cannot quite describe. Also, I am suprised that there are many dark skinned people here. I suppose this goes along with every other American stereotype of Spanish-speaking countries. We always assume places like Spain and Costa Rica will have people who look like Mexicans, but that is almost never the case (especially not in Spain!). OH, and the salsa music! They like to play tons of salsa music on the street (with the exception of this Internet cafe, which is playing HAWAIIAN music! yes!).

Before I sign off, I´ll explain that this is yet another departure from my previous blog. At the Atlanta Couchsurfing party, I met some travel bloggers there who gave me recommendations for this blog, including neglecting to include my full name in it, hence why I am changing the domain. I will slowly move my other posts over to this blog, and include my post on Atlanta, which is on my laptop, which I left in San Jose for safe keeping.

Meanwhile, I enourage you to check out and bookmark this travel blog by my new friend in Atlanta, Zach. He will spend the upcoming year (beginning Dec 26) traveling through South America and Africa...I wish him all the best on this new adventure!
http://www.travelpod.com/members/zachsmith

Suzi´s Photo of the Day

Rome, Italy, December 25, 2006

Christmas dinner on Christmas day in Rome, three years ago. We were all studying abroad in Europe, and we met in Rome to be festive and merry together, bringing sweet treats from wherever we were coming from. Milka bars from Germany, shortbread from Scotland, Oregon chocolate, and random Toblerone that some couple gave to me on my flight to Europe. This was also the day after we attempted to see the Pope give his Christmas speech at the Vatican and failed miserably, having to walk halfway across Rome in the middle of the night because no taxis would stop and pick us up. It was a holiday to remember!