Day 39: San Jose, Costa Rica

Today was an utterly glorious day. Knowing that we were going to get our Brazilian visas this afternoon put a skip (or two) into our step. We wandered around the city some more this morning and enjoyed a lovely (huge!) lunch served on a fancy cut piece of wood and banana leaves. Between the two platters (let´s be real here–“plate“ just isn´t a sufficient description), we could´ve fed 2-3 other people. Once we were stuffed to and beyond the gills, we waddled a couple miles back across the city to the embassy and danced a little jig all the way up to the 6th floor and into the office as we picked up our much-sought after, overly complicated visas. Then, after triple checking that they were indeed real (and switching to check each other´s), we danced another jig while we waited for the elevator. But the doors opened to reveal another, rather serious looking passenger so we had to forgo the descending jig and just quietly giggled at each other for the joy of finally having those stupid visas. Read the rest of this entry »

Day 38: San Jose, Costa Rica

It´s Groundhog´s Day, woohoo! So apparently the groundhog predicts more bad winter weather for those folks in winter-weather areas but today marked some seriously good news for us: The formerly irritated old woman at the embassy gave us a nod instead of a head shake! Read the rest of this entry »

Dy 35:  San Jose, Costa Rica

Another noisy morning. But this morning, we were geared up and ready to get to the embassy as soon as they opened at 8:30am so we could hurry our visa apps along. After a yummy breakfast of rice and honey with sliced mango on the back patio at the hostel, we were off for another go with the angry embassy woman. Read the rest of this entry »

Day 34: San Jose, Costa Rica

5:30am and this city comes to life. But not just any life. Think of the most noisy, obnoxious sounds you can imagine, multiply that by 80 and you have an idea of just how “lively“ San Jose gets this early in the morning. Incessant, unnecessary horn honking (it´s a red light–what do you want!?), brakes that sqeal so loudly they must have worn our the pads years ago, and the largest collection of muffler-free vehicles in the whole world all come together at the magic hour, 5:30AM, to sound off the start of the day in a truly monstrous cacophany. Read the rest of this entry »