The Airport

Me (Dustin), Jennifer, and Melissa are the first to arrive at SJO airport. When you step outside to the street, you are mobbed by taxi-drivers ready to take the luggage out of your hands. Jennifer (aka. "Jennifer Lopez" as every Costa Rican soon called her) manages to drop a large pile of tourist pamphlets all over the ground. To her rescue comes an over-eager taxi driver wearing a "FBI: Female Body Inspector" t-shirt, on hands and knees picking up all the papers. It was an awkward site, made even funnier when Jennifer then keeps dropping the rest of the stack from her hand all over his head!

Unfortunately, we have to wait 3 hours for Agatha, Priscilla, and Christina to arrive. So we make camp on the side of the airport, contemplating our navels, and taking pictures of each other.

The Hotel

Four hours later, we figure we had missed each other, and are kindly offered a shuttle ride by the Sol Tropical Tour company. On the ride, the nice host gives us the standard sales pitch of their tour offerings in clean English. Jennifer does well showing off her Spanish, but soon slips a shibboleth by using an apparently un-Costarican "Mande?" to which he jokes "What are you Mexican?"

We arrive at our hotel: Villas Palmas (Hotel Irazu), a quaint little group of condos, each with a kitchen and multiple bedrooms. I lay out in the sun and take a power-nap, and wake up when the rest of the group arrives. We are all excited and pumped - especially Dave.

The Market

We walk over to the local Super Market to get bottled water and other supplies - gargantuan mangos cost about $0.50 each. Putting 2 in my basket I soon get yelled at by the local produce guy: apparently they have to weigh and price them on the spot. Tiredly walking back with our heavy groceries, I can't help but think we are being mocked by the ants carrying 10 times their weight. Back at home, Dave releases more testosterone. With just enough energy to arrange a Canopy Tour to pick us up the next day, we all hit the sack to get well-needed rest. Good thing, because tomorrow we are gonna need it.