Canopy Adventure

We (Dustin, Melissa, Jennifer, Dave, Liza, Agatha, and Priscilla) are picked up by the Canopy Adventures' shuttle. The "base station" is a nice cabin/house where the operator lives. We quickly get prepped with our harness (for not falling), our our helmet (for keeping our post-mortem skull intact should we fall), and our heavy-duty leather gloves (to avoid furious wire burn when slowing down).

I think some of us are nervous, but on the outside we are all frozen smiles. We hike up to the first station through a beautiful forest - the air is moist and fresh, and the moss on the trees indicates every direction is north.

At the top of the platform, we quickly sort into least-to-most-scared order. One by one, we all make our first zip-line:

Daring Dave!
Locquatious Liza!
Anything-goes Agatha!
Mighty Mouse Melissa!
Jeronemo Jennifer (Lopez)!
Petrified Priscilla!
Deranged Dustin!

By the end, we are all just letting loose:

Eating in downtown San Jose

When we get back to our hotel, we have a taxi take us to downtown San Jose. The driver kindly drives us to a recommended restaurant. As we're dropped off, he even exchanges winks and hellos with the restaurant owner - how nice.

As we are enjoying our meals, I can't help but reflect on how the food prices weren't really that cheap, but more like American prices. The conspiracy theorists inside Dave and me get to thinking that we've been given special high-priced menus. Dave walks up to the waitress and asks for a menu, to which she asks a co-worker where the menus are (there are two stacks right next to her), and then gives Dave a menu from the right stack. Five minutes later, after downing my last swig of guaro I quickly get up, head to the menus, and grab one from the left pile. Instantly a waiter tries to grab it back "Oh, that's the Spanish menu, you don't want that, you don't want that". I take it anyway with a friendly "No problemo".

At my table, I quickly compare some of the prices. Sure enough, many of the items are 50% or even 100% higher than the Spanish-only menus. Other waiters are now also coming over with lines like "Those are the old menus..."

So we get gipped - it isn't even the money that bothers us, but just being taken that left a bad taste in our mouths. Not only that, they have the cojones to give us a bill that's simply a piece of paper with a single large total on it - nothing itemized. We ask for the bill to be broken down by person, and after 10 minutes, we then get eight pieces of paper with a single number on each. Fed up with all of it, we pay our bill and leave.

Walking through downtown San Jose

The shopping area of downtown San Jose is your typical miniature Manhattan-like metropolis. And if you're in the market for necklaces, wooden boxes, and hacky sacks, this is the place. The shop-owners (of everything from flea-market stands to department stores) are true salesmen, yelling to grab your attention at every moment. As soon as you eye any merchandise, you aquire an assigned shopping assistant that is difficult to shake off.

We manage to set down our We're Tourists banners long enough to snap some pictures. One funny anecdote: as I pass by a old man giving out flyers, I shake my head with an articulate "Lo Sieto" to which he responds with a surprised and heartfelt "Heeyyy, no need to be sorry" - I guess "Sorry" isn't a Spanish equivalent for "No thanks.".