We're Here!

We're currently on a bus heading into La Fortuna for some volcanic, hotspringing action! It's going to be another 4 hours or so, loads of time for taking a ton of silly random pictures. Our favourite subject so far has been our official mascot, the 1 inch tall rubber chicken!

Our flight into Charlotte, North Carolina was actually pretty eventful. We were most of the way there when an announcement came over the PA system..."if there is a Doctor or medical professional on board, would you please hit the call button immediately!" A panicked flight attendant ran us carrying a huge canister of oxygen, as the quiet elderly man sitting beside Matt looked up from his book, looked around the plane, and, resigned, pushed the call button and stood up to grab his equipment. Turns out it was a cardiac arrest, and we zoomed into Charlotte for the fastest landing I've ever experienced. The lady (in her 30's) looked to be fine, so the net result was that we got into Charlotte just 10 minutes late after leaving Pearson half an hour late because of a backup in customs. Plenty of time to grab a bite, plant a bookcrossing book, and check on t before we left (it was gone) on the next flight.

As we arrived in San Jose, we were hoping we'd get to go down the cool emergency slides when they told us that we had parked in the wrong spot, but sadly we didn't get to, we just got towed to the gate.

As I write this, we're driving through some absolutely gorgeous hills with tons of green. We're trying to take pictures, but alas all we've managed is the roof of a house and a tree.

Back to yesterday, enter Jose the crazy cab driver who took us to the hotel and announced (as he swerved wildly from side to side to avoid a woman and her baby) that Americans thought that Ticos were crazy drivers. His Spanish was actually quite easy to understand and as we passed the hospital right by the hotel he said that there had been a fire there last year and 20 people had died when they jumped out of the windows to escape. Adam called it "Hospital Muerte" from then on.

We went out for dinner with our tour group around 7; 15 people from England, Switzerland, the States, and Canada. And...the Torontonians outnumber everyone - 8 of us! Although it had been a really long day, some of us his a few clubs with Ellis, our tour leader. What that meant was that we tried in vain to imitate the salsa dancers and then gave up and did weird and horribly embarrassing disco moves. And yes, there are pictures :P

The weather is humid but gorgeous. Thankfully it cools down somewhat at night because it's been really hot! It's supposed to be rainy this week - keep your fingers crossed for us! Tonight we're going on a hike by the volcano and then the hotsprings. Since we are only staying here for two days, it was really hard to decide between a whole lot of activities for tomorrow; I'll be going rappeling, and then white water rafting.

Hasta luego for now, Amigos!