Day 4 - San Jose, Costa Rica

Hello everyone! Buenos Dias!

We arrived yesterday afternoon in San Jose, Costa Rica after a 3 1/2 hour flight or so from Houston, Texas (a short hop from San Antonio previous to that). No issues at all. Everyone got through customs and immigration with little hassle. What a pleasant start!

We drove from the airport to our hotel (a Holiday Inn, of all things), and were checked into our rooms - again, no hassles. The people here in Costa Rica, and our Toyota hosts, are so gracious and accommodating to our every need. We feel like royalty!




As you can see from the above photo, there are some OTHER Central American Countries that are not too far off from Costa Rica. For my students - Panama is about 350 KM from Costa Rica. Go ahead and do a bit of research (or recall the conversion factor that we used a few times) and find out how many MILES Panama is from Costa Rica...

After settling in our room, we were treated to a 3 hour walking tour of downtown San Jose, the capital city of Costa Rica. It is a sprawling city of about 2 million people. Considering that the entire country of Costa Rica has about 4.5 million, that means almost half of the residents live here in San Jose, or in it's outlying communities!

There is so much history here it is difficult to get all down, but suffice it to say that this city has been crucial in the development of Costa Rica as a democracy (for my students - with elected officials like we have in the United States), and that the country has had a relatively peaceful existence since the time of it's independence from Spain in 1821. Currently, Costa Rica does not even have an active military - only volunteer militia! Amazing!

Some pictures of our day:



Some Costa Rican art to look at until we leave for the rain forest tomorrow. Can my students identify any of the species in the paintings?



Guess what this tree is? A Cork tree - yes, just what you are thinking!! It felt just like a cork to a bottle (the bark).




Just a few more plants. Any guesses as to this one? When this plant is ready to be harvested, the beans (seed pods) will be red. Coffee!!


This plant is known in English as "Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow", because the flowers bloom in threes and at different times. The color of the flower indicates how long it has been blooming, from lavender (new flower) to a white color (older flower).




Here is a picture of a school (and bus) for my students. At this building, they have students ranging from age 6-13, but they go to school on different schedules. On alternating days, the younger students (k-3) go in the morning, then have the afternoon off. On those same days, the older students (4-7) go to school in the afternoon. They switch the schedules on every other day! This is a public school located in the heart of San Jose.