06.10.2012 – 06.10.2012  27 °C

I’ve done something today that I haven’t done before.. I’ve started a new blog without finishing the previous.. I’ve done this for two main reasons, I spent much of my time up on Cape Breton Island in NS blogging- so the actual entries that would have gone under Maritime Meander would have been pretty boring reading. More importantly, I know that my next month and a bit is going to be pretty hectic and considering this, I knew that I couldn’t afford to get behind on my new set of blog entries or I would never be able to catch up.

To those readers who love to know what I’ve done each and every day, I apologise… I will get back to updating Chapter 10 with my happenings (I’ve got pretty detailed notes) but I just can’t afford to waste the next week and a bit catching that up and then being really far behind on this very busy part of my holiday.

Ok so on to My Jungle Jottings. I had a lot of trouble coming up with a name for my Central American trip.. I mean how many verbs start with an L? (I was trying for something along the lines of a Latino Lxxx) Anyway, I’m not entirely happy with the name for this chapter of my blog, but it’s just gonna have to do!!

I left Toronto in the wee hours of the morning bound for Costa Rica. The Toronto airport was mad! I hadn’t thought too much about it, but today is the start of the Canadian Thanksgiving holiday so the airport was jammed with people trying to go away for a few days, seemingly all down to the Caribbean (looking at the departures board). I lined up for almost an hour twenty just to check my luggage thru!! Aaaahhh…. As a sideline, am I the only person in the world that thinks that electronic check-in has not really speeded up the check-in process? I mean it works pretty well if you just have carry on but if you actually need to check luggage thru its still a queue and a half!!!

Ok so with time rapidly ticking down to boarding time I finally got my luggage checked-in and headed for immigration and security. Started the line up for security and started to really stress about not being able to get to the gate on time…. Had been waiting on the line for about 10 mins when I got whisked half way around the Toronto airport to a different security check point to try and reduce the load on the checkpoint I had been waiting at. Finally got thru the checkpoint and realised no Immigration!!!! How about that?

So all that stressing for nothing! Anyway, got myself on board the plane, swapped myself into a spare row, and settled in for a six hour flight down to Costa Rica. Two movies (Ghostbusters and ? new Tim Burton, Vampire movie with Johnny Depp—pretty good by the way), one cup of noodles, cheese and bickies and a coke later and I landed safely in San Jose Costa Rica. BTW what is it with what I consider full cost airlines (Air Canada in this case) charging for food on board?? I mean I thought I wasn’t flying low cost.

I got myself thru Immigration and Customs easily and headed out into the airport to find myself a way into town. Went for the easiest option, taxi, and off I went into CR.  My first impressions of Costa Rica is that it most reminds me of Turkey. Similar quality of streets, cars, shops, advertisements…. Quite a surprise actually.. I was expecting Cairo and instead got a tropical version of Istanbul! So first impression.. Great! The airport itself is a good thirty minutes from downtown so I had plenty of time to check out the sites on my way. A nice mixture of colonial architecture mixed with a second world colourful concrete jungle! Feels like fun! Temp isn’t too hot.. probably about 27 with 60% humidity so actually quite pleasant!! All in all I think its gonna be fun here in CR!

After checking into our hotel.. Pretty basic but has good water pressure and comfy beds, so I shouldn’t complain! Anyway, after checking in to the hotel I had a quick shower and prepared myself to go for walk. Just as I was about to walk out of the hotel the sky opened up and it poured rain.. Not only did it bucket down but really heavy lightning and thunder.. Welcome to the tropics Weary!!

I spent some of my afternoon in my room blogging and by the time I had some of that done it was almost time for our welcome dinner. I did a quick whizz around the block before I met up with the others from my group. I’m travelling with what seems like a good bunch of people (not that I’ve had a bad group of people yet), two other women and five other men. Only one notable character amongst the group, an older gentleman who loves the sound of his own voice.. Either way I think we are going to have a great time together.

We walked a few blocks to this old gorgeous restaurant that was once a Costa Rican castle.. The architecture of this place is very Moorish so it almost felt like I was back in the Middle East… Particularly so when I looked at the menu, very Middle Eastern!! Our night ended quite early (many of my fellow passengers were quite jet lagged so needed their sleep) with a plan to head out and see the sites of San Jose tomorrow! Ciao!