My trip to Costa Rica was great, but the planning was a mess. I had to postpone it by 2 weeks because of unavailability of tickets. Finally, after booking the tickets, it was turn of hotels and other travel arrangements. Thankfully, my team in Costa Rica helped me a bit here. And also, good part is many things can be done online these days.
08/06/09 - I left the home at 1 AM to catch my flight to SanJose, Costa Rica at 8 AM in morning. I knew if I sleep I would never catch the flight. And I had a nice sleep in flight.
08/07/09 - After reaching at SanJose, one my team mates was there to drop me at the hotel. She took me to their office in SanJose to meet with the whole team. It was really nice to put faces on the voices I often heard on various conference calls. And SanJose was kind of like Delhi, growing urban place, lots of traffic, and lots of upcoming buildings for office etc. After that we reached to my hotel
The Intercontinental at SanJose was an awesome hotel and ofcourse they charge for it, about $120/night after discount. The bad part was that internet was not free and I treated it as blessing in disguise, atleast it would give me chance to stay away from the internet. After taking a shower and some rest, I hanged out in the biggest mall, which was in front of the hotel, of SanJose. Later in the night, I met with few of my team mates to go out on dinner and drinks. They took me to a nice place with loud music.
That's the view from my room.
Roads wise Costa Rica was not too different from India, recless driving, narrow streets, and not so well built roads. I was feeling at home!After dinner they took me to some kind of place which was kind of full of clubs, but there were gross, with young boys and girls hanging and some weird kind of music. Anyways, it was an experience.
08/08/09 - Next day, we had to go to a volcano in SanJose, so I had to got up early. Damn it was early! 8AM, I don't even get up at 8AM on normal week day and I was suppose to get up at 8AM on vacation. Phew!!
My team mates, took me to the Poas Volcano. The way to volcano was nice around the moutains it was a scenic drive of about 40 mins.
Here are few of the views:
And we reached the place near volcano, which had nice shops and restaurant. The volcano was about half a mile walk from this place. The best part was that there was hiking trail near the volcano to reach a lake. So, how could I resist! We took the trail and it was one of strenuous trail I ever did. It was steep for quite some distance before it became flat. I kept clicking on what I could.
I got to eat some nice Costa Rican food on our way back from volcano. And after resting for the day at my room in hotel and hanging out a bit at the mall, we again met in evening for the dinner. This time they took me to another nice place, which was open air with nice crowd and good music. I just love it!
And I pleaded them not to take me to that gross place again
And I pleaded them not to take me to that gross place again
To be Continued....
