Costa Rica: Day One
We left the United States for Costa Rica at ~6:15 in the morning. The flights were actually uneventful, one leg to Houston on a small plane and the second to San Jose on a much larger aircraft. In-flight entertainment was provided, a really strange animated film about Garfield the cat. I made it through about 5 minutes and then switched to reading "The Sex Lives Of Cannibals" by J Marteen Troost. Great book, about a guy who spent "two grueling years on the island of Tarawa, battling feral dogs, machete-wielding neighbors, and a lack of beer on a daily basis" I quite enjoyed it, although it didn't really pick up until about half way through when he began to enjoy his experience on Tarawa.
Upon arrival in San Jose, we passed through immigration which was quite speedy, and then set about looking for our ride to Jaco. Sure enough, we found someone holding a large sign that read "Shana Nerlin" (Picture) So at that point, we pretty much just hopped in the Car and began to make our way to Jaco. It didn't take us very long to get out of town, and in short order we began to see stunning mountains and valleys.
Once we arrived in Jaco though, I was sort of struck by the weirdly commercial nature of the place. The beach we stayed on was beautiful, and it was a short walk into town punctuated by yipping dogs and small plots with smaller homes. Once we reached town however, there were large, clean back lit signs advertising KFC and TCBY along with placards advertising large luxury towers to be built in the area were somewhat of a surprise as well. The proximity of all this media to the ramshackle homesteads and people living in meager circumstances seemed kind of callus- like these large companies had a lot of money to throw into marketing, but weren't interested in doing much to contribute to the local culture. We found a restaurant that looked tasty.. and I ordered a fish dish, that ended up including the head of the fish, and requiring significant disassembly.
After dinner we headed back into the hotel and crashed pretty immediately.
One of the great things about staying on the Pacific Ocean is the sunsets. Here was the sunset on the beach in Jaco.
Upon arrival in San Jose, we passed through immigration which was quite speedy, and then set about looking for our ride to Jaco. Sure enough, we found someone holding a large sign that read "Shana Nerlin" (Picture) So at that point, we pretty much just hopped in the Car and began to make our way to Jaco. It didn't take us very long to get out of town, and in short order we began to see stunning mountains and valleys.
Once we arrived in Jaco though, I was sort of struck by the weirdly commercial nature of the place. The beach we stayed on was beautiful, and it was a short walk into town punctuated by yipping dogs and small plots with smaller homes. Once we reached town however, there were large, clean back lit signs advertising KFC and TCBY along with placards advertising large luxury towers to be built in the area were somewhat of a surprise as well. The proximity of all this media to the ramshackle homesteads and people living in meager circumstances seemed kind of callus- like these large companies had a lot of money to throw into marketing, but weren't interested in doing much to contribute to the local culture. We found a restaurant that looked tasty.. and I ordered a fish dish, that ended up including the head of the fish, and requiring significant disassembly.
After dinner we headed back into the hotel and crashed pretty immediately.
One of the great things about staying on the Pacific Ocean is the sunsets. Here was the sunset on the beach in Jaco.
Labels: costa rica, travel
posted by Jonathan Bownds at
12:48 PM
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