San José

After a long day of travel that, somehow, was disaster-free, I ended up in San Jose at last.  The majority of the group had met up in Miami, and it was great to see familiar faces, some of which I hadn’t seen in a while.  An enthusiastic greeting from Ryan at the airport, and off to the hotel.  Some quick dinner before we hit the hay for the night.

We started the morning off with a couple of intro lectures at the OTS (Organización para estudios Tropicales) San Jose station, including an overview of OTS, a national history of Costa Rica, and Ryan throwing some cool ecological stuff at us.

And then, we were off on our own for the day.  A quick stop to exchange money (colónes, ₡) turned out to be a little more difficult than expected…..

…but soon enough we were scattered throughout the city:

Lunch in an expansive bazaar, complete with a
multitude of bars and a pet store that sold roosters.

Ended the day with dinner all together at the hotel, followed by down time for the rest of the eve  (during which some of us might have had some desperate catching-up on mandatory readings…)