Saturday, June 2, 2007 (San Jose, Costa Rica)
The terrain here is beautiful. Amazing mountains are all around and the clouds cling to them. The houses are also spectacular and I should try for some pictures of them. It amazes me, actually, the way houses and businesses are seemingly randomly interspersed with each other all over the area.

Costa Rica works on two monetary systems, the colón (official) and the dollar. Prices are in colones and are currently about ˘500 to the dollar. Most places take dollars, though, then give you change in colones. It's really interesting working in two currencies, especially since the colón does not have a small denomination. It seems things are often estimated, though it leaves open the possibility of being cheated, as happened tonight [only by $2]. Nonetheless, to get local currency for the smaller things all i have to do is spend some U.S. money and get change. It's an interesting system...

I had three basic stops in Costa Rica. The first few days I was there my sister was still traveling. One day my mom and I went on a tour of the area, east of San Jose (S.J. is the capital of Costa Rica, btw). Then I had a day of exploring a little of San Jose on my own (not much to see, really) while mom and Cristine dealt with packing the last of Cristine's things to be sent home with mom. Then when mom left, it was me and the sis, headed to our first destination together, Monteverde, the Cloud Forest Reserve of Santa Elena.

So what did we do on our tour around San Jose?

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