Pura vida! As I write this, I'm sitting at the gate watching my plane get ready. The flight leaves in just over an hour, a 5 1/2-hour red-eye to San Salvador before a short one-hour hop to San José. I tried practicing my Spanish at the ticket counter but since I'm not too familiar with travel questions I had code-switch a few times. I'm a little restless to see what happens when I no longer have that luxury!
I had a lot of last-minute things to do the past two days. On Thursday, DHL delivered the Costa Rican colones I ordered from International Currency Express. They're the same size as good old American greenbacks so my money clip will work just fine with them, though I also have a money belt to keep the larger bills away from pickpockets. The exchange rate is about 500 to 1 (which makes the math easy), so even though the zeroes on a 2,000-colón bill look impressive, the thing is only worth about $4. From what I've read, though, it'll still buy me a pretty good meal.
After I got my cash, I went to the county Registrar of Voters to cast my absentee ballot. My voting streak goes back to 1992 so I wasn't going to get a little vacation spoil it. After that, I went to Barnes & Noble and got the latest copy of Lonely Planet's Costa Rica travel guide – absolutely hot off the press, dated October 2008! Unfortunately, I was unable to find the other book I wanted, Guide to Costa Rican Spanish by Christopher Howard. This seems to be the highest-rated phrase book that specifically targets the uniquely Tico flavor of Spanish. There were a couple of other titles of this ilk available but after seeing them panned on Amazon, I decided against getting them. I guess I'll see what they have in Heredia/San José when I get there.
Friday afternoon, I got my hiking shoes for what I hope will be an exciting trip to the rainforest. On top of that, I got another pair of urban walking shoes. I've read that this style is popular with city-dwelling Ticos so it's my bit of an attempt to look more like a "traveler" than a "tourist." Ticos like to dress well – not necessarily fancy, but clean and well put together, even when they dress casually. Thankfully my sense of style is similar – or so I hope! As a salsa dancer, I have a lot of Cuban-style shirts and my hope is that the style transcends Latin America. In addition, although Costa Rica is not widely known as a salsa hotbed, I'm eager to see what the dancing is like there.
I gave my downstairs neighbors my contact information, added them to my ADT account, then finally started packing. I didn't want to get bogged down with more than one piece of luggage, so I had to decide out what was the smallest subset of clothes I was willing to wear for four weeks. I figured I could always buy some local fashions as well, so it wasn't too grueling of an exercise. I weighed my bag several times to make sure I was still under the 50-pound limit – I think I got as high as 45 pounds. To save money, I went through the house and unplugged unessential appliances, and even forwarded my cell phone to my home voicemail so I could listen to messages online without racking up international phone charges. After one last check, I hopped in my neighbor's car and headed off for the Caltrain station, bound for San Francisco International.
I've done everything I could to prepare. Now it's time to hop on that plane and experience pura vida!
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