Costa Rica Trip Day 6 - 2009-03-11

Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/link774/sets/72157615059110033/

We started out today thinking that we were going to drop by the warehouse to make sure everything was working and then take a flight to Arenal. Unfortunately, getting the kiosk done took a lot longer than we thought it would. We thought it would be about 30 minutes and it ended up being 3 hours.

Robb brought his wife and kids so they could see it once we got it working, but they ended up waiting around for a while with us. Eventually some administrative person at the logistics place where the warehouse is came and told us that the people who weren't working needed to get out of the warehouse. This made sense, since there were forklifts running around and we had two children there.

It was a bit annoying though, since we had been there for so long and were really close to getting the thing running. Oh, and Liz was there too since we thought it would be more efficient to go straight from the warehouse to the airport. We did end up getting the kiosk working, but since the software that I needed to customize the program wasn't registered, I couldn't upload any test images. Luckily it was loaded with a pretty nice looking demo video that ran by default.

So it ended up taking so long that we missed the last flight to Arenal. We looked at renting a car but none of us really felt like trying to find our way through the unmarked roads around here. We decided to postpone Arenal till tomorrow and just see some sights in San Jose.

Once we got back from the warehouse we headed over to Mercado Central (Central Market) to see what it looked like. It was pretty neat, it had all sorts of food, flowers, and other assorted things. We got some spices and fruit for dinner. After that, we went to the Museo de Oro (Gold Museum) which has a nice exhibit on pre-Columbian gold.

It was a nice walk and gave Liz a chance to get the lay of the land in San Jose, but we were pretty wiped out by the end of it. We headed back to Kellian's apartment and all took naps before dinner. For dinner, Kellian made a delicious vegetable curry.

After dinner, we began what ended up being a very tedious process of figuring out how we were going to get to Arenal. First we looked at flights, but they were all booked up on one airline and on the other airline their website was broken. We tried over and over, but no luck with the second airline, so we ended up ditching the idea of flying.

We found a company called Greyline Fantasy Bus that ran a shuttle from San Jose to Arenal (among other routes). We tried to book it online about 20 times, but it kept not accepting our credit card numbers. Luckily they had a 24-hour sales line that we could call and successfully book the trip. This shuttle service is about $35/person versus $5/person for normal bus service, but it takes almost half the time because it doesn't make local stops. Also it only a small van and picks you up and drops you off where you need to go, so that is convenient.

This whole process ended up taking about 1.5 hours, but once we were finally done we decided that it would be fun to go out and find some salsa dancing. The only place that had anything going on was a place called Pueblo, which is sort of like an outdoor mall with a bunch of shops and bars. It was really dead though. We asked a security guard where we could find the salsa dancing and he went into one of the bars that was completely empty and asked them to play salsa music. The bartender obliged, so we went in and got a few drinks.

Needless to say, it was a bit odd: Liz, Kellian, Kellian's roommate Brianna, and me in an empty bar. Regardless, we danced for a bit, some salsa and some lindy hop. The bartender even danced with Brianna a bit. We got bored of this pretty quickly, though, and ended up heading home after about 45 minutes.

Now I'm home and we're chatting around the kitchen table. Tomorrow we'll head to Arenal.