Costa Rica

Well, where to begin?I guess I will explain why I am here first for those of you who do not know! Last summer I interned with Solimar International and Solimar Travel, Travel and Tourism Consulting in DC. It was founded and developed by Chris Seek who is the brother of fellow Stephanie Seek, who lived with us in 2002 (?). Well, so now I am here at their office in Escazu, Costa Rica for five weeks (until July 14) helping them develop content on hotels, tours and destinations for their Costa Rica website (this is the current site and obviously needs a ton of work and is going to be completely changed, hopefully by the time I leave: www.solimartravel.com). The team down here is about 7, they are all really cool and luckily speak english!

Costa Rica is pretty sweet. It's about the size of West Virginia but amazingly has 12 ecosystems which provides for a gajillion types of species of plants and animals to exist and is ideal for tourist since beaches, mountains and everything is close and offers tons of adventures to partake in. My weekends here are planned and booked so I can go out and gather content, I have three weekends (with the exception of this one) and I will be going to beaches, rain forests, volcanoes and a bunch of other cool places! I am very excited!

A quick overview of the people in the office, since it will be easier to talk about later, a lot of them are related! Andres (he's 30 and friends with Ben from solimar in DC - that is how it all got started) runs the operations down here, his sister Nela (25) works here and is a graphic designer, his uncle Alvaro (45) manages the tourism, and then there are two more in the travel company (Ana Maria and Nora) and then Jacobo (web developer) and Eduardo (driver).

I arrived here on Thursday and spent that day settling in, meeting everyone and getting a general idea for what is going on. Friday I started working. Saturday I went to Colon (I don't know how to type in Spanish on my computer so I wont have any squigglies or lines). Colon is where a bunch of their family lives because they have had a bunch of land for generations. One of Andres' and Nela's cousins was returning from working a year in the US so there was a big party with a bunch of relatives. I went up early with Andres and Alvaro and spent the day with Grandma Margarita, walking around the University of Peace's park, driving around and picking lemons. She was awesome, so funny and talked so much about their family history, about bee keeping and the story of the African bee, and also gave me a Spanish lesson. Later I went a hung out with Nela and her mom (who I had been out to dinner with the night before) and then we headed over to the party. Lots of people (because Grandma has five children and most of them have children). The house was amazing and the food was yummy! Costa Ricans are so fun!

These pictures were taken at the party, these were our partners for Pool, Ricardo and I lost to Nela and his sister (but it was very close, down to both teams having to sink the 8-ball)

Today I just hung out, explored the neighborhood and stocked up the kitchen. I walked to the grocery store and bought a ton of cheap cheap cheap tropical fruit (like a pineapple for a dollar, at least 3 mangoes for a dollar.. its great) and veggies (avocados are cheap too!!). But then of course, I pulled a "mom" and forgot salt, which will be necessary for the Tilapia with Pineapple/Papaya spicy salsa which I plan on making tonight (it was supposed to be tuna, but they did not have atun, so i guess this will work). So I returned to the store, but that's ok because it is only like a two minute walk. Also all their meat, fish and cheese (the essentials) are in cases, so the lack of Spanish (at least as of now) will be interesting!

The average weather here is in the mid/high seventies and it is the rainy season so usually midday storms. Iis currently storming right now and has done every day I have been here in the afternoon. But it is always perfect and sunny in the morning (Sorry for the people having hundred degree weather).

Well, this is long enough for now I suppose, maybe next time I can fill some of you in on my first night and the buzzing/flying big beetle incident!

Hasta Luego!