Table of Contents

Day 1 (July 25): Japan to Costa Rica<
Day 2 (July 26): Arriving in Costa Rica and Sightseeing in San Jose
Day 3 (July 27): Visiting Britt Coffee and the Opening of the Conference

Day 4 (July 28): City Tour
Day 5 (July 29): Hard Working Day

Day 6 (July 30): The Rain Forest
Day 7 (July 31): Pueblo Antigua
Day 8 (August 1): Tortuguero National Park

Day 9 (August 2): Tortuguero National Park
Day 10 (August 3): Tortuguero National Park

Day 11 (August 4): Non Highlight of Costa Rica
Day 12 (August 5): The Irazu Volcano, Cartago, and the Orosi Valley
Day 13 (August 6): the Areanel Volcano

Day 14 (August 7): Whitewater Rafting
Day 15 (August 9): Last Day in Costa Rica, An Exciting Experience
Day 16 (August 9): From Costa Rica to the United States

Day 17(August 10): New Jersey
August 11-19: The FLEAT III Conference

Introduction

This is Kathi and Kenji's travel journal for their trip to Costa Rica in summer, 1997

Map of Costa Rica

Day 1 (July 25): Japan to Costa Rica

Kenji

Long Way to Costa Rica

We left home around noon for Kansai International Airport. There was a long line at the counter. We just had to pick up our boarding passes, so we did not need to wait for a long time.

We went through immigration and waited for our flight in the waiting lounge for gold card holders. Our flight was completely full, and there was no chance for upgrading, even though we have so much mileage on the mileage plus program.

The meals on the flight were not good, just as we had expected. The airlines are really cutting extra expenses. We were able to sleep well on the flight.

When we got off the flight, we ran into a friend of ours who was also on the way to the World Communication Association (WCA) Conference. We could go through the American citizen line fairly quickly for the immigration procedure, but our poor friend, who is British, had to spend more than an hour to get through.

We decided to stay at the airport for almost 11 hours for our flight to Costa Rica. One mistake I made was that I forgot how cold the air conditioning in airport terminals can be, and I got cold, staying there so long. I should have brought a light sweater or a jacket with me.

We decided to have dinner at around 4 o'clock. As a matter of fact, we were not sure whether it was dinner, lunch or breakfast. We were not sure whether we were hungry or not, either. Jet lag is like that.

We went to a restaurant in the tower that is a kind of symbol of the Los Angeles International Airport. They still had a lunch menu at 4:30. We had a soup and sandwich. When they served the meal, we could tell that we were in the United States. They used a tall glass with a lot of ice. The sandwich was huge, with a lot of French fries. We managed to finish them somehow.

Something was wrong, and we had to wait for the check for a long time. Finally, a woman told us that our bill was lost, and our meals were on the house. Kathi was so thrilled that she forgot her luggage in the restaurant and had to go back and get it.

The Los Angeles Airport is a non-smoking airport now. Our flights were non-smoking, too. Smokers today really have difficulty finding places to smoke, it seems. The security at the airport was strict. When I went through security, the officer asked me to open up my laptop computer and start it.

On the flight to Costa Rica, we ran into another friend, a Canadian, who was also on her way to the WCA Conference. I could sleep well on the flight. As a matter of fact, I almost missed dinner. I am lucky that I have Kathi to take care of me.

We stopped over in Guatemala City, though we were not allowed to get off the plane. From Guatemala City to San Jose, Costa Rica was about a one hour flight. However, if you take a bus, it takes almost three days, though it costs only 25 dollars.

Kathi

Our day and a half of travel was long and tiring, but from some of the stories we heard later, we were probably lucky. At least our flights were more or less on time, and we know what to expect of our long wait at the LA airport. One of our friends at the conference, for example, had the first leg of his trip--from Morgantown, West Virginia to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania--canceled, and he didn't learn that until he arrived at the airport. He had to drive like mad to get to the Pittsburgh airport to catch the next flight. At another airport on his trip, the airplane pulled away from the gate and then sat on the runway for two hours.

Day 2 (July 26): Arriving in Costa Rica and Sightseeing in San Jose

Kenji

From what I could see from the airplane window, Costa Rica is a very green country. This time of year is not called summer here. It is called the green season, that is, the rainy season. Costa Rica has basically two seasons, a dry season from November to April ("summer"), and the rest, a rainy season (winter).

We arrived in San Jose at 7:15, only 15 minutes late, which is very unusual in Latin American countries, in our experience. We went through immigration and customs very fast.

The money exchange was closed, so we could not exchange money. However, taxi drivers are willing to take American money. We found later that their exchange rate is fairly reasonable. Taxi drivers are required to use a meter for short distances, but for 12 kilometers or longer, they can negotiate the fee.

After breakfast, we went to town with our Canadian friend. Our hotel was very far from the town, so we had to negotiate the fee for a taxi. We went to see a national monument in the National Park, we saw the outside of the national legislative assembly, we went to Espanya Park, we went to Morazon Park, and we saw the Gold Museum at the Culture Plaza. We also went to La Casona, where there are many craft shops.

The tourist area of San Jose is rather small. Almost everything tourists would want to see is located in a square two kilometers by two kilometers, and you can walk around to see most of it in a day. One area to avoid is the area called Coca Cola, which is very dangerous. You can be robbed there even in daylight. Costa Rica is, in general, very safe compared with other Latin American countries, but it can still be dangerous in the evening.

We have seen some parks, exteriors of famous buildings, and the Gold Museum. During the colonial period, Costa Rica was not very important to Spain, because it had relatively little gold and few natives. However, it did have some gold, and the collections in that museum were impressive and interesting.

We went to a bazaar where there were many souvenir shops. We visited at least ten shops, though we did not buy anything.

We were very tired, and we went back to the hotel early in the afternoon to take a nap. We went to eat a light supper, and met many WCA people in the evening at the hotel, and we had a wonderful time talking with them.

One thing we found out today was that credit cards like Visa and MasterCard are widely accepted almost everywhere, even for small amounts in places like fast food restaurants and ice-cream parlors. They accept American money willingly. We have to negotiate taxi fares. People are very friendly and very nice. Many of them do not speak much English, but they understand it to some extent. San Jose was a rather run down city, and it looked like a dusty old city. There are many stores and restaurants where we could get food and drinks. Sanitation seemed reasonable.

Kathi

San Jose was founded in 1737, but there is very little left from the colonial period. Its most famous building is the National Theater, which was not built until 1897.

I have heard that ticos--the people of Costa Rica--are friendly, and if the taxi driver is an example, they certainly are. He didn't speak much English, but he was doing his best to point out places of interest.

Walker Statue in the National Park

We walked to the three parks mentioned above, though I would really describe them as squares more than parks, because most of them are paved over. The first one, the National Park, has the National Monument. It is on a high pedestal, and it depicts the Central American nations driving William Walker out of Central America. (Walker was an American who in the 1850s tried to set himself up as a ruler of a Central American country.) The statue, on a high pedestal, shows several people symbolizing the countries attacking a man on the ground, representing Walker.

The second park we saw was Espanya Park, which had a fountain and tall trees. There are supposed to be a lot of birds singing in the trees at sunset, but, with the paved ground, it seemed to me to be a rather urban setting. There was what looked like a gatehouse on one corner, depicting some colonial-style buildings painted on tile.

Temple of Music

The third park was a rather large one with the "Temple of Music" in the center. (When I read the description of this park, it said that the Temple of Music was in the center of a four square block area, so I thought it might be difficult to find among the trees, but surprise--there were no trees.) It had a domed top and columns on the sides. It looked like there might be musical performances there sometimes.

We walked on to the Gold Museum. On the first floor, it had some displays about the natural history of the area, and then on the lower floor, there were many examples of pre-Columbian gold. (Pre-Columbian means before the coming of Columbus, which was in 1492.) The original people of Costa Rica used gold to make decorations to wear and also for religious rituals. Some pieces of the gold were just heated, pounded into flat pieces, and decorated. However, some pieces were very complex. They were made using molds of clay and wax.

La Casona was an intriguing place. There were all kinds of local crafts. Wood carving is a common craft. One type that interested me was a kind of puzzle box. They were mostly shaped like animals, such as dolphins and parrots. You had to figure out how to take the puzzle apart in order to get into the box. Most of them were made of beautiful red wood.

By this time--it was about two o'clock--we were all exhausted, and we went back to the hotel. Kenji and I slept for more then five hours. After dinner, we sat in the lounge with several friends from previous WCA conferences. (One nice thing about this conference is that it is pretty small, so we get to know the people who come. The same people come back year after year, so we get to see them again.) One couple that we talked to we have seen at all three of the previous conferences that we have attended. At the second one, we discovered that we have the same wedding anniversary, and it falls during the time we are together at WCA every other year, so we have started a tradition of celebrating our anniversaries together.

Day 3 (July 27): Visiting Britt Coffee and the Opening of the Conference

Kenji

We woke up very early in the morning and went to eat breakfast at around 6:30.

We gathered information on tours, and tried to figure out what to do after the conference.

We registered for the conference and greeted many of our old friends. There are about 110 people from overseas, and we know probably half of them.

We ate lunch with a couple from Indiana. Six years ago, when the WCA conference was held in Finland, we were on the same ship as they were from Helsinki to Stockholm. We also had dinner with them in Sydney, Australia three years ago when we were there for the International Communication Association conference.

In the afternoon, we went to visit Britt Coffee. Coffee is one of the major industries in Costa Rica, second only to tourism. They export good quality coffee to the United States and Japan. They explained how to make coffee, the background of coffee including its history, etc. That was very interesting. At the end of the tour, they were selling coffee, and many of us bought bags of coffee as souvenirs.

Opening of Conference

The opening session was from 5:30 to 6:30. The president, a couple of vice-presidents and the chancellor of the University of Peace founded by the United Nations made speeches. They were not just greetings, but more substantial ones and worth hearing.

In the evening, we had a reception and had chance to meet new participants as well as find many old friends.

Kathi

Coffee Cherries

The tour of the Britt Coffee plantation was enlightening. We usually drink coffee in the morning and never think about where it comes from. Coffee cherries, as they are called, grow on bushes which vary in size because they are cut back every seven or eight years. It is important to pick the coffee cherries when they are ripe but not overripe. Underripe cherries are green, ripe cherries are red, and overripe ones are black. They are picked by hand by people with a basket held around their waists by a rope. A good coffee picker can pick fifteen or sixteen baskets a day; the record is 34 baskets in six hours.

Coffee Pickers

After the coffee is picked, the extra material is taken off from around the coffee. A yellow parchment is left on the bean if it is going to be planted. If not, that is removed, and only the coffee bean itself is left. The coffee bean is carefully roasted--there is light roast, dark roast and espresso, with light roast having the least caffeine and espresso the most. It is very important not to roast the beans too long, because even an extra few minutes can make a difference, so the coffee beans are cooled immediately.

Sacks of Coffee Beans

Coffee Taster

Every batch is checked for quality. It is graded as top medium, or low quality. Only the top two are used for export. One of the tasters spoke to us and explained how he does it, smelling the coffee and then slurping it from a spoon so that the coffee mist goes up into the nasal cavity. He says that he tests about 150 batches of coffee a day.

Day 4 (July 28): City Tour

Kathi

Today was our official city tour of San Jose. We started out by driving through some of the better neighborhoods. The houses looked like fairly middle class American houses to me, in size and quality, but they were row houses, with no space in between the houses. Also, there were bars on the windows and around the patios. Some of the houses almost look like fortresses. According to the guide, that started out more a cultural tradition than for the purpose of security, but today, it serves a security purpose, too.

National Theater

We stopped at the National Theater, which was built in 1897. The story is that in 1890, a famous singer came to Guatemala City but would not come to San Jose because it did not have an appropriate venue. The leaders of the community were unhappy about that and organized themselves to raise money for a national theater. It was completed in 1897, so this is its centennial. They are having a lot of performances to celebrate the centennial, so I got a schedule. It would be nice to attend a performance.

Round Rock at National Museum

We also stopped at the National Museum. It is in an old fort, which was closed when Costa Rica did away with its military. We saw many examples of pottery, gold, carvings of wood and rock from the indigenous people. A common motif in ceramics and in carving was to have three legs supporting the piece. These represented the people, the shamans, and the gods.

In the courtyard, there was a large, perfectly round rock. Many of these rocks of different sizes--the largest more than six feet in diameter, the smallest only a few inches across--have been found in Costa Rica. It is not known what they were used for. Some people think it was in religious or funeral rituals. (It seems like when archaeologists don't know what something was for, they assume that it had a religious use.) However, some were found lined up, and another theory is that they were used somehow to measure distances. Some people think they were used somehow to measure the movement of the stars. Who knows.

Next, we went to an area which had a lot of craft stores. I looked around a little and found a puzzle book of a cat that I wanted but the seller would not go down low enough.

In the afternoon, we attended sessions. (You can read about them in the conference report. http://ilc2.doshisha.ac.jp/users/kkitao/teflnews/v1/n3.htm#WCA)

Kenji

Monument at University of Peace

We took a city tour from 8:00 to about 1:00. We saw an upper and upper-middle class residential area. We visited the national theatre, which had gorgeous interior. We saw the exhibits in the national museum, which was interesting. I was fascinated by the perfect, round stones made almost 15,000 years ago. Even today no one knows exactly how or why they were made. This museum was originally a fort, but Costa Rica abolished the military and they had made efforts to build a peaceful country without military power. The government is now spending more than 20% of the national budget for education, and younger people understand English fairly well.

In the evening, we went to a mall to buy a raincoat for Kathi. Then I collapsed because of jet lag.

Day 5 (July 29): Hard Working Day Kenji

We attended sessions all day. During the lunch break, we visited the University of Peace, which is supported by the United Nations. We were told that it would take only 15 minutes by taxi, but it took much longer. We visited the monuments and facilities there. We were surprised to find that Sasagawa came here to donate some money.

For the sessions, please read the report of the conference (http://www1.doshisha.ac.jp/~kkitao/teflnews/v1/n3.htm#WCA).

We had dinner in our hotel, and we went to bed early. We still have a jet lag, and we get very tired early in the evening.

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