Costa Rica day 1

No time to waste . . . thankfully before we left Texas I changed our first day tour from 8am to 10am which with all the delays yesterday was a great plan!  We were up and ready to go by 9am; so we headed downstairs for our complimentary breakfast.  It was your typical Hampton Inn items but they had a few local dishes too.  I decided to jump right in and had rice, beans, and empanadas.  It was pretty good but a little heavy for breakfast.  Hopefully, I don't pay for this later in the day!  Today is Sunday so we decided to have a half day tour around San Jose . . . drive around and see the town hopefully visiting a museum and back to our new hotel to relax by the pool!  Our tour guide arrives 30 minutes late . . . no big deal as I am actually sort of laid back and relaxed but starting to worry that our plans got crossed since I changed our hotel reservations this week.  Lloyd, our tour guide, arrives and gets us all settled and luggage loaded to drop at the new hotel.  It was a fantastic plan.  We drove around about an hour getting a history lesson of the city and Costa Rica and seeing how the locals live too . . . Colin is thrilled I tell you!  Our first stop was the Museo Nacional de Costa Rica (Costa Rica National Museum) which was in the old army headquarters.  The Army was abolished in 1948.  I thought this was interesting for some reason; I never thought about countries not having a military.  The building looks like an old castle . . .

. . . our fees were paid and the first stop was the indoor garden with tons of beautiful butterflies.  Colin could barely contain himself . . .

I loved looking at all the flowers and plants . . . I think this is a Dutchman's Pipe Vine (but I didn't write that down in my notes) . . .

Lloyd was very good keeping the tour informative, patient with Colin, and keeping us interested . . .

. . . and I swear he could identify every bird he heard before he actually saw it!  This man knows his stuff and was so nice too!  I know Colin was ready to move along and do something fun or eat.  I swear he asks all the time like I don't ever feed him!  We drive around the town some more and make a final stop for ice cream . . . POPS . . . yummy . . . Colin had vanilla and chocolate while I had pistachio.  It was yummy on this hot day.  We were both eager to get back to the hotel and change so we could head to the pool to relax and hang out.

We are staying at the Costa Rica Marriott San Jose.  It is beautiful as the hotel is on a coffee plantation.  Just beautiful gardens everywhere you look.  It took Colin about 10 minutes to find some boys his age to play with . . . kids sure do adapt fast and it always amazes me!  As the sun was setting, we headed back to the room to get ready for bed.  Our tour tomorrow starts at 7:30am . . . Lloyd better be on time!