Welcome to San Jose!

We got up early this morning and took a taxi into the city of San Jose. It is Costa Rica's largest city and the capitol. Before we left, we had some authentic Costa Rican food for breakfast. The strange looking fruit in the middle with the spoon sticking out of it is passion fruit. You eat the entire inside - seeds and all. They also make juice out of it. Sweet and tasty.

The cab dropped us off in the center square next to a very old catholic church.

Check out the architecture. While we were there, we went inside and watched a baby christening. Pretty neat.

After that, we visited the main historical museum of Costa Rica.

I could have used someone from our foreign language department, as everything including our tour guide's presentation was in Spanish.

Most of the tour was about the history of Costa Rica's independence and it's ousting of an American named William Walker who though he could come and be a king.

Being science people, we were most interested in the medical field kits used by doctors in the mid-1800s, around the U.S. Civil War.

The locals refer to William Walker as the little grey-eyed man. He was eventually executed in Honduras in 1860.

Not sure if we even mention him in our history classes.

Everything about Costa Rica is mountainous. There are over 100 volcanoes and 5 that are currently active. The mountain peaks seem to go up into the clouds.

Most of the area is covered with blooms of ginger, bougainvillea, and even trees like tamarind and of course palms - which Mr. Geppert loves!

Ginger:

Bougainvillea:

Palm Trees are seeding:

We will be departing for Puntarenas this afternoon. I will have an additional post today with some photos of the ride over.