This picture above is of Mercado Central

We successfully made our way into San Jose and bought our bus tickets to Nicaragua for Friday. This task went well considering we forgot our map and our guide book. San Jose is a big city, but there are many nice parks. You can see the huge, beautiful mountains surrounding the city when you look down the streets. We explored the Mercado Central (Central Market) and that was so neat. There were touristy gift shops, places to eat, flowers, meats of all kinds (testicles, cow tounge, and every part of a chicken), herbs, hammocks, and even pets! We returned to Alajuela just in time for the afternoon rainstorm...good thing we remembered our rain coats! We took shelter in a Soda, a small neighborhood restaurant, where we had the first of many rice and beans meals, and it was very good.

This picture is of the variety of meats at Mercado Central. The middle pan on the bottom is cow tounge!

This picture above is in Alajuela. You can see the storm rolling in, the soccer game and a church. This is just two blocks from our hotel.

Tonight we will go out to dinner and get to bed early because in the moring we are going North to Poas Volcano National Park where we will drive to the top of the volcano and look inside it. There is also a very nice waterfall we will hike to.
Hasta Luego,
D & J

Hi All!
We safely made it to Costa Rica after a 20 hour travel day! We were unable to use the internet until this moring, and we apologoze for the anxious waiting, especially to our Moms! (Aunt Tracy, we started our post card collection for you :) )
We are now in Alajuela, Costa Rica which is just outside of San Jose. We are excited to see the city since it was dark when we arrived. We are haivng breakfast at our hotel now and then we are going into San Jose to buy bus tickets to Nicaragua.
We are 2 hours behind your time, so it is 8 am here and 10 am at home.
Love and miss you all!!
D&J

We had a great day in the big city! We had coffee and bagels with Aunt Cathy and went to the dog park with her and her dog. We witnessed beagles who were not leashed or had shock collars on...this amazed us! We were also amazed by the Modern Art Museum and Museum of Natural History. (Livs and Jake I wish you were there I felt I should be teaching! I have a few lessons planned for you! I know you can't wait!) We also went to The Top of the Rock (Rockefeller Tower) and saw all of NYC. We had a fantastic dinner with Cathy and Ron and now we are packing for our early departure to Costa Rica!!

We had an exciting Sunday! Aunt Cathy and Uncle Ron picked us up from the bus and dropped us off at the Gay Pride Parade where we met up with cousin Theo and had lunch. We walked passed the 9-11 site, saw a weird recorder concert, saw the Statue of Liberty from a far, and eventually found our way back to Cathy and Ron's in Brooklyn. We had some drinks and scrumptious chili with the fam and some friends on the back patio and are now ready for bed!
Thanks for a great day Cathy, Ron, Theo, and friends!

We are on our way! On the bus to NYC.

We enjoyed our weekend at Camp with a few of our close friends, and we are spending quality time with our family all this week. We will miss everyone!
We took our first dose of malaria medication today and we are getting super excited as we begin to pack our bags!!!

We are traveling to Costa Rica and Nicaragua for 6 weeks to volunteer!
Our travels will begin Sunday June 27th. We are taking a bus to NYC to visit Dan's Aunt Kathy and Uncle Ron in Brooklyn. Our flight to San Jose, Costa Rica leaves Tuesday June 29th. We are staying in Alajuela, Costa Rica for 2 days before we catch a bus up to Granada, Nicaragua. We stay in Granada for 3 days before leaving for Laguna de Apoyo, Nicaragua where we will be taking Spanish lessons and enjoying the natural beauty of the Nature Reserve that houses a volcanic crater lake. Jessica will be observing in elementary school classrooms here as well. We will be here for 7 days.
The following week we have free and will be visiting other cities such as Leon, Managua, and Isla de Ometepe. Isla de Ometepe is an island formed by 2 volcanos rising out of Lake Nicaragua, the largest lake in Central America.
For the next 3 weeks we will be in remote Juquillo, Nicaragua on the Pacific coast. We will be volunteering within this small community at an After School Program and teaching kids how to swim. We are living in a cabana on the beach where we hope to learn how to surf. Many volcanic hot springs and other interesting sites are all within a half days hike.
We will then make our way back to Costa Rica and fly back to NYC, where we will be greeted by some good friends, luxurious accommodations, and a concert in Central Park with Gov't Mule! Finally we will come home to Tully on Thursday August 12th, to be with our missed beagle Samson :)

Welcome to our travel blog! We are excited to share our adventures with you as we travel to Central America to do good!!