Day 1 - Thursday 13th February

This was the first official day on the tour. We had a mostly free day to spend in San Jose before a group meeting later in the evening and dinner with the group.

I managed to meet a few more people at breakfast, and decided to make plans to go on a walking tour of San Jose, somewhat last minute. This turned out to be a good decision, as it gave me a chance to have an explore of the city and find out a bit more about the culture.

The tour was a food tour as well, so we had the chance to sample local cuisine - including local fruits. There was a wide spread of different fruits, including many that I hadn't sampled before (a couple very sour!), and another sweet fruit very like a pomegranate. We also had the chance to try some local chocolate and an ice cream which had had the same recipe for around a century (it tasted like cake batter - very nice).

The tour took us through a number of different markets, which themselves were very historical. There are limited historical buildings in San Jose, but one we did get to visit was the Teatro National, which had some wonderful artwork, and was stunning.

We finished the tour with a traditional lunch of local flavours and had a chance to make empanadas. We also had some information about coffee making (and sampled coffee...I tried it, but could't drink much beyond a sip...I tried!).

The evening was spent with an introduction about the tour and then a visit to a local restaurant where we had a chance to get to know each other, before learning about a painfully early morning the next day...