Continuing on the trip to Central America…
First of all an apology - there aren't going to be any personal photos. A few weeks before travelling, my mobile phone was stolen, so I was using an ancient one, which has only a very poor camera. So any photos I include will be from the internet.
My flight out of Sao Paulo
was scheduled to leave at 6.20am, so I arrived to check in at around 4.00am to
discover that the flight was delayed until 9.45am. (I could have slept more!).
They switched me instead to a different route, going through Bogota, Columbia.
When I eventually arrived in San José, Costa Rica, I was met at the airport and
taken for Pizza. As we drove from the airport, I had the impression that the
city was more Americanised - or I should say North-Americanised than Brazil. I
saw more shops and restaurants with names in English, and many that you would
find in the USA - like Dennys, Taco Bell, Popeyes (which I've never seen in
Brazil), plus of course the obligatory McDonalds, Burger King, KFC, Dominoes.
Right in the centre of town, it looked a little more colonial - with the
squares, churches, and municipal buildings. On a later trip to the suburbs, it
felt much more Latin-American - and might easily have been in Brazil.
It made me think about the "globalness" (if that's a word) of the world today. Costa Rica was a completely new country for me, but there was a lot that seemed familiar.
I spent three days in San José, most of it working hard inside the OM offices. I was made to feel very welcome by the international team, and it was great to meet more people from more countries. The next part of my stay was a trip to Panama by Bongo. More about that next time …
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