Sunday, Sep 16. I didn’t mention that my Uber ride last night was in a Chinese EV. Very nice ride.

Took an Uber to the National Museum of Costa Rica. In my younger days (i.e., two years ago), I would have walked. The ride was interesting in that the driver took a very circular route down residential areas, avoiding the main road.

My main reason for the visit was to see their butterfly center, which is probably a marketing tool to draw visitors. I spent lots of time trying to get photos. I took over 900 photos, then pretty quickly deleted 95% of them. I didn’t spend much time in the museum. The odd reality is that Costa Rica has a fairly unexciting history. One of their main events was a “banana rebellion”. How exciting can it be?

Had an excellent Italian lunch nearby. Began to walk back, but kept getting distracted by things to see. Lots of fast food outlets, but an unusual absence of mini marts. Outstanding pastry shops. Huge number of statues. Eventually, after an hour of not getting any closer to the hotel, I got another Uber.

Met most of my new companions. Nine women, five men. They all like to talk. Hmm. Had an excellent dinner of cut-with-a-fork beef, beans and rice. Very reasonable price.

(Let’s Try a Blog Again. My trips last year were not the best for story telling. Injured in Tunisia, cold in Eastern Europe, and HOT in Guatemala.)

Saturday, Feb 15. Rental car to LAX became a fully tricked-out f-150 extended cab. I was offered free gas to ferry it to LAX, but the bill included a fuel bill. Got to contact them. Driving to LAX in a truck had me riding three feet higher than usual. Several times the view confused me (“Am I still on the 405?).

A very smooth travel day. The layover didn’t require me to change planes. Nice airline (Avianca), but it seems they don’t give drinks or snacks for free at all. Fine by me.

At the San Jose Airport, everyone yelling “Taxi” gave me free advice, saying Uber can’t service the airport. No great surprise that they’d say that. But the app said differently. I finally got help finding the pickup point by saying my daughter worked for Uber and would be unhappy if I didn’t use it.

Arrived at the hotel at 11:30. Asked for food and was directed to the casino just next door. A real casino, though small. Little snack bar. Required my passport to use my credit card. Quite a process. Spaghetti and a coke cost about $7.50.

I’ve been spending a lot of time reintroducing myself to my camera. We’ll see if it pays off.