4/3/2009 Boat from Casa Corvado/Osa Peninsula to Palmar, flight to San Jose, Grano de Oro, Gold Museum, National Theater, dinner at Machu Picchu

Breakfast 6:30 am.  Pancakes, juice, coffee.  Filled out evaluation sheet.  Left tips for the staff.  Trudy and Michael will not be leaving today on the boat with us.  Trudy has back problems and doesn't want to have to do that rough, long boat ride from here to Palmar.  We leave around 8:00 am I think.

We always had fresh flowers in our bungalow

Fortunately the boat ride was smooth.  Our guide Cynthia accompanies us to make sure we get on the plane, etc.  I give her a note with our tip inside.  She's been so sweet.  The festival is still going on in Palmar.  Saying goodbye to us but Cynthia is also here to welcome a new group of 3 from Russia who will go with her back to Casa Corcovado.

Palmar

Saying goodbye to Cynthia

Check in for our flight goes fine.  I don't have to pay any extra for our baggage.  Our Sansa #627 flight departs Palmar at 10:30 am.  A great flight and I was able to take lots of pictures.  We arrived in San Jose on time and were met at 11:25 am by our arranged pick up/transfer from the airport to the Grano de Oro hotel.  Arriving at the hotel we're told our room isn't ready yet.  The hotel will hold our baggage while we do some sightseeing.

Baggage tags

Our plane

Taking off

We take a taxi to the Museo Banco Central de Costa Rica/Gold Museum.  Admission $18.00USD for the 2 of us.  I loved the museum and thought it was really cool.  Most of my focus was Level 3 where the Pre-Columbian Gold Museum was located.  In the museum shop I bought 3 charms for 21, 600 colones.  These are 24K gold over bronze.  Unfortunately they had no T shirts large enough-bummer!

Admission tickets

Brochure

On the left-large gold-Bird shaped pendant, Southern Pacific, 700-1550 A.D.
 

I bought 3 charms but kept one for myself-this frog

The Gold Museum was terrific.  Now we walk to Teatro Nacional/National Theater.  We're not attending any event but we do get to see a bit of the place.  Stunning architecture.  We have drinks at the theater cafe.  As we walk we pass other interesting sights.

Ceiling

Theater cafe

Finally we are back at our hotel.  At the hotel gift shop I bought 2 small bags of Cafe Britt chocolate covered coffee beans as gifts for family.  We complete check in and are taken to room #19.  Beautiful.  I took a much needed bubble bath.

Dinner is again at Machu Picchu because we liked the food so much from our visit at the start of our Costa Rica trip.  Richard has fish and Imperial beer.  I have beef and a pisco sour.  Yummy.  Don't know the cost of dinner as I never made note of it in my note book.




Tomorrow is a really big day!  We are going white water rafting.  I purposely made this excursion for the end of our trip just in case something goes wrong.  I am extremely nervous about this as I am not a swimmer nor am I that comfortable with the idea of being in a boat going through rapids.  However, Richard is excited and looking forward to this adventure!