Costa Rica (CR) 1

In the summer of 2006, we received a very welcome email from L. If you remember, he had left on Oct 31, 2005 to take a job in South America. He was leading backpackers from Ecuador to Chile and then back again. Although he got to see many great places, including Macchu Picchu (sic), he informed us that he had enough of this job. Plus he hated the cold. I was surprised to learn that South America was so cold. But a lot of where he was involved mountain travel.

In his email he stated that he was ending his contract early and would be returning to his old job leading tours in Mexico. Since he still had four months left on his contract, he worked out a deal with his company to just trade routes. He informed us that he would be leaving South America and flying directly to Costa Rica where he would be leading a tour. When that finished, he had three weeks off before he had to be in Mexico City to pick up his next group. "How would you like a personal guided tour of Costa Rica?" he asked in his email.

We were ecstatic. Not only would L be coming home sooner than expected, we were going to get to see Costa Rica! It was one of the countries on our wish list to visit. And what better way than with somebody who knows the country really well and all the right places to go.

We responded in the affirmative and started making plans.