Visiting Turrialba, Costa Rica with Friendship Force

Our wonderful hosts, William with Marielos

Richard and I love traveling with Friendship Force, an international travel exchange club.  This time I (Joanne) led the trip with 19 people in our club.  After an hour delay waiting for a replacement flight attendant on Spirit Airlines in Ft Lauderdale (the other stewardess became sick!), we took off into the clear blue skies.  After a short 2-1/2 hour flight, we arrived at San Jose, the capital of this gorgeous country.  We had arranged for a private bus transport to take us west to Turrialba, a cute city in the countryside of about 30,000 residents.

Everyone was met by their hosts and taken to their private homes for a wonderful dinner and accommodations for the 6-day stay here.  We are staying with Marielos and William, a delightful couple who are about our age.  William speaks excellent English and translates for us when we talk to Marielos.  They have a home close to town and Marielos is President of the Turrialba Friendship Force Club here - and has been for 5 years.  She is a world traveler with Friendship Force and has been to many clubs in the US (including ours) about 3 years ago.  She is leaving for another Friendship Force trip to New Zealand and Australia just 2 short weeks after we leave.  She is very excited.   Marielos is a retired teacher and loves to cook!   We've been treated to many of her homemade specialties.  Just delicious!   William is her significant other and they've been together for over 20 years.  He is a retired university professor of agriculture.  You guessed it....he loves gardening and his backyard oasis is lovely.  There are all sorts of exotic plants complete with hummingbirds, butterflies, etc.   Their eating area adjoins the garden and we have a lovely view while we delight in Marielos' meals.

We've been here 2 days now and the club had a lovely Welcome Lunch for us complete with dancing and arts and crafts.  Both of us painted some cute little vases - everyone in the club enjoyed the art exercise!   We've visited sugarcane, macademia nut and coffee plantations and a lovely park.  Tomorrow we will see a volcano and a famous cathedral.

Everyone seems to be enjoying themselves!  Check out some pictures....wish you were here!