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Day 1 - Pura Vida in Costa Rica

· Costa Rica 2026

We left BCA on a bus to Newark Airport at 4:30 AM and made our way to the airplane around 6:30 AM. After 5 hours in the air, we finally landed in the capital, San Jose.

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Our first stop was to get lunch at Antojitos Buffet and enjoy some traditional Costa Rican dishes. Everyone truly enjoyed the mixed meal of beans, rice, plantain, salad, zucchini, corn, and especially the Bolitas de Coco, a bite-sized sweet treat made of coconut and condensed milk.

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Then we had another long 3 hours on the road to CIEE’s campus in Monteverde. The trip was spent singing Disney songs in unison, playing wavelength, a ton of sleeping, taking photos of the changing landscape, exchanging stories, and screaming in excitement whenever we caught a view of cows or a rainbow.

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When we arrived on the campus, we were split into dorms of either 3 or 2 people and met with beautiful views just outside our windows. Later on, we enjoyed dinner of chicken, pasta, and passion fruit cheesecake. It began raining as we headed back to our dorms, and in the mix of mud and pitch dark, we somehow made it home.

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