Request a QuotePlanning a trip to a foreign country where the native language is not your first tongue can be particularly daunting! At least, that is what I thought when I booked my flight. A little bit of background on me and why I decided to go to Costa Rica finally – I am the General Manager of Chicago’s only CostaRican restaurant, and the benefit of immersing myself in the beautiful culture is invaluable. It was one of those situations where I could promote the restaurant, the food, the culture, and the people to a certain point. Still, I fell short of speaking from firsthand experience outside the restaurant. With this in mind, my boss (a Tico who visits his family’s homeland often) and I decided it was high time to go to Costa Rica – for one month, nonetheless!
Most visitors to the tropical paradise that is Costa Rica do not go for the same reason that I went. They go for a maximum of a week and solely for adventure. While this is a perfectly acceptable way to travel (we’ve all been there!), my needs were slightly different. I needed to immerse myself. And this is where a longtime business partner/friend of my restaurant comes into the picture… For as long as I can remember, Mr. Jose Rojas has been our customer and has had a very cordial relationship with the owner and the staff for years. So he was the perfect liaison for me to fill my days with immersion, adventure, culture, and everything in between!
I moved to Costa Rica for a month. Jose found a quaint space for me in the village at the foot of the Arenal volcano. I would live in my studio apartment that adjoined the house where a family of five lived. Every morning, the richest Costa Rican coffee was brewed while the calls of tropical birds filled the air. The foot-long pineapple and even larger papaya (not available stateside) would be my morning tradition – I was now in my tropical dream! I would converse with the family while the smell of Gallo Pinto and Pan con Natilla would fill the air, all before 6 am. But, being from a restaurant background, I needed to fill my days with employment! So, Jose found me a position at a local hotel’s restaurant where I could learn the ways of the local cuisine and serve as a de-facto go-to guy for any Anglophones that were passing through.
Weekends were filled with local adventures, road trips, and all things cultural, and all were made possible because Jose made sure that all the dots could be connected. What initially was a daunting task of immersing myself in an entirely new culture, the hospitality of the Costa Rican people and the helpfulness of Jose carried me through to the point where returning home became daunting – I was fully immersed and didn’t want to return! In other words, if you need the experience of a lifetime, whether as an individual (like myself) or as a group (Jose’s specialty), then Natural Expeditions is THE company to go through to ensure a lifetime of memories in such a short time.
