Saturday was a day of delivering shoes 2,600 miles, making new friends and relocating to another hotel while smack-dab in the center of Costa Rica's annual Festival de la Luze.

In our luggage was two pair of Sketcher shoes we were delivering to a Costa Rica resident named Louisa, who is a friend of a man named John from Chicago.  I met John via the Yahoo online discussion group Costa Rica Living when he inquired if anybody was going from Chicago to Costa Rica for the holidays.  John was seeking a person to deliver a holiday package (Sketcher shoes).  The recipient of this package, Louisa and her husband Mike said they would come to our hotel to pick-up the shoes.  However, this turned out to be the worst day of the year to move around the center of San José due to 25% of the country's entire population cramming themselves into the downtown area for Festival de la Luze (Festival of Lights).

Ticos begin to fill the Boulevard de la Avenida Central in downtown San José for the annual Festival de la Luz

It took Louisa and Mike quite a while to make their way downtown, but in the end the shoes were delivered and new friends were possibly made.  Aren't the holiday's great!

After meeting with Louisa and Mike we had the task of moving from the Hotel Plaza due to their inability to accommodate our supposed reservation.  The staff at the Hotel Plaza was at least nice enough to place us in another nearby hotel; the Hotel Europa (which turned out to be a much nicer hotel at only a slight increase in cost). 

With what I thought was the hard part completed, we set out to find a taxi for the short ride over to our new hotel.  Due to the festival, we had to drag our luggage several city blocks and stand on a busy city corner for most of an hour before a taxi agreed to take us and our luggage through the crowds.>>

Junior and I didn't enjoy the wait and we were admittedly less than entertained – until a homeless man decided to walk in and out of traffic wearing his pants around his ankles.  Oh sure, he'd pull them up … but those darned pants just kept falling back down to his ankles; again and again and again.  Perhaps the Earth's gravity is stronger near the equator?!  Nevertheless the cause, many people didn't seem to appreciate the show – except for perhaps two easily amused family members from Chicago ;o)

Gravity must be problematic this close to the equator - tourists should remember to pack their belts ;o)

Eventually all the homeless people on the corner found direction; the man with pant issues was assisted by the Fuerza Pública police and we were assisted by a taxi driver. 

Tomorrow Mike and Louisa offered to take us up into the mountains to Coronado instead of us having to pay around $80.00 in taxi costs.  Our adventures continue…

A view of the mountains from downtown San José, Costa Rica -or- the "Central Valley"