I began this trip with the assumption that I was some kind of Costa Rican expert simply because I have traveled there before. Honestly, I could not have been farther from the truth. Although Costa Rica is a small country with approximately 5 million people, it is incredibly vibrant and diverse across the provinces. During my first trip, I was in a completely different part of the country, the Puntarenas province, and it was amazing and beautiful but completely different from Heredia.

Prior to coming on this trip, I expected extremely friendly Ticos, unbelievably amazing food, and to have some difficultly since I can speak barely any Spanish. Of course these expectations were based off my first trip, and these were the only ones close to being true. Heredia and Puntarenas (and, most likely, the rest of the country) are very similar in how incredibly friendly the Ticos are and how unbelievably mouthwatering the food is. Today, like before, I had to interact with people who spoke absolutely no English and, it was pretty rough at times, but I survived.

One expectation that was vastly different from reality is the type of businesses I saw during our walking tour of Heredia today. The region that I was in during my previous visit was 99.9999% small local businesses for everything you might need. In Heredia, there are still many “sodas”, or family owned restaurants; but the number of chain restaurants, such as McDonalds and Chile’s, or larger stores, such as Payless and Walmart are astounding. Yes, everyone normally uses chains like these to buy common things at, but it was the quantity of the stores that surprised me. The quantity of McDonalds, Burger Kings, and other restaurants that I saw was, at the very least, comparable to my home town of Harrisburg, PA.

All in all, the small piece of Heredia that we got to see today has been exciting, interesting, and a little disorienting, but I cannot wait to see more! Plus, learning about which of my expectations continue to be so far off each and every day as we continue to experience and learn new details about Costa Rica will surely make this trip even more exciting!