And early it was when my alarm went off at 4:20. I'd slept in my clothes with a blanket and was still cold all night, getting hardly any sleep. I jumped up, grabbed my already packed beach shit, downed a cup of coffee and ran out the door to the bus we were taking to the coast.

ALIARSE has a contract with a local transportation company that has various sizes of vehicles. Anytime we do anything with the school, we can count on Dona Marlena's people being on time in a newer well-kept vehicle that has more room than we need. Saturday was no exception. We all spaced out with a full seat each and thought about sleeping.

But there were people we hadn't met yet and global political situations to dissect... So we talked the entire way. Poor New Guy Kevin from Belfast... it was laid on him to predict Brexit and explain The Troubles, all before 6am.

The roads leaving San Jose to the west and north are multi-laned and well kept, with periodic toll stations. This points to the influx of Europeans and North Americans retiring here and demanding good roads. The ride was fast and smooth.

I'd never yet been to the Pacific side, and it was definitely different from the ever encroaching jungle of Limon Province. There was room on the sides of the road not threatening to revert to banana plantation, actual lawns of grass around the little houses. The closer we got to the coast we would see little strip shopping centers that could have been picked up from any town in Florida and set down on the side of the road in CR.

And then we turned into a fancy schmancy gated community with immaculately manicured lawns and gleaming white high rises angled toward the water. After the first security gate we drove along a winding road, catching glimpses of other security gates into even more exclusive sections. It seriously was as if we'd been transported to Mar-a-Lago or Sea Pines or some other exclusive enclave, and while beautiful, after spending so much time in a barely contained jungle, it was waaaaay too homogenized for me.

A security guard on a motorbike came up and shepherded our bus to the marina where our catamaran was waiting for us.