Holbrook Travel's very own Bernadette Bernard traveled to beautiful Costa Rica with Road Scholar in 2012.  Here is a day by day account of her travels:

After breakfast we all met in the lobby and were accompanied by the tour leader to the conference room for the orientation/welcome briefing.  At this time every participant received a welcome packet which included a map of Costa Rica, the biographies of each of the lecturers for the program, a day by day itinerary and even a reusable plastic water bottle (good souvenir).  Also, listening devices were distributed to every participant and those devices were of great help, especially in crowded areas such as the museum and the nature walks.  We were then treated to a formal lecture by Dr. Sherman concentrating mainly on Costa Rica and its cultural, political, economic and environmental variables, both locally and globally.

[caption id="attachment_4948" align="aligncenter" width="550"] Photo by: Bernadette Bernard[/caption]

Later we took a 5-minute walk over to the Gold Museum accompanied by our naturalist/tour leader Mario.  There we were welcomed by the second lecturer Natalia, who also delivered quite an interesting lecture and tour of the museum.  Through the different displays, we learned about the various indigenous cultures, their origins and even religious beliefs and relationships.

We then drove to lunch around 12:30 p.m. to a restaurant called “Dona Lela,” which is about 10 minutes from the GoldMuseum.   After lunch we departed around 1:15 p.m. for Selva Verde - arrived around 3:00 p.m where we were welcomed with warm greetings from the staff in this big conference room.  We were immediately given our room keys and colored bracelets, which helped identify the guests who were on full board basis at the lodge and was also a big help to some of the non-English speaking staff.  After our welcome, we proceeded to the bar/restaurant area to enjoy a welcome drink and also a small briefing by Mario, our tour leader, regarding the rest of the day’s activities. Then each traveler went  to his/her room for a well deserved rest/free time.

After a much deserved rest, we enjoyed a social gathering that included pizza and juice (alcoholic beverages were for sale as well).  This was followed by an evening lecture by Willy, which concentrated on biological diversity, bio-corridors, and exploring the connections between nature, conservation efforts and ecotourism activities in that area.  I found the lecture quite interesting and participants had many questions as well.  The group was then treated to a delicious buffet dinner.

Road Scholar program #8577

Part 3

Part 1