First, I want to say thanks for the people who have contributed to this board. The amount of information here is pretty amazing. I'm not new to mongering - I lived in Malaysia and Thailand for about 4 years, and still get back to Thailand every couple of years. I actually found this site after a Thailand trip last month in which I thought to myself "That flight and jetlag is really brutal - there's gotta be somewhere in this hemisphere". From what I've read, I think I'd probably enjoy the scene in Medellin, but my Spanish is terrible, so I figured Costa Rica might be a better first trip south.
I'm starting to plan a trip for Dec 2-7, and should be booking room/airline next week if I can confirm the work time off. If you'd asked me a few weeks ago, I'd have told you I spoke no spanish, but I've been working pretty diligently on the duolingo site and languagetransfer audios. I used to speak French pretty fluently, so the vocabulary isn't overwhelming, and a lot of the words have French similarities even if they don't have English cognates. Given another six weeks of work before my trip, I'm expecting to be able to have basic conversations with people. I may get a tutor in the second half of November just so that I have someone to practice speaking with.
I've read the newbie stickies, paid for VIP, and read a couple years worth of trip reports. However, I'm sure I'm still going to have lots of questions as the trip gets closer.
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something for everybody...