Zip lining!

This weekend we went to Puntarenas to do a Canopy Tour.  We started out riding horses to the top of this giant waterfall and took 25 zip lines down to the bottom.  Horseback riding was quite entertaining.  The horses follow the same trail every day and so they definitely had a mind of their own.  They were very competitive about who was in front of them and would randomly speed up the pace to catch up to the front of the line.  I named my horse Pepita and she was such a diva!  Anytime a horse got near her she would snap at them and put them in their place.  I thought she was hysterical.  We went horseback riding for about an hour until reached the top.  It was time to get suited up for the zip line tour!  

They gave us a harness, gloves and a helmet.  They taught us how to stop, where we should place our hands and how we should have our feet when zip lining through the jungle.  Zip lining is SO FUN!  We went zip lining over a giant water fall and also repelled backwards down a huge cliff.  We reached our halfway point where everyone took a break and swam in the waterfalls. The water felt great because it was pretty hot that day! 

After swimming in the waterfalls we continued on and went down the other 12 zip lines.  One of the zip lines was my absolute favorite because it was so long and it felt like I was gliding through the jungle, it was incredible!  After we completed our zip line tour we went to lunch and watched the US vs. Ghana World Cup game and unfortunately they lost L.  Most of the people on the tour were Americans and so everyone was pretty bummed with the outcome.  I also learned that the last World Cup game that the US lost was also against Ghana so I am pretty sure the players think it’s a curse.

After lunch we headed to the beach for the rest of the weekend.  On Saturday night we went out and met a group of guys from Florida who were in Costa Rica as a reunion to surf together and we went out with them for the night.  Lots of dancing and clubbing, Costa Rica style!  On Sunday our body alarm clocks woke us up at 7:00 am and we went to the beach and caught some rays before heading to the “Taco Bar”.  The “Taco Bar” was soooo good!  It was an outside taco bar that had swings for seats, the best-blended papaya smoothie/drinks and the best mahi fish tacos in town.  After a late lunch we headed back to San Jose to end a great weekend. 

More cultural observations!

A few more Costa Rican cultural observations:
-Brushing teeth- the dentist here probably never have to worry about their patients getting cavities because Costa Ricans brush and floss their teeth at least 7 times a day. It isnt just a simple brush either, people will be in the bathroom brushing their teeth for at least 10 minutes. This obviously is not a bad thing but it amazes me!
-Machas- Machas are fair skinned people with light hair and so, I am a macha. My co-intern and I had the receptionist call a local taxi company for us and said to look for "dos machas" standing on the corner. My program coordinator has been greeted by Costa Ricans as "Whats up macha?" because he is a light-skinned American.
-Tips- It is not required to tip your waiter at a restaurant unless the service is incredible!! So the grand total on the bill is what you owe, unless you are feeling generous :)
-Invasion of space- my co-intern and I went to a restaurant on our lunch break and we were greeted by our very friendly waiter. He took our order and then proceeded to stick around and ask us if we were Scandinavian (yes, it happens all of the time). After taking our order he stood about 2 feet behind my chair and jumped into the conversation as much as he could...I did not know that we invited him to have lunch with us. Even when we ignored him he still was pestering us with questions.
-Tamales- Tamales are so delicious here but I was a little taken back when I saw what they looked like. The difference about our tamales and the tica tamales is that the tica tamales are wrapped in banana leaves versus corn husks. Funny story about John F. Kennedy visiting Costa Rica: JFK went to a local restaurant in one of the beach cities and decided to order a tamale. After he was finished the restaurant asked him what he thought about the tamale and he said that the "lettuce on the outside was really hard". Apparently no one at the table informed him that he had to remove the banana leaves before eating the tamale. So the JFK story is always brought up when someone orders a tamale.
-Fruit: The fruit is so much bigger here and there are many different varieties! For example, there are about three different types of pineapple and two different kinds of mangos. They have "mangos" which are exactly like the mangos that we can find in the US and there are "mangas" which are about the size of a small watermelon. All of the fruit is very fresh and very cheap. Every Saturday is "Market Day" so everyone is out in the streets of San Jose selling fruit, vegetables, or whatever they feel someone might need.
-My address: I finally learned how to read my address from a friendly cab driver! Yes, I know...I have been here for 3 weeks. This is my address: "De la casa Italia 100 m sur, 200 este, 200 sur and 75 este." So from the old Italian restaurant on the corner I live 100 meters south, 200 meters straight, 200 south and another 75 meters straight. Try finding your way home from that, I dare you!
This weekend I am going zip lining over waterfalls and headed to the beach! Cant complain, pura vida =)

A weekend in Jaco!

This past weekend we went to Jaco!  One of the girls in my group knows a local woman who lives in San Jose who offered to take us to the beach but unfortunately she got sick and wound up in the hospital.  We then resorted to plan B and headed to the bus station to catch the next bus to Jaco!  The bus cost 4 dollars each way and was about a two hour trip until we arrived in Jaco.  The bus was really nice, similar to a large charter bus in the US and sat 50 people.  On our receipt there was a number of our assigned seat to the bus…we soon realized that they sell 10 more spots on each bus and the extra 10 people have to stand the entire way!  The bus was a little bumpy and so the extra passengers were holding on and swaying every which way in the aisle.  

At the bus station we met a new friend named Jorge, who was traveling alone from Mexico for the weekend and headed to Jaco as well.  We invited Jorge to join us for the weekend; the more the merrier!  After a two hour trip we arrived and walked from one side of town to the other side, which only took about 20 minutes.  There is one main street full of street vendors, shops, restaurants and hotels.  We finally found our hotel called “Flamboyant” which was right on the beach.  We changed quickly and made our way down to the beach.  The beach was not a white sandy beach but was covered by smaller rocks instead; the weather was perfect!  While laying out on the beach we were approached by a local named Freddy who taught surf lessons on the beach and he told us about the local surf competition that was happening that afternoon at a beach about 5 minutes away called, Playa Hermosa. 

Why not check out a local surf competition?  We grabbed our stuff and shared a cab with Freddy to Playa Hermosa to spend the afternoon with the locals.  The surf competition took place in front of the restaurant and bar which was called “The Backyard Bar”.  We found a table right on the beach, ordered dinner and watched the surf competition.  The waves were huge!!   We got to meet the #1 pro surfer in all of Costa Rica and meet the other participants as well.  We watched the sun set and then it started to rain, not just rain….it was the closest thing to a hurricane that I have ever seen!  Everyone headed up to the Backyard Bar indoor patio and bar where we watched the awards ceremony for the surf competition and had a few drinks. 

Most of the people at the bar were from the United States or other countries which was kind of fun because we were able to talk to people from other countries and find out why they ended up in Costa Rica.   The next morning we woke up and had breakfast at this local breakfast place and watched the World Cup.  We spent the day laying on the beach and by the pool.  Later that afternoon we we did a little shopping and explored the town before heading back to San Jose.  Our bus left at 5 pm and we headed back to work to get ready for another week of work!  A relaxing weekend by the beach was just what I needed to end the week. 

Here is the country of Trinidad- one slide show of many.

2010 Trinidad Presentation

View more presentations from liannef.

The most incredible man I have ever met.

Throughout my internship I will be attending a few seminars with speakers from big companies in Costa Rica.  This week we had our first seminar and went to the Franklin Covey office where met our speaker, Randall Arias.  Randall grew up in Costa Rica and works as the manager of Franklin Covey for the country of Costa Rica.  We arrived a little early and so he tested me on my Spanish and said that I am doing incredibly well for being in Costa Rica for 10 days!  Woohoo!!  After everyone arrived he introduced himself to the group and began his story.

Randall was born with a very rare disease where his feet were attached to his back and he did not have any joints in his arms.  This disease is so uncommon that there is not even an English translation and at the time the ultrasound was not available so there was no way of knowing it existed.  His surgery took place when he was 2 days old where they had to break his legs and detach them from his back.  As a young boy his family was his main support and they never made him feel different or out of place.  He still was able to travel on vacations and be a part of everything with his brothers and sister. Until age 10 his arms still stuck out straight in front of him after undergoing about 20 surgeries at this point.  His parents then searched all over to see if anyone had the resources to help him and they finally found a doctor in Mexico who could perform the operation.  At age 10 his parents took him to the airport, took him to the gate where his plane was leaving and sent him on his, alone.  At this time his mom was terrified to fly on an airplane and his father needed to stay in Costa Rica to work in order to support his family so he ventured on to Mexico.  When arriving he was picked up by a representative from the hospital and went into surgery the next day.  After surgery on his arms, which took about 10 operations, he was able to touch his face for the first time and walk with special crutches.  Randall stayed in Mexico for a few months after that to go through physical therapy and recover and for about 3 years after the surgery he made annual visits for check ups. 

He completed high school and did not know if he wanted to go to college; but all of his friends were going to college so he decided to go too.  Randall was accepted to the University of Costa Rica and did not know what he wanted to major in and so he decided to follow his friend who offered to take him to school.  At this time there were no ramps or wheelchair access to buildings and so his friend would carry him up the stairs just so he could go to school.  After 4 years, Randall graduated in law but decided not to follow the law career path and so he hopped around from job to job.  Randall owned several businesses and sold them all when he wound up meeting Mother Teresa.  After meeting Mother Teresa, he quit his job and left everything behind to follow Mother Teresa and help others around the world.  He traveled with her for 4 years and met his wife, who was also traveling with Mother Teresa.  Soon after they got married and now have 3 children.  He gave a piece of advice that I really liked, “Never give up on yourself and never compare yourself to others because we are all unique.  You have time to make mistakes.  If you are not satisfied with what you are doing now, try something new.  Venture out on your own and see life from a new perspective.  In the end you will see that the most satisfying opportunity is right in front of you.”

Incredible story, isn't it?  We have a lot to be thankful for.  

The projects have begun!

Back to work! Today we met our boss named Jeff who works as the logistics manager for Aerocasillas. He is always traveling but works in San Jose for most of the time. When we first met he immediately said that we will be doing a lot of projects for the summer and we are going to try and get them done before we return to the states. Some of the projects that he would like us to work on this summer are: improving marketing through the company website, utilizing social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, creating a recycle campaign, making videos, analyzing every country’s statistics and figures and marketing new ideas based on Internet retail sites. On Monday, I was assigned to break down our current website and compare our site to other online retail competitors. I noticed that our competitors had a new look, updated their site frequently, had links to big upcoming events on the main page (Father’s Day and the World Cup) and had enough resources to answer any question that the customer may have. I also got to spend the day doing a little online shopping (can’t complain) to search for the most affordable websites and separated them by gender and category. They wanted us to see what if feels like to be a customer of Aerocasillas and go through the process of online buying so we created our own "employee account". We were given a gift card to shop on Amazon and I bought a pair of shoes! I guess unpaid internships have a few perks along the way. :)

Our first project has begun! About a month ago each country sent out a survey to their customers asking them to rate their satisfaction with Aerocasillas. The survey consisted of about 30 questions, which asked customers to comment and rate the customer service, online process, delivery, etc. Some countries had a large return rate of surveys and others did not. Each of the surveys were sorted by country through a survey maker website and converted to an excel file. One more thing I forgot to mention...every computer is loaded with Spanish Microsoft Office. I can now add to my resume that I am bilingual in Microsoft Office. It has been a little difficult to navigate being that the set up is a little different and of course, not in English. My co-intern and I have been reviewing the excel file to analyze each country by making suggestions, reviewing averages, personal comments and highlighting the good areas and the bad areas that the company needs to improve. Once we have reviewed all of the information we need to make a 20 slide PowerPoint and attach the excel sheet of information for each country. There are 24 countries total, so our goal is to have the project done in 2 weeks. Customers were able to take the survey in Spanish and English and there were over 2,000 Spanish surveys and over 8,000 Spanish surveys that were submitted.

First things first, I needed to go through every country and read each survey question and understand what all of the numbers meant, summarize comments shared and find key information to improve the company. After reading through each country's surveys, I began my next step of calculating the Net Promoter Score (NPS) for each country based on the survey results. I am not sure if you are familiar with the NPS system but the score is determined by the answers on whether the customer would recommend the company on a scale of 1-10. Grouping customers into three clusters of promoters (who scored either a 9 & 10), passives (who scored either a 7 & 8) and detractors (who scored either a 1-6) we are able to see the results on each company. The final score is determined by subtracting the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters and we are able to determine if the company is performing to the best of its abilities. The United States average is an NPS of 10 so anything above a 10 is good. I actually just calculated the NPS for Haiti and they received an NPS of -22, so its safe to say that the Aerocasillas in Haiti needs some company reconstruction. It is interesting to see how the company works internally to determine all of the data. We have completed one of our PowerPoint's, I'm not sure if I can add it to my blog but I will see if I can do that later.  We showed the final presentation to our boss and he was very impressed.  He told us that we exceeded his expectations and he is more than satisfied with our work.  I guess you can say that we started off on the right foot!

Arenal Volcano & Hot Springs Weekender!

I added pictures to the blogs below, so definitely check it out! :)


Saturday morning we left to begin our adventure to the Hot Springs, Arenal Lake and Arenal Volcano.  In Costa Rica they have a main highway which takes everyone to the various cities across the country.  Unfortunately there was a terrible accident in which a giant tour bus hit a taxi and shut down the entire freeway so we were forced to take the bumpy back roads and arrived to our destination just in time to watch the England vs. USA soccer game over lunch.  After lunch we shopped around and explored the town; it was so hot and humid!  We checked into our hotel and headed out to explore and see the Arenal volcano and Arenal Lake before the rain came.  When the rain arrives the volcano is completely covered and you would not know it was even there!  Most of the volcanos are still active in Costa Rica.  We met a group of guys that said they saw the volcano have a mini eruption the night before and they were able to see a little bit of lava flow because it was a clear night.  

Getting out of the rain just in time, we headed for Baldi Hot Springs!  This place was absolutely incredible!  There are about 25 different pools, 3 wet bars and 3 water slides.  We picked the perfect time to go because it was raining and the temperature cooled down so we were able to relax and enjoy the hot springs.  We went down all of the water slides and sipped on tropical drinks to end our Saturday afternoon.  Funny fact about the water slides, the engineers who built the slides originally constructed each slide without a cover so the top of the slide was exposed.  The engineers did not take into account the amount of force offered by the slides and several people were injured because they flew off the slides.  Needless to say, they had to close the slides for repair.  We left the hot springs and had wonderful dinner at an Italian restaurant and got ready for a night out on the town!  We met quite a few Americans at the local bars and were able to talk to them about their experience in Costa Rica!

Baldi Hot Springs Website: http://www.baldihotsprings.cr/

On Sunday morning, we were going to hike the volcano and go swim in the waterfalls but our plans changed when it had been raining all morning.  The hike would not have been too fun with rain pounding in our faces and the waterfall would have been pure mud due to the amount of rain.  So we settled on plan B which was to go to this resort called Los Lagos.  Los Lagos had a walk though which had native animals of Costa Rica and we saw crocodiles (the ones we saw were apparently “smaller” than usual) which were so scary!  After the crocodile spotting we learned a tip just in case we ever encounter a crocodile- run in circles and do not run in a straight path because crocodiles are very fast when they have a straight shot but the key is to fool them and run in a zig zag motion.  
We also saw beautiful butterflies, poisonous frogs and turtles!  After the walk through we headed for the hot spring area where they had springs and water slides that were similar to Baldi Hot Springs.  After another relaxing afternoon we headed back to San Jose and returned early evening for work in the morning!