Who's Alberto Salas
Hello there!
In this post, I will talk about me. I will be mentioning where I grew up, what I studied, places and companies that I have worked for, some of my passions and what I have learned.
Actually, my full name is Rafael Alberto Salas Jiménez. I am Costarican, living currently in the province of Guanacaste.
Actually, my full name is Rafael Alberto Salas Jiménez. I am Costarican, living currently in the province of Guanacaste.
I grew up in the countryside highlands of Montes de Oro county, in Puntarenas province.
At age 12, I attended high school in Liceo de Miramar, and when I became 18 years old I got my first job ever; a tour guide in Anura de Monteverde S.A, a company known as "El Ranario de Monteverde". This amphibian exposition is located in Santa Elena, Monteverde, a beautiful place up in the cloud forest of Puntarenas province. Working in El Ranario de Monteverde, I learned English and I fell in love with travel and nature which is the reason why in 2016 I founded Link Expeditions Costa Rica.
Link Expeditions designs customized travel itineraries for those travellers who love nature and wellness in Costa Rica.
After working for one year in Monteverde, I went to Universidad de Costa Rica or UCR, the top university in the country, where I graduated from Business Administration.
An important percentage of the classes at UCR were related to marketing, which became my favourite subject in college.
I had different informal jobs during my vacations but my next real job was working for a bank as a teller and eventually in the accountant department. This was during my fourth year of college, and after my graduation a stayed working for a total of 5 years.
During this time working for the bank, I took Portuguese classes with UCR and English classes with Instituto Nacional de Aprendizaje (INA) in Puntarenas city. Then I decided it was time for me to learn new things in different industries. This is how I quit Banco Popular y de desarrollo comunal, one of the biggest financial institutions in Costa Rica.
After quitting Banco Popular, I did my first international trip ever. I went "sort of backpacking or Couchsurfing" visiting friends all around California, USA. This first trip was amazing, I had a blast visiting for the first time the United States with my friend @Joseph Quesada. We stayed with several friends and explore cities like Los Angeles, Fresno, Sonoma, San Francisco and San Diego.
At this point, I am in love with business, marketing, travelling and I had already fallen in love with my California girl @AudreyBaker who I had met while living and working in Puntarenas city.
After coming back to Costa Rica I took a scuba diving class with INA and learned about the oceans and its different ecosystems. I had so much fun and made new friends while learning scuba diving in Puntarenas.
Later, I found a job in Amazon Costa Rica, an American multinational conglomerate technology company. I chose Amazon in order to further improve my English but I didn't like the job and past few months I was already looking for a job in the travel and tourism industry again.
My friend @Jonh Alejandro who I had met in Scuba Diving classes was working in Guanacaste province for Diamante Eco Adventure Park, a tourism company where I eventually got an opportunity to work as a tour leader and adventure guide.
I learned a lot in Diamante about guiding and leading people as well as other skills like travellers safety and photography just to mention a couple. I also had a lot of fun here but my travel bug was desperate for more international experiences.
After working for Diamante, I went to United States to visit my girlfriend and then we went on a 6 months backpacking trip to South America, beginning in Brazil so I could practice my Portuguese.
Next, I went to Nicaragua to receive training in a new job opportunity, this time as an International tour leader.
After these experiences, I also worked for other companies including Nomad America, a 4x4 full camping equipped rental car company and Las Catalinas, a property management company located in Flamingo, Guanacaste.
In summary, I studied BA, worked for a bank and then I worked for different companies in the travel and tourism industry in Costa Rica. Along the process, I learned about nature, international travelling, languages and acquired useful skills, good friends as well as my pretty girlfriend.
Today, April 2020 the COVID-19, a pandemic affecting the whole world, also negatively impacted Costa Rica and its profitable travel industry.
This international emergency has caused many damages to the world economy and negatively affected my income reducing it to zero. There are not tourism jobs opportunities and my young travel agency had to pause all activity due to the government bans to international and local traveller during the emergency COVID-19.
This blog site; Learning Digital Marketing with Alberto, is all about what I am doing as a direct consequence of my background, and the current circumstances I am facing today April 17th, 2020.
