San Jose

Before moving on to the Pacific side of the country, we decided to spend a few days in San Jose. Enough time to see some of the major sights of the city, receive the new lens that Paul got shipped from the U.S. (one of his older lenses did not withstand the muggy weather of Tamarindo and grew mold on the inside… everything we had seemed to have sprung mold actually by the time we left… clothes, bags, books, wallets, belts…), and figure out how we were going to make our way down to the coast.

First nice surprise: the hotel… impressive! I have never seen so much effort put into the decoration of a place… it was like a dollhouse with feminine touches in every corner! The place was run by a single mother of three and was kept in neat order; but it was especially amazing for the explosion of colors on all the walls, hanging decorations, mosaics, etc…

...lots of colors...

The place was also run like someone’s house, and the rules were strict and plentiful! “no noise between 8pm and 8am, no serving yourself at the breakfast table until it is completely ready, no slamming the doors, no putting your luggage on the bed, no using towels to remove make-up”… the list goes on! I thought the mixture of personal touches and conduct reminders all over gave the place a really nice homey feel!

our shower

So for a couple of days we wandered the streets of San Jose, the older neighborhoods with some really nice looking houses left from the colonial era, the pedestrian center of town always busy and great for people-watching, museums, and mercados. The museo nacional was inside an old fort and had plenty of historical info on the country as well as a little butterfly garden… great for photos!!

The Museo nacional fortress

Precolumbian gold

Museo Nacional butterfly garden

The Mercado Central was probably the most fun place to visit: the market is inside one city block and is made up of meandering narrow alleyways between all sorts of shops and food places from butchers and spice shops to shoe stores, tourist souvenirs… You could probably find just about anything in there! The Mercado is also famous for pickpockets but with our unfashionable semi-grungy looks we didn’t have a problem with that!

on the wall of a colonial house

Bringing Paul’s lens into Costa Rica ended up being a bit more complex than we had first anticipated. On Tuesday, FedEx left us a note letting us know that we could either pay an extra $75 to get it delivered at our hotel or go pick it up at the shipping agent near the airport directly and only pay $7… Since we have more time than money, we decided to go pick it up ourselves…

More mosaic art in the street

So we got on a bus to the airport on Wednesday noon… 15 minutes later, the bus ran into an SUV, smashing in the rear bumper, trunk, and rear window of the car, and loosing its own bumper in the ordeal… uh oh… bad start…
Well the bus wasn’t going to go much farther in that condition so we got herded to another bus and made it to the airport, then a cab to the international shipping Co. Over there, it was explained to us by an other customer in a mixture of English and Spanish (the lady working at the shipping company did not speak a word of English) that we were to return to the airport, get to customs, find Mr. Joaquin Arrieta, get registered in the computer, then come back but hurry up because the place closes in 2 hours. So back on the cab to customs, got made by the $&^%$! driver: the usual “I have no change” scam, found Joaquin, got registered, got back to the shipping place without getting scammed (hehe, learning!), waited around while people stamped away at paperwork while nice English-speaking customers let us know what was going on and… got the lens before closing time!! Stressful day and mostly Spanish-speaking with the authorities so my rudimentary Spanish lessons back in Hawaii really paid off!...

Our last day in San Jose, we were not about to look for more trouble so we just took it easy before the trip to Bocas del Toro.