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| i guess the pigeons enjoyed it too. |
our last trip was back to san jose - no mountains this time, so not quite as arduous. we arrived at our hotel which was right smack in between the big municipal buildings downtown and the railroad tracks (which i maybe wouldn't have gone on the other side of). it was sunday and so the town seemed sort of sleepy. still, we figured we'd tool around town a bit. we crossed the main road and made our way towards those big city buildings. not pretty, exactly, but impressive i suppose, in their own faux-castle sort of way. we wandered toward the center of town where we seemed to see nothing but clothing and appliance stores. they were mostly open, which seemed odd since the streets were largely empty. we did come across a neoclassical tholos (the temple of music, apparently) with sky-blue coffers that was quite nice but seemed incredibly out of place. we hadn't found much in our research in san jose but did want to try to find an old world churreria that sounded fun. we searched the address we had listed, another address we found online, and then every other possible iteration of the numbered streets or avenues within a five block radius. finally we asked a police officer who told us it was gone. sigh! so we settled for fast food churros on a flimsy aluminum table instead.
there wasn't much left that was open and we wanted to regroup. so back to the hotel for snack and a rest (or, in my case, watching dubbed movies from the '90s - dumb and dumber, matilda and dumbo - okay so that one was a little older.) by the time we were awake and ready to go it was dark out and we didn't feel like venturing far. that's quite an understatement, actually, because we went about 6 steps from our room to the hotel dining room. after a sleepy and unmemorable dinner we made our way all the way back to the room for journaling and planning.
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| guess that stone was structurally sound |
we decided we only needed one more day in san jose so, after moving up our flight, we figured we'd make the most of our final day in the country. we started seeing some parts of town we hadn't made it to before. nothing seems to be very far; it was just farther west than we had made it the day before. we wanted to see some of the remaining older buildings in town (most were destroyed in an earthquake some time ago). we found a few nicely painted buildings and interesting ironwork but there wasn't much that was so picturesque. from here we found an artisan craft shop owned by a very hippy-dippy (yeah, i said it) american. still, a nice concept and we picked up a few little items. back into town where we stopped for a leisurely snack (lunch?) of calamari and café con leche as we wrote our last postcards. we enjoyed all of these at the historic gran hotel (full of nice tiles!), where we had a table on the terrace that faced the teatro nacional, rightly called the city's most beautiful building.
from here the last task was shopping. we hadn't seen much in the way of shops that day (apart from the ubiquitous clothing stores that had some crazy patterned leggings i just
had to pick up) so we headed back to the covered market near our hotel. it reminded me of similar indoor market stalls in honduras. having stocked up on wooden wares, coffee and accessories - and flexing our haggling muscles - we made our way back to the hotel. oh yes, and one last very important purchase. garlic plantain chips. they are delicious! our last outing was for a farewell dinner. we had our sights set on a highly reviewed argentinian place, which again we couldn't find. so we had to settle for.. another argentinian place, la esquina de buenos aires. it was on a somewhat desolate street but had a wonderful (quasi-italian) ambiance inside and the food was great. we lingered over our meal with our usual last day trip recap.
our general impressions: the money (colones) is just beautiful, though dollars are accepted nearly everywhere. the people do seem laid back and generally easy going. and, yes, people really do use the phrase 'pura vida' for everything. (i admit, i expected it was something they played up to sell cheesy t-shirts.) our only complaint - not enough sloth sightings! who knew such slow animals could be so elusive. sloths notwithstanding, it was a wonderful trip and a welcome break from wintry weather.
