San Jose
More Than Just a Point of Entry
Costa Rica has two international airports, one in Liberia, Guanacaste and one in San Jose. Liberia is smaller, and easier to get in and out of. It is primarily there to serve North Americans coming to the all-inclusive beach resorts. There is more air traffic from San Jose, but it is also in a city with traffic problems. We chose the latter, knowing our intent was to see the country, not just go to a single resort. Most Costa Rica travel advice recommends not spending any time in San Jose. I either did not read that advice, or ignored it. I booked two nights in San Jose in order to get settled in Costa Rica, see some of the town, and then decide how to proceed from there.
Since our flight arrived on Saturday, this allowed us a better opportunity to find a place to worship on Sunday. There were a few Iglesias de Cristo in San Jose, and I found where there was supposed to be one relatively close to our motel. I ran for exercise that morning, and used my routing to verify the location of the church. After I got back from my run, Stephanie and I Ubered to church. We received a warm welcome from a small, but enthusiastic congregation. We met three young adult sisters who attended there with their mother. They offered to give us a local-led tour of the city. The middle sister had gone to school to work in tourism, so this was right up her alley.
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We began by taking them out to lunch. They protested a bit, but we were still getting the better end of the bargain by having such knowledgeable, friendly tour guides. We ate at Las Delicias del Maiz, where we enjoyed some typical Costa Rican dishes. Our wait staff greatly enjoyed taking our picture. I think they found the difference in height between me and all five ladies in our photo a bit comical.
We cruised through a neighborhood high on a ridge back that was clearly one of the nicer parts of town. We strolled through some flower markets with many offerings highlighting the tropical and highland plants that are part of Central America’s amazing biodiversity. This venue offered many colorful photo opportunities. I also liked that they were proudly flying the Costa Rican flag. We got that in some of our group photos as well.
We made our way to a major square in the middle of town, where we proceeded to people watch for a bit. We walked through a park with the butterfly wing selfie station that seems so common to Latin American countries. We passed a pretty Spanish colonial style building that was being used as the Costa Rican National Theater. I got run out trying to see the inside of the building, but we were able to get a photo taken in front of it, which was much nicer, anyway. We visited a museum there for a while. They museum had rooms with displays covering local history and geology. The part that interested me most was a small but very nice coin and currency exhibit featuring numismatic examples from the Spanish colonial era through modern Costa Rican money.
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We found all of these activities very enjoyable. It was fortunate that we were able to do most of these things in just two places, because San Jose traffic was completely grid-locked, even on Sunday afternoon. We had walked a bit, but not really enough to work up an appetite. We elected to sample some Costa Rican desserts and let that stand for dinner. I ordered two! I had a sort of dulce de leche milkshake and a special variety of chocolate cake/pie that were both very good and I’m sure contained more calories than an entire supper would have. Stephanie had some kind of lemon pie, which she testified was also delicious.
We bade farewell to our generous tour guide family after enjoying that hearty desert, and they dropped us off back at our room. Our facility in San Jose was a small motel in a fairly nice neighborhood in an area a little higher than the other parts of town. This made running a bit more difficult, but offered some very nice views. The motel came with a rooftop gym and hot tub. I sampled the hot tub, then invited Stephanie up to join me. We relaxed in the warm water as night fell over the city before us. It was a perfect end to a very nice day, especially considering this wasn’t even one of the places you were supposed to spend time in Costa Rica.
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