Peace and quiet
Trip Start
Sep 28, 2007
1
25
33
Trip End
Ongoing
San Jose,
Costa Rica
Sunday, November 18, 2007
The next stop was Costa Rica's capital, reached by a longish drive from La Fortuna through some beautiful cloud forest. This is not really what you would call a fun trip, but it had one outstanding highlight. I think that we have seen a lot given our limited wildlife spotting opportunities, but we had not yet had a good look at a toucan.
In La Fortuna we were told that a good place to look for sloths and toucans is in sacropia trees. These are tall narrow trees with quite large but widely spaced leaves. They are hollow and were used by settlers to provide primitive plumbing for important activities such as making stills. They are quite common and on our way out we went past one with both a sloth and a toucan in it. You could easily fit them both in one shot. Right on the side of the road! And when we looked back we could see another tree with at least three more toucans in it, and others flying away.
San Jose itself is the city that most feels like being back home. The buses and shops could be relocated to Auckland without seeming strange. Everything is fair less chaotic to what we have become accustomed to. The supermarket displayed its item by product type, and prices actually matched the items on display. This is a real luxury. Elsewhere, it is common for products to be unpriced, or for the product to have a price, but one that has no connection to the price they expect you to pay at the counter. I don't know whether this is deliberate, but it was refreshingly absent in San Jose.
Breakfast for everyone
We stayed at a place that is the Lonely Planet's splurge option for the city. Although not especially fancy it is very nice. With free breakfast which they will cook to order in front of you, and a beautiful garden to eat it in and watch squirrels and humming birds, I was sold.
San Jose has a pleasant park, as almost all Latin American cities seem to, this one dedicated to Costa Rica's victory of American lunatic William Walker in 1856. It is one of these big block monuments depicting a battle scene in bronze on top in the heroic style that one now associates with communist era monuments. William Walker was an interesting character who quite randomly decided that he would like to rule Central America. He eventually managed to gain control of Nicaragua and even had his government recognised by the US, but he wasn't content. His attempt on Costa Rica was thwarted y 900 hastily organised civilians. The victory is conventionally ascribed as the foundation of a distinct Costa Rican identity, and this is why it is recognised in the Parque Nacional. Walker met his just fate in front of a firing squad in Honduras in 1860.
We only had a day and a half in San Jose, and there doesn't seem to be that much to do there other than take trips to somewhere else, or go shopping. On our shopping expedition we had not gone very far before a seriously drunk man and a young lady accosted us. Where you from? Australia? 'Nueve Zelanda' 'Perfecto!' (hug).
The market is watched over
'You want cerveza, beer?' 'no gracias'. 'you like Costa Rica?' 'Si, es muy hermoso'. 'Es un dia perfecto. Quieres cerveza?' This unproductive dialogue continued for a little longer, from which they learnt that we were next traveling to Puerto Viejo de Talamanca, and we learnt the important information that the marijuana there is very good, but that you had to go to the Pacific coast for cocaine. The girl gave us her email, but we lost it without even trying. It was a very bizarre conversation. The shopping features a pretty western range of products and is not very promising for authentic souvenirs of Costa Rica, as some last minute shoppers found out. It has a fun central market though full of all kinds of shops from leather workers, postcards, herbs and fish though to tacky religious icons and cheese shops(or maggot shops as I now can't help thinking of them). On one corner there was a life size plastic statue of Jesus. It is not the first such we have come across, little glass shrines were quite prominent in Mexico City in particular, but it is certainly one respect in which San Jose does not resemble New Zealand. One other difference should be remembered. On a footpath near where we were staying was a rectangular hole, as if man hole had been removed. Instead of replacing the cover or putting cones around it or the like, someone had placed a thin forked stick across the hole. I've no idea how long it was like this but there were no steps made to cover it while we were there. This was easy walking distance from the centre of town just down from the Parque Nacional.
