San Jose, Costa Rica
December 1, 2009

Cathedral
Park
National theater
Street scene
Well here it is December already. Gee, the time is really flying bye and we have just not even finished the first half of the journey. Well today we played tourists and took the bus to San Jose. Although this is not far from where we are staying I did not want to take TT into the city as the traffic is horrendous. The bus stop was less than 1 block from the RV park and it took us right downtown and that was a far less stressful way to go. Busses here go about every 20 minutes and we waited under 10 minutes for our bus. On the way back it was less than 5 minutes.
San Jose is the capital of Costa Rica and the largest city here. Things are really busy in the city but they have done a really great job here with parks all over the city so that you are never more than 1 or 2 blocks it seems from a lovely park with fountains and trees and flowers. We stopped first at the Parke Centeral and there just watched people, visited the cathedral on one side of the park. Then on to the Park de Cultura where the the national Theatre is located. I tried to get a picture of the inside of it but was unable to get past the guards. I did later find out that a ticket to one of the shows is only about $6.00 so we may go there if there is time. But time is quickly passing by.
Below the Park de Cultura is the Museo de Ore or Gold Museum. Se had seen this the last time we were here so we skipped that one and also the National Museum.
On to the Museo de Jade or Jade Museum which is located in the National Insurance Building. From the early 1900’s the National Insurance Co. has been collecting pre Columbian jade and other rare antiquities and has a giant collection of them in this building. The displays are great with Spanish and English captions and all very well done. We had missed this on our last trip as it was closed the day we came to San Jose. Well worth seeing.
Next it was on to some lunch and then some tourist shopping and more sightseeing. The really nice thing about San Jose is that many of the streets are pedestrian streets and you do not have to worry about vehicles. On other streets however the sidewalks are narrow and vendors spill over into the street and cars and trucks and buses are everywhere. After all of that it was time to go back to the RV and rest and relax. Tomorrow I think will be a nothing day and then on to Punta Arenas the next day.