San José, Costa Rica

From the moment we landed, we felt like we were almost home.  Over the years I´d heard so many wonderful things about Costa Rica as a paradise of exotic birds, flowers and animals, spotless beaches, friendly faces and a high percentage of folks who care about the environment.  More recently I had heard more mixed reviews.  Costa Rica is too touristy, expensive, overrun by expats and suffering from a more jaded population and increasing crime and drugs in the cities.  The Costa Rica we´ve found is both.

In San José we used hotel points to stay at the Clarion Amon Plaza (it´s been a long time since we´ve had the likes of Holiday Inns, Mariotts and Best Westerns as options).  The neighborhood was supposed to have been one of the more interesting to stay in, close to downtown, but with a little more character.  We felt a little bullied by the aggressiveness of the cabbies at the airport, and $20 was a fortune, since it equates to two nights of lodging at some places in Perú, but we bit the bullet since it was late.  A morning walk didn’t take long, as the area was dirty, run-down, and we were bugged by at least two addicts trying to start up a conversation from their abandoned house/squatter palace/urinal.

We took advantage of free internet to try and find some other ideas.  The city does have some fine museums, but we skipped them because of the entrance fees, from about $8 to $20.  We did have a look at one childrens’ museum, housed in a former prison, but we were really just there for a quick geocache.  Downtown was pretty bland.  There were a few older buildings (the post office for one) with interesting architecture, but those were few and far between.

Internet research helped us hone in on a couple of places we wanted to see.  With only 10 days, we wanted to use our time wisely without trying to do too much.  We decided on the Caribbean coast first.  Addicted as we are to public transportation, especially buses, we bought a ticket for Cahuita in the morning.  We had a very good meal the night before we left, although the taxi driver insisted on twice as much to get back to the hotel as we had paid to get there.