The dreaded first leg of the journey!
As we all know flying is probably the least exciting part of a holiday. I had my first flight to Madrid at 7pm. I landed at the airport at 10pm where I proceeded to sleep on an airport floor for around 13 hours. A combination of spending 30 euros on coffee and probably a pack of cigarettes (boredom is dangerous!) made the airport floor slightly more bareable but yes you´re right in thinking to yourself: "why the hell did you not just get a cheap hotel room?", I wonder that too!
Anyway, I finally got onto my San Jose flight from Madrid and arrived at the airport. Changing money was pretty straight forward even with my very basic Spanish. As soon as you come out into the arrivals lounge there are offices where you can get quite a good exchange rate and it is hassle free.
The friend I was visiting was living in Ciudad Colon at the time and told me to get a taxi there for approximately 30$. The taxis are a little bit more complicated with a number of people jumping queues and with it being my first time in Costa rica I was more weary of the twenty or so young men bombarding me with questions and prices. The taxi drivers speak no English which was great for practicing Spanish but less so with serious jetlag and when you´re losing the will to live!
I eventually got to Ciudad Colon and met my friend at the Banco National by the football pitch. The town was small with very little to offer but there was a great sense of community and few basic shops (or tiendas as they call them here). I quickly realised that the prices in Costa rica aren´t too disimilar to England with a beer costing around 1.50$ and fresh vegetables being more expensive than in British supermarkets in some cases.
The aim of this holiday was to relax, be healthy and have fun with one of my best friends for a couple of weeks whilst visiting a little bit of Central America. We woke up early and started a four hour hike up to the wind mill. I believed that having played squash at a high level for quite a few years would make me more than capable of hiking up a little hill for four hours- boy I was wrong! It´s probably the hardest bit of exercise i´ve done for a while (to be fair it had been quite a while since I had done any form of physical activity!). I´ve posted some pictures below to show the beautiful view.
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| The first few hours uphill |
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| Nearly there! |
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| Still nearly there! |
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| At last!!! |
So after a few beers, a nice meal and a good nights sleep we headed into San Jose for a bit of culture. Most people I have met between then and now have told me how horrible San Jose is but I would hugely disagree! I really enjoyed spending a few days there. Yes it has a more run down area with tacky shops and bad music but the museums are beautiful (although slightly expensive), the markets are great and you can find some great local casados for very little money.
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| Centro Nacional de la Cultura |
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| Museo Nacional de Costa rica |
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| Main square |
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| Small China Town |
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| Teatro Nacional |
Aside from the museums and historic buildings, the art scene is amazing and there is a real sense of traditional Central American culture throughout the city.
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| Cat mosaic |
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| Graffiti |
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| Two locals |
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| One of the main roads |
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| Trees made of recycled plastic |
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| Strike |
One last thing to hit up in San Jose has to be the souvenir markets- yes I know they are the same in every tourist city but the hand made jewellery and leather works are beautiful and not overly priced.
Let me know your thoughts on San Jose, maybe you visited and loved it? Or maybe you didn´t?
All the best
