San Jose

One last day of vacation today. We took the train out to la sabana park on the west end of downtown. Not a great decision. Super slow moving, and a bit confusing to ride. Kate had asked a couple people at the stop, and they told us which train to get on, but I started freaking out when the train started moving the opposite direction that it should be. A guy next to us spoke English and said it was switching directions. A guess it went in an arc. A large, slow, inefficient arc. I can't believe that citizens don't scream for something faster. It took 45 minutes to get there and it can't have been more than 3 miles. The park isn't huge by any means but we made maybe a 15 min loop around it and it worked out alright. A good experience at least.

Our hotel, aranjuez has an amazing breakfast that we had post run. Complementary, they have like 7 kinds of breads, omlettes to order, pancakes to order, wonderful Costa Rican coffee, passion fruit juice, star fruits, and more stuff I'm probably forgetting. It's been an awesome stay here. All at 37$ a night.

Slow trains aside, San Jose is great. It feels a lot like San Juan or even a European city. Spain perhaps. The neighborhoods near us have nice fixed up colonial looking houses with many shady streets and nice plazas near downtown. They have a couple extended walking only streets. Avenida central stretches quite a ways and is filled with shoppers. The central market was cool to check out as well. Crammed with tiny vendors selling everything from fine coffee, to fresh seafood, or pots to cook it in.

We took in a coffee at the teatro nacional cafe. It's a beautiful old building in the heart of downtown. Very ornate with lots of murals on the ceilings and fancy pillars and such. The coffee was great too. Weaving our way through the various parks and squares, we took in an afternoon beer at ell Geff, a locally owned brewery (no expats this time) with solid brews. They had no idea what a flight was and weren't familiar with the concept so we made our own with half pints. Good to try as many as possible. Dinner was spent at a reasonable, if forgettable place in our neighborhood with Costa Rican fare. The plan was to go to a jazz show after dinner that was nearby, but the music didn't start until 930 which more likely means 945 and we just weren't feeling being out late. I certainly wouldn't dwell in San Jose on a trip, but it's worth a stop en route to whatever adventure you are headed to in Costa Rica. A cool city with unexpected charm.