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“the skyline is full of luscious green mountains and beautiful coast lines.” |
Flying into San Jose was GREAT! the skyline is full of luscious green mountains and beautiful coast lines. I had a wicked window seat (nowhere near the wings for once!) As I got out of the airport there were tons of people, families, taxi, tour guides and more! I decided to take a taxi to San Jose which was about a 25 mins car ride, and I´m told a 40 min bus ride. My taxi driver told me that the hostel I wanted to stay in was really dangerous and full of drugs so he took me to another place, Elvis Inn, which my instincts told me was sketch as. I´m guessing he had a deal with the hostel or something cause I later found out it was in a bad part of town and I should be glad I followed my instincts and didn´t stay there. So I wondered the city for a bit, grabbed some food (homemade pizza) and found this really nice hostel right in the centre of downtown. The owner made me feel right at home and there is even an ontario license plate hanging on the wall! I then went on a little stroll, got some ice cream and bought an essential spanish phrase book, which has so far proven to be very very handy. Then I was spent, so I went to bed so I could get an early start the next day. The next day, I woke up at around 8:30 am! crazy! I left my hostel by 9 and my first stop was the bank. I was sooo proud of myself, I managed to ask to exchange my american money into what they use here, colones, in complete spanish! Then for the nest couple hours I wondered around town, say in the Parque Central and ate my leftover pizza. Visited the Cathedral Metropolitana which Pope John Paul II visited in his first visit to Central America. It was a beautifull church with awesome stain glass windows all over the place. Then I decided to go to the Zoo! I saw monkeys, a lion, some leopards, some toucans and RACOONS!!! HAHAHA.. Itook the funniest picture of a raccoon just lounging in a tire swing... much nicer than the lives of raccoons in Toronto I´d say! gacve me a laugh tho. Then I continued walking, went to the Teatro Nacional, which I was a little disapointed because they don´t have any shows untill March. A beautifull building non-the-less. I started to get a little hungry so I walked to find some fofod and stubbled accross the Hirstoria, Cultura Market. It´s their central market here in San Jose and let me tell you, Its CRAZY!!! There is everything from fish, to spices, to bags, to hats, to shoes, to jeans, to anything costa rican... it´s great, it´s a huge maze though that I I found difficult to come out where i started. I sat down at one of the little restaurants and had what they call a "Casados con pollo" which is basically a plate full of, rice, beans, veggies, salad, fried banana and chicken (pollo). It was very tasty and that plus a black cherry smoothy came to 1950 colones which is around 4$. Pretty cheap for such a big meal!It was getting late and I had been walking around all day, so I took a nice nap back at the hostel and when I woke I was a little hungry. I went back to the centre of town and when I was taking of picture of the teatro nacional a man and his daughter came up to me and asked me where I was from. We talked for a bit and when I asked where a good place to eat was they recommended a place called SPoon. A chain here, it was lovely, they decided to come sit with me and have a cup of tea as I had a really good potato leek soup... yummy. Anyhoo, they tried to teach me some spanish as I tried to teach them some english, they are sooo nice and today they are coming with me to the airport by bus to pick up Trevor! Should be moving to another Hostel tonight so Ill see how that goes. Anyways, I´m getting pretty hungry now so I´m going to go have some Gallo Pinto, which is Costa Rica´s known dish for eggs, croissant, rice and beans! wish me luck!
Hope you guys find this interesting, I´m having a great time! Looking forward to getting out of the city tho, there isn´t much more to see here but, hey, Trevor is coming today so ill have someone to enjoy my travels with for a bit
much love and miss you all!
Scarlet
previous travel blog entry
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