We left on a cold Wednesday morning from National Airport in Arlington and
arrived in San Jose, Costa Rica to a beautiful sunny warm 80F. We spent
4 lazy days in San Jose before heading to Quepos for our Spanish course. San
Jose isn't chock full of churches and museums like every city we visited in
Europe, but even if it was, you wouldn't find them. San Jose has decided
that street signs are unimportant. And the people don't even know what street
their shop is located on. All directions are given in relation to some well-known
place. "100 meters north of the hospital" It took us hours to do the walking
tour described in our tour book.
My first Spanish conversation was with Victor, the guy who drove us from the
airport to our hotel. Scott stuck me in the front seat so I had to do the
chatting. But it was pretty fun. I figured out the basics from him, job,
kids, etc. The basic questions you learn in the beginning of Spanish.
So what did we do while we were in San Jose..... not much. The walking tour
I mentioned above. We met up with Dan Odio's friend, RJ for lunch and
afterwards went to the La Sabana park. Apparently its an old airport which
was converted into a park. We hung out there for awhile in the cool shade,
watched a tico futbol pickup game. There were about 30 guys on one field.
And I don't think the object of the game was to score goals. It was more
to show who's the biggest ball hog on the field. During our walks around
the park, we walked past a woman who Scott and I both assumed was just another
local. Well a week later we met her in Quepos, she attended our Spanish school.
And she remembered us. This was the first of many people recoginizing Scott
and I. I don't what it is but several people have come up to us, "Didn't I
see you at this place?" I guess we're a couple of interesting looking gringos.
One night in San Jose I was hungry and needed food immediately. So we just
stopped by the closest cafe, 'Hotel del Rey'. Later we find out this place
has a reputation. After sitting down for a few minutes Scott notices the
clientel is mainly older white men and skinny young ticas flaunting their
stuff. After dinner we walked into the casino section and then it was much
more apparent. That was a tourist scene we weren't planning on being a part of.
Our last couple of nights we spent at a cool hotel called KAP's Guesthouse.
Hammocks all over the place and a cute 6 year old running around keeping things
active. There we met a father-son couple from Florida. The last morning we
were there he cooked a wonderful breakfast of apple-banana french toast with
mango syrup. yummmmmmmm.
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