Do you know the way to San Jose?
Saturday, January 26th, 2008Day 82
Jordana kept singing that tune as we made our way to the Costa Rican capital. Neither one of us knew any other words to the song and yes we do realize its about the another San Jose. We departed Ometepe early morning in our attempt to make it all the way to San Jose. We took 2 buses, 3 taxis and a boat but we finally arrived in San Jose around 8pm. The ferry crossing from Ometepe to the mainland was quite rough. We sat on the roof of the boat and at times we were tossed around so much I expected to slide right into the lake. Nothing wakes you up better in the morning than a rocking boat. The Nicaraguan border was chaotic but we eventually walked into Costa Rica where the customs formalities were a breeze. We jumped on a bus easily enough and 8 hours later were at our hostel in San Jose.
When people ask me if I have been to Costa Rica I’m not sure what to really tell them. We decided that we would just blow through Costa Rica. Our reasons, its a very touristy country, much more expensive than the rest of central America and so many of the attractions we have already experienced elsewhere or will in Panama. As I once read for every monkey you see in Costa Rica you’ll see 10 in Panama. So we are spending 2 nights here and spent our one full day walking around the city with Jonathan looking for a bus company that had a direct bus to David, Panama. I can tell you that San Jose is a bit nicer than the other Central American capitals, however that’s not saying much. They do have a nice pedestrian street though. Still at night the streets are deserted and its a must to take taxis everywhere.
That’s about all I can say about San Jose, oh they do have good Chinese food and the spring like climate is pleasant. So that’s Costa Rica for us, we are taking buses from the far north to far south so really I guess I could say we saw all of the country. Even though it was only over two days. Oh and of course if we ever get into a game of passport stamp poker at least we have added another stamp. Farewell Costa Rica, we hardly even knew ya.
Michael Coroneos