The Way to San Jose

Fortress of the Museo Nacional Costa Rica, San Jose

We had what amounted to nine waking hours in San José, the capital of Costa Rica. We’d never been to a large city in Central America before, and now we have a better idea of what faded grandeur, a huge population, a vibrant art scene, a lot of concrete, a long swath of parks and a glut of cheap goods can do to a place.

But to be fair, we already had a shorthand advantage: we live in Los Angeles.

On the last two days of our Costa Rica trip, we were faced with two options:

Option #1. Take a 40-minute drive from the Osa Peninsula’s El Remanso wildlife lodge to the small airport in Puerto Jiménez. Hop on an hour’s flight to a small airport in San José, then catch a ride to the larger airport in San José. Arrive in time for an international flight…at 7am.

Option#2. Taking into account that 1) Nature Air‘s first daily flight from PJ to San José leaves at 7:10am, and 2) Option #1 seems insane, leave the Osa Peninsula a day early to include a half-day’s sightseeing and an overnight in San José.

We went with Option #2, in case that’s not abundantly clear.

Arriving in San José at the comfortable hour of 12:30pm, we took Nature Air up on their offer a van tour/ride to our hotel ($20US). Our guide, Tico, a middle-aged man who had lived his whole life in the city, launched into a scripted journey through his hometown that encompassed the recent election of the country’s first female president, embassies from around the world, Costa Rica’s focus on eco-tourism, the construction of a new Chinese-financed national soccer stadium and a whole network of parks across downtown.

Tired after what had already been a long morning (take another look at Option #1), we asked if he could recommend a good place to stop for coffee. Misunderstanding our desire for beverages, he took us by downtown’s busy Mercado Central to Café Trébol to buy fresh-roasted Costa Rican coffee in bean rather than brewed form. Half-disappointed, we bought a couple of big, fragrant bags for the bargain price of 3000 colones ($6US) apiece.

Note: We ultimately preferred the rich aroma to the bitter taste. Adam gave one to our java-obsessed friend, who said it tastes like marijuana…and asked where he might get some more. We pointed him towards, well, Café Trébol.

Cafe Trebol in downtown San Jose has been roasting its own beans since the early 1900s

Tico also pointed out all the elegant Teatro Nacional (“you have here dee finest beel-ding in all of Costa Rrricaah”); the tourist market a couple of blocks away; the great big yellow Museo Nacional de Costa Rica, perched like a fortress on a hilltop; the city’s main library, and more. Not a bad way to get downtown through brutal lunchtime traffic and learn a little something along the way.

The facade and lobby of the Teatro Nacional

The big yellow fortress of the Museo Nacional de Costa Rica

Once deposited at the Don Carlos Hotel downtown, I felt a flurry of excitement about the sheer number of orchids in the otherwise kitschy lobby, but would soon realize that $90US (per night) doesn’t buy much service in this town.

The website? Cute, lots of focus on the lovely courtyard in back. The reality? After ten minutes of check-in and airport-ride arrangements for the next morning, we hoofed our bags to the third floor (there’s no elevator), entering a small, spare, scruffy room that faces a scruffier side street. Finding it even hotter than the swelter of the great San José outdoors, we found we couldn’t turn on the AC without a remote. Which was missing.

So, because Adam is a good and kind man, he hoofed it back to the lobby and reported said missing remote to the front desk guy (with whom we’d just spent ten minutes). Adam was told, unblinkingly, that they’re kept behind the front desk. Brilliant.

The lobby and facade of the Hotel Don Carlos in downtown San Jose

The good news? That air conditioner got cold but fast. And wi-fi was free. And there were two TV channels with over-the-top Latin American music videos. And the hotel recycles plastic and paper. So it’s got that going for it.

For lunch, we took Tico’s recommendation for a local place to eat, a sandwich-salad-pastry joint called Spoon. Part of a San José-only chain, the location we chose was one block from the Teatro Nacional along the pedestrian-only Avenida Central. Spoon may have lacked romantic ambience, but we were the only Americans in the place and had a darn tasty sit-down lunch of a shared sandwich, rich lattes and little handmade pastries (for two, $15 US).

Spoon, along downtown's Avenida Central, is one of a city-only chain

Around downtown's Mercado and Avenida Central

For dinner that night, we walked two blocks from our hotel to Café Mundo, described by Tico as a popular local spot set in a rambling gingerbread house with a wraparound porch. We had no reservation and there were no open tables on the porch, so we took our seats on the less-sexy side patio. We were surprised to find a big menu in four languages; Mundo is far from undiscovered. The mojitos were only fair and the food middling (e.g., our pizza crust was dry and tasteless), but our service was smooth and the people-watching was without compare. Young locals on dates making questionable fashion choices, big families helping each other eat dinner, groups of gay men with crisp dress shirts and fine bottles of wine, and much more. We’d go back for a reserved porch table and recommendations for a better meal (for two, $60US).

When we weren’t eating, we spent our day in San José roaming across parks, up small side streets, and past faded-glory architecture from the 1880s to the 1940s. It seems like a lot of careful thought went into how the central city was laid out, with mostly low buildings, wide avenues and green space. However, time hasn’t been gentle: the city is spiked with view-killing skyscrapers from the ’60s and ’80s, and its more antique elements feel half-crumbled, half-vibrant, full of fancy mansions that in many cases could use a coat of paint.

There's a long string of parks across downtown San Jose

San Jose has a mix of architecture, old and new -- and not all of it pretty

That paint is instead applied to lots of colorful street murals, which led us to believe that this town is full of artists, busy creating a more modern there here. It would be fun to return one day, pick up a copy of the Tico Times for an exhibition guide and gallery-hop our way across the city.

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See also

Images of Western Costa Rica
Western Costa Rica: Anatomy of a Vacation
Hotel Sugar Beach: A Sweet Stay in Costa Rica
Si Como No: Yes and No
Strolling Through Hacienda Baru
The Roads Less Driven: An Osa Peninsula Journey
El Remanso: The Best Seat in the Rainforest
Taking Flight in Costa Rica
TWT Travel Binder: Costa Rica