Joanna Biggar's Blog

San Jose

Only a week ago, we were leaving the steamy, exotic low-lying jungle to fly into San Jose for the weekend. Arriving in our little turbo-prop and flying in low gave us a really good sense of the layout of the city. A sea of tin-roofed shanty towns surrounding some “modern” and older, more attractive quarters in the heart of the capital. The Ticos will tell you that the shantytowns all belong to Nicaraguans, and they are the cause of the city’s well-publicized crime, too.  The journalist in me listens with one ear cocked.

     Happily Doug had made reservations in a hotel, the San Tomas, which he had already discovered. The private home of a former coffee baron, it was built over 100 years ago and had the high-ceilinged, antique-laden charm of a similar home in New Orleans, that is, BK, Before Katrina. The manager was a very affable, hip young guy with excellent English who was most excited that we were from the Bay Area, the home of his favorite band. He’d waited a dozen years to hear them live, and they are playing in San Jose in February. Metallica. He was over the moon.

   It was lovely to have great weather, a shower with actual hot water, a swimming pool, and a nice restaurant attached to the hotel so we didn’t have to be on the streets at night, an activity strongly frowned upon. As it was, a guy tried to grab my purse a block from the hotel during daylight, but I proved to be a tougher mama than he bargained for, and also let out a growl in several languages.

  Despite that incident, we thoroughly enjoyed walking alot: through the charming, artsy Aron district filled with charming old hotels (The Hemingway!) similar to ours, and tree-lined streets; to the town center and the very Baroque National Theater Building; to the great pedestrian shopping street in the center of town, where we found book stores and great ice cream; and finally to the National Museum. It is essentially the Costa Rican history museum, situated in the house of the former “Commadore,” and sporting a sort of Moorish tower. I loved the displays of pre-Columbian times especially, and the array of indigenous art, much of it in beautiful gold work.

     We also hit parks, an exceedingly seedy section of town near the Coca Cola Bus Station, the great transportation hub of the country, and one of the best restaurants we’ve ever found…a French, Latin, fusion place, Kalu, attached to an art gallery and very near our hotel. It was another incomparable recommendation of our friend Lenny, who among other things is a food writer, restaurant critic and great raconteur. 

After endless confusion about getting a van to take us to Monteverde, one arrived early Sunday morning, and we were off. Four and a half hours on national highways and other, more rustic, roads, and we again reached a different world.