Welcome to Costa Rica

Sunday, November 22, 2015 Zsoltiii 1 Comments

San Jose was a bit of a culture shock for us, especially for Dani, as we flew in from the wonderfully pretty Hawaiian Islands to the capital city of Costa Rica, in the dark. Getting on the cramped local bus, the chaotic traffic, the noises of the city and the staring local faces made us feel a bit uneasy. In the clouds of exhaust fumes and tropical rain, eventually, managed to find our hotel after about half an hour walk from the bus terminal.

We planned to stay there only for a couple of days, so next morning the first objective was to find the bus station to La Fortuna. There is no central or main bus terminal, depending on the destination, the bus stop you need can be anywhere in downtown in a 20 block radius. Even though we felt much better than the night before, Dani was still uncomfortable that we did not always knew where we were, nor the location of the terminal we needed. I wasn’t that confident either to take my camera on the first trip to town, so apologies but there are not many sightseeing photos of San Jose..


Having lunch at the central market, we did realise that firstly, Costa Rica is not cheap, prices are pretty similar to that in Hungary, secondly that the portions are huge! We also discovered that there is a reason why you don’t come across with Costa Rican restaurants or cookbooks all over the world. The reason being is that there are three kind of food. Rice and beans (casado), rice and beans mixed together (gallo pinto) and rice with some kind of meat, typically chicken (arroz con pollo). That’s it. When we write this, two weeks into our Central American adventures, we still like them, even though there are days when we eat rice and beans twice a day. Strange.

 One of the few highlights of the city centre was the Museo de Oro, a nice display of pre-colombian life and art.

We were so desperate for some good coffee, as we were is Costa Rica after all, and coffee in Hawaii was like hot piss, that in the evening we went out for a quest to find the no 1 cafe in San Jose that luckily happened to be in our neighbourhood.

The area looked like the district of Kõbánya in Budapest, but was full of with trendy bars and restaurants, where the local yuppies and better off university students hang out. Remy, the barrista at Cafeoteca was super friendly and his passion for coffee was overwhelming.


The next day we went on a trip to visit a nearby coffee plantation, again, so sooner or later we need to conclude what we have seen there and the other plantations in Hawaii in an upcoming post.

After the Doka farm, we went to see (or rather not to see in the thick clouds) the Poas Volcano, one of the many actives volcano around the capital city.

Due to the acid rain thanks to the sulfur emitted from numerous vents, the vegetation near the crater varies between lush rainforest and dead, sorry trees.


In the afternoon we headed to La Paz Waterfall Gardens, which turned out to be a fantastic place, a combination of animal refuge, a botanic garden and trails in a tropical jungle scattered with waterfalls.


What a great day it was! The next morning we were on our way on a local bus towards La Fortuna, to see some more volcanoes... but that's another story.



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