What exactly brings me to San Jose in the first place? Sometime in the spring of 2006 I learned that my sister would be spending the year post-graduation in Costa Rica, teaching English as a second language to people there. She left in late summer, returned shortly after that due to a medical emergency, then went back to Costa Rica to finish her training and begin her job.

So for the last ten months Cristine had been working in the San Jose area putting her Spanish degree to use by teaching English classes (and getting better at Spanish all the while; I'm intensely jealous). Now, shortly into her time there she called me with this hair-brained idea. The conversation went something like this:

• C: So, I was thinking, when I get done with this job in June you should come down here and we can backpack around Costa Rica for a couple of weeks before I return home. You'd like that, right?
• S: Umm...well...
• C: Come on, Shawn, you're the only person I know that would enjoy that kind of thing with me. Most of my friends won't do it; they like to stay in hotels. But you'd stay in hostels and live out of a backpack. You did it in Europe. It'll be fun.

Somehow she talked me into it. It did begin to sound like a lot of fun (the decision was made easier when a possible trip to Spain with the Chamber Choir fell through). A couple of weeks in Costa Rica, I may like that.

Wait, only a couple of weeks...in just Costa Rica...I thought you went for a month and covered all of Central America?

Oh, yes, that. Well, that's just how conversations with my sister go sometimes. The next time I called her it had gone from Costa Rica to Central America and she was asking if we could do a month instead of a couple of weeks. Oh, my...(well, we see how it turned out, yes?)

By that Christmas we'd each gotten a copy of Lonely Planet's Central America on a Shoestring and spent a couple of days curled up in our parents' new sunroom trying to chart out possible stops on our tour.

But let's get back to San Jose. I arrived a few days before we actually left, the plan being for my mom and I to do a few things together, then my sister to return from traveling with her friends, the three of us to pack things up, and then we'd be off and running. But it turned out they didn't really need me for the packing part, which meant I had the day to myself, and though there wasn't much to do in San Jose, I did want to explore the city a bit. So off I went, backpack on and Lonely Planet in hand.

Tuesday, June 5, 2007 (Museo Nacional, San Jose, CR) I am at the National Museum now, in a butterfly garden built into an old courtyard used for shooting practice. The building is the old armory, converted to a museum after the army was disbanded in 1948. There are two main wings, the pre-Columbian section (which was very good, with an amazing amount of amazing artifacts[featured here, details below]) and the colonial and post-colonial/"modern" section (which doesn't give the detail I'd like, but only a rough thumbnail sketch that seems to leave key details out)....

1) I love the fact that the indigenous people of the Costa Rica area had such a free expression of sexuality in their pottery. 2) These are indigenous instruments that have withstood the test of time in preservation. Mostly they are flutes and drums of various sorts. I wanted to take one home.

"When Sibö was working to create the earth and the Bribris and Cabecars, a devil named SorkuLa interfered in his work, bothering him and trying to kill him. This devil had said that the moment he killed Sibö he would blow a cambute shell trumpet from the East, so that his family could come and help bury him. But the ever-wise Sibö realized what was happening and killed the devil instead. Then he turned his face into the devil's, and gave the devil his own. He blew the seashell trumpet, and the devil's family came. Sibö asked them to tear the body to pieces in order to bury it. When they started doing that they realized that was their sibling. Sibö shredded the devil and buried the pieces in various places along Talamanca, gold mines are located in each one of those places. That's why only some people can use gold, and this is done in memory of Sibö's struggle to allow the Indians to be born. -- Legend compiled by Carlos Borge in Kachabrl, Talamanca, in 1985"

A view of San Jose from the museum with the Costa Rican flag flying.

(Restaurante Nuestra Tierra)
On recommendation from Lonely Planet I am at Nuestra Tierra, which looks to be a little pricier than expected (it's a sit-down) but perhaps worth it nonetheless. I fumbled with Spanish at first and am now being spoken to in English. :( I am trying. The place is open-air, with laminated wood-plank tables with newspaper clippings embedded, and clusters of onions and plantains hanging from the ceiling. I wonder what's upstairs.

I started through the Mercado Artesanal. It was a bit more touristy-kitchsky than expected, though there were some nice things. Nothing I really need or want (or can carry), though.

As it turns out, the food was excellent (artfully served on a banana leaf, as promised) but a bit more expensive than a shoestringer's budget allows. I was unsure how much to tip, so I left ˘95 and the equivalent 2-cents of change. It's likely either too much or not enough. [I found out later it was too much; tip is included in Costa Rica -- this would vary throughout each country, I would later learn.]

(post-dinner, aka, the taxi that could)

Going to dinner tonight, we went to an awesome restaurant way up the hill of Escazú [the suburb of San Jose where Cristine lived and we were staying] that's supposed to have a great view of the city. The fog was too think to see (though I could on the way back), but the food was excellent.

On the way there the taxi couldn't make it up the hill. It made it most of the way and stalled, so he rolled back down the hill and tried again -- but the same problem. We were near the crest of the hill so he said to get out because the car could make it alone, but not with all the extra weight of the people. So we did, he pulled up to a flat spot, we walked up, got back in, and he jammed it and crested the hill right to the restaurant.

The next day mom left for the airport and we were off to Monteverde!

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