The noise of San Jose

19 December 2010

The noise of San Jose

The glass at the San Jose airport arrivals may have been dirty and smudged, but I had no trouble spotting Jonas’ smiling face when I walked out. It’s always wonderful to arrive in a foreign country and have a friend waiting there. After working an exhausting two weeks straight in the hospital, squeezing in a visit to San Antonio the day before, and getting up at 5am to catch my flight, I was beyond tired. It made it that much nicer than Jonas had met me at the airport so I didn’t have to try to use my sleep deprived brain to navigate downtown.

For one dollar, we took a 20 minute local bus ride from the airport to the bustling center of San Jose. I had booked a hostel, at Jonas’ recommendation, at the end of a long shopping promenade in San Jose. It was Sunday afternoon, and the locals were out in hordes. The women had stuffed their bodies like sausages into skin-tight jeans and mini skirts but with muffin tops hanging out the top. The men had heavily gelled slick hair. And it seemed that every other woman was pregnant.

Hostel la Cuesta was located on a quiet street just off the main drag. It was a colorful house with basic but clean rooms. I had a private double room for about $25. As soon as we dropped off the bags, I insisted on getting some food to eat. All I had eaten all day was a tasteless egg pita on the airplane and I was starving. Jonas and I stopped at one of the first decent looking restaurant that wasn’t a McDonalds or a KFC. One had to all but tackle the waitress to get her attention. Finally she brought us some menus. I looked at what the family at the table next to us was eating, and decided I wanted that. I ordered a tropical fruit smoothie containing fruits of which I’d never heard and to go with that, the classic Costa Rica cosada meal which consists of a meat of your choice (pork in my case), rice, beans, plantains, yucca, and some other vegetables. Fortunately the food arrived with speed and soon my blood was flooded with happy little glucose molecules. I felt good!

After Jonas and I finished lunching and catching up, we went back to the crowded promenade for a post-meal stroll. There were all kinds of performers in the street including a Peruvian style band complete with Native American headdresses, a lone guitarist playing and singing classic rock hits, and I even spotted a fat & round lady dressed in a full clown costume. She wasn’t performing, just eating, or maybe that itself was her special act.

Just after I commented on how San Jose was not a very festively decorated for Christmas, we stumbled upon a holiday craft market. Vendors were selling all kinds of artsy items, but most were made out of recycled items. Costa Ricans do pride themselves on trying to be ecological. I met a cute, bubbly girl with perfect English who was selling her barrettes and headbands which were decorated with leaves and tree bark. She told me of her dream to help the planet through her work. I couldn’t resist but buy a few of her crafts.

After I had shopped enough and indulged in a latte and very rich dessert, called torta chilena, that must have contained at least one stick of butter, we started heading back towards my hostel. On the way, we visited another market which sold the typical Latin American souvenirs like coffee beans, woven hammocks, paintings of tropical scenes, and Hawaiian print sundresses. After that, we followed our ears to a performance in the middle of a square. There was some kind of celebration underway, commemorating the 165th anniversary of an agency of justice. There was an orchestra playing mostly Latin but also some Caribbean and Calypso music. The locals seemed to be enjoying it, some even partner dancing in front of the performers.

When the show ended, Jonas and I headed back to the hostel. He tried to help me figure out how I might best spend my short five day visit to Costa Rica. There were so many interesting places to see but so little time, especially since the buses in the country are slow moving. I decided that the Nicoya peninsula, in the northwestern corner of the country, might be my best option. There was a 6am bus to the southern beach towns on the peninsula and I decided I’d give it a try.

After Jonas left to meet his girlfriend at a play, I went out for another stroll down the promenade for a dinner snack. As I walked out of my hostel, I could hear the sounds of drums and chanting coming from the Hare Krishna temple across the street. They had been going strong in there, chanting, for the last 4 hours minimum. The streets were still bustling with locals. Men were yelling and cheering as they poured out of bars in football jerseys, clearly after the victory of a Costa Rica match. I grabbed a pastry stuffed with jamon and queso to eat and headed back to the hostel. I still had some travel research to do before I could get to bed.

When I finally decided to go to sleep, the hostel and area around seemed to erupt into nose. What earlier seemed like a quiet hostel, turned out to be very loud. There was a very inconsiderate British woman staying in the adjacent room with a 2 year old girl. She incessantly chattered away loudly to her daughter, banging on the walls of the room to play with her, and singing her loud songs while they showered together. The TV blared down the hall. A loud American girl arrived late to the room across the hall. And as a culmination to this cacophony, there was a fireworks show being set off about a block away followed by a loud performance of Christmas songs. I was so thankful for my earplugs which fortunately allowed me to get some rest before my 4:45 alarm went off.