Costa Rica trip insights and highlights: Part 1 (28 June – 3 uly)

Hey everyone, a lot in this post is of a more personal nature rather than a general travel blog post, so you might just choose to skip it. Furthermore, those of you who do not know me closely may not realize that I’m actually a Costa Rican citizen, so my experience traveling back to Costa Rica was primarily to see old friends and take care of various items of personal business rather than to have a typical travel discovery experience. Regardless, you still may find something of value, and you are certainly most cordially invited to continue following along with some of my adventures.

My trip back to Costa Rica started with a 5 euro bus ticket to the airport from Atocha station. I’m not really sure why, but my Madrid pass didn’t work for that one. However it was easy to tap my international card from India and we were on our way. People told me I was being overly cautious, but it was a good thing I got there three hours ahead of time. Both check-in and security took quite a long time, and had I arrived later, I would have missed the flight. Despite the slow progress, everyone was friendly, and I didn’t feel especially stressed.

As I was worried about the food on IberoJet, I bought a quick snack to take on board. There was no time to eat anything more since they were already finishing up with boarding when I arrived to the gate.

Despite the stringent travel rules listed on their website, for the future I’ll know that IberoJet actually seems to be far less restrictive with their luggage rules than they claim. They didn’t weigh anyone’s carry-on bag, and standard maximum size carry on bags seemed to be acceptable. Furthermore, despite being expressly forbidden, they allowed both a personal item and separate carry on bag to be taken onto the plane. Still, I was actually happy to be traveling with so little.

Boarding went according to schedule, but then we ended up sitting on the runway for a bit over 2.5 hours, once more due to passengers arriving late from other planes (They were only an hour late, but we had missed our runway spot so had to wait for ground control to find us a new spot.) As mentioned in an earlier post, this seems to now be much more normal than has been my experience with past years of international travel. So, it was actually 5:30 PM when we finally lifted off.

Even though it was such a budget travel option, the economy seats were reasonably comfortable and there was a full in flight entertainment system, albeit with mostly rather old movies and television series. Still, the selection seemed alright.

I watched two movies, Tides (2021) which was a bit predictable, but fine for an airplane movie and The Farewell (2019) which was actually very good. Honestly I had wanted to sleep most of the trip, but it just wasn’t happening. In retrospect, as I ended up arriving at 7:20 PM instead of 5:00 PM which had originally been programmed, it’s probably better that I didn’t sleep. That way I was more prepared to sleep properly at night.

Perhaps the most amazing thing on the plane was this woman who was intensely doing word searches the entire trip! Her ternacity was admirable. The way she went at it, you would have thought she was working out a solution to a complex equation. I wondered, would I get to her age, and if I did, would some guy in his late forties be examining me out of the corner of his eye? Would I still be happily traveling across the ocean as she was? I hope so.

Two hours and twenty minutes before arrival they did the complimentary snack service.

The snack which was served near the end of the flight.

The meal which was served shortly after take off. Notice the utensils; supposedly they weren’t plastic, but I couldn’t figure out their material.

During the snack, now resigned to not being able to sleep, I watched Charm City Kings (2020). I couldn’t actually decide if it was a good movie or not. Yes, it was impactful, but I couldn’t tell how much of it was supposed to be showing something real vs. how much of it was some sort of broken sad fantasy of life for a certain segment of the population in the United States

Upon arrival to Costa Rica and clearing immigration, even though it was already 8:00 PM, I decided to take two buses from the airport to my Airbnb in San Pedro. Doing this saved me roughly 45 USD but I would also have to walk roughly one kilometer through San Jose to catch the second bus. Metropolitan buses in Costa Rica are paid for using cash, generally not offering anything larger than a 2000 colon bill, but many times they will let you use a 5000. This was easy enough for me to manage and certainly possible even for someone who had never before been to Costa Rica, but I’m not sure I would advise it.

It works well if you only have a small bag, but would be very tricky with standard checked luggage. Of course, if by chance you are simply heading to the center of San Jose or Alajuela (only one bus) then it is even easier. While metropolitan area buses in Costa Rica are generally clean, affordable and efficient; the problem is that you have to either ask people where the stops are or already have a good idea ahead of time. Google maps won’t help you with the local bus lines and there are no reliable maps of the routes. So if you plan on using public transport in Costa Rica, which I highly recommend, you will have to be comfortable asking people for directions, and most of the time you will need to be able to do so in Spanish. However, Costa Ricans are generally very understanding of broken Spanish and will try to help you find your way.

It was right at 10:00 PM when I finally arrived to my lodging which was in a private home (Airbnb) about a half of a kilometer south of the center of San Pedro. My hostess was kindly waiting for me and I gratefully immediately crashed on my comfortable full size bed to sleep.

I woke up early the morning of the 29th to discover it was still drizzling, just as it had been the previous evening. I confirmed with my good friend Marco that we would meet later in the morning to have lunch. But before doing so I had an important errand, a visit to Paragüeria Rego!

The Rego umbrella factory is a Costa Rican institution. This is perhaps not surprising in a country where it rains heavily between 8-9 months a year.

They take umbrellas very seriously, and they even have a repair station. A properly cared for Rego umbrella can easily serve you for ten years or more.

Rego has a wide variety of styles and sizes. They are more expensive than cheap imported umbrellas from Asia, but they take deserved pride in their products, because they are high quality. If you buy nothing else in Costa Rica, I suggest you pick up a Rego umbrella. Take proper care of it and it will take good care of you for a lifetime. I paid 12,500 colones (18 USD) for my mini-golf umbrella which opens up to golf umbrella size but collapses into a size easily able to carry in a large purse or similar sized bag.

The company was great and the ambience pleasant.

Lunch for two at La Parrilita de Pepe was 14700 colones (21 USD). The food was “good” but I don’t think I will be going back. You can have much better in Costa Rica. But still, a lot of people like coming here.

After lunch, Marco had errands to run and I decided to wander around San Jose for awhile.

This statue, Al viento by Manuel Vargas M, marks the west entrance to the central avenue boulevard.

Costa Rica’s oldest continuously functioning hospital, San Juan de Dios, is diagonal to the Al Viento statue. This was the hospital I used to always go to in San Jose.

One block to the east of the San Juan de Dios hospital is the La Merced church.

It had been years since I had actually entered La Merced church (I think it officially has another name, but most people just call it the La Merced church), so I decided to see if I could go in to look around. It’s not one of the main “showcase” churches of Costa Rica, but it’s well known and has always been one of my favorites. The main doors were closed, but I was able to enter using the side entrance.

Notice the delicate, intricately hand painted pillars and the classic “mosaico” floors.

I actually find the rich wood ceiling slats to be just as beautiful as the heavily painted ceilings seen in many other traditional churches.

Then I continued my walk up towards the San Pedro bus stop, passing through the main part of central San Jose.

This sculpture to honor the work of street cleaners is found in Central Park.

Soon after, heavy rains started once again, and I headed back to my room for the night, getting in bed by 8:00 PM. I was tired!

The next day, July 30th, I met my dear friend Carolyn for lunch at San Pedro Mall. This is not really a classy destination, but most of Costa Rica is not at all wheelchair friendly, and Carolyn can now only go out in a wheelchair. We wanted some place nearby where we could get something to eat and also walk around a bit, being protected from the probable rains, as we visited and also looked for a few small items that Carolyn needed to buy. Her full time helper Guillermina, a woman with whom I was very impressed, came along to ensure Carolyn wouldn’t have any problems while we were out being sociable.

We were able to find all of Carolyn’s purchases, including size 42 women’s “smart casual” shoes! This last one was a particular treasure since Costa Ricans tend to have smaller feet, and anything larger than a 40 is extremely rare for women.

The only thing we couldn’t find was a new laptop computer which Carolyn’s daughter had asked me to look for; however, we were able to confirm that Carolyn would feel comfortable using a large laptop form factor. This was also important because Kathryn (Carolyn’s daughter in Texas) wanted to give her mom a new computer, but she knew Carolyn would need help transferring her old files etc. As such, I had agreed to find the computer for Carolyn, and help get it ready, with Kathryn transferring me the money afterwards. I was disappointed we couldn’t buy it right away, but I now knew what to look for on my own.

Around 4:00 PM Carolyn wasn’t feeling that great, so we decided to head back to her house. There we visited for a bit longer and she played some of her favorite hymns on the piano.

Afterwards I had a simple traditional dinner and a beer at a nearby “soda”, paying only 3800 CRC (5.5 USD) and then headed back to my room to sleep.

Yes, that’s a “double size” beer. Pilsen is one of the two main national beer brands.

Despite my best efforts to the contrary, I was once again up at 5:00 AM on July 1st. As it had been more than 15 years since I had visited the Jade museum, I decided to reacquaint myself with this interesting site. I entered at about 8:20 AM.

Whereas many people will tell you there is no point in visiting San Jose, I vehemently disagree. Removing San Jose from your trip to Costa Rica is the equivalent of treating the entire country of Costa Rica like an amusement park. Yes, Costa Rica’s natural beauty is the main draw for tourists, but the city of San Jose also has a good deal to offer. Most notably, especially for such a small country, San Jose has a vibrant performing arts scene. Additionally, San Jose also has some outstanding museums.

If you could only visit one, I would probably have to recommend the Gold museum. However, the Jade museum is also a great cultural addition to any trip, and it can easily be fully appreciated with just a couple of hours. The stated entrance fee for non-nationals is 10 USD, but as a citizen I only paid 5 USD. While they don’t publicly state it, special admission fees can be arranged for student groups. Similar to many museums worldwide, you can easily access an audio guide to the museum on your smartphone, but this one is completely free; it is available in born Spanish and English.

There is no advantage to starting your visit on the first vs the fifth floor, so I decided to start at the top and work my way down. I appreciate that the fifth floor is open to the public, but it is more of a tidy storeroom than an exhibit hall. This is primarily a space for researchers, but the general public also has limited access.

There aren’t many explanatory signs as this is primarily meant to be a space for researchers, but artists in particular would appreciate the convenient grouping which facilitates the recognition of key artistic elements from different time periods and geographic regions.

You can even open the many drawers, and I encourage you to do so.

Moving down to the fourth floor, you find that one half of the space is dedicated to honoring specific important women from Costa Rica’s history. The other half approaches jade and pottery with a focus on gender, similar to the other exhibition on this floor, highlighting the role of women in prehistoric Costa Rica.

In addition to the audio guide, throughout the museum there are these conveniently located video guides which give more information about specific sections. While the video guides are ostensibly for children, they are also useful for adult visitors. Audio is in Spanish with English subtitles.

Each of the other floors has a specific emphasis. I won’t go into all of the details since the museum webpage had extensive information which is easy to access. Still, there were some items which drew my attention.

While not “jade related” I was impressed with the work done by the curators to rescue and document the quality work done by female painters in Costa Rica. Without this effort, most of these artists would have been completely forgotten.

The gift shop was sad and seemed like an afterthought. It was also a definite missed opportunity to sell classy jade reproductions. This can definitely be improved.

I was finished by 10:15 AM and then tried to go by the social security office to check on some personal business. Unfortunately, almost two months later, they still aren’t taking regular consultations due to a massive hacking attack by two different Russian groups. Daily operations have been mostly restored, but they are still having problems with full administrative functions. As that didn’t work out, I decided to meet up again with my friend Marco so we could get some lunch and then continue on the hunt for a new computer for Carolyn.

We decided to get a simple, but ample lunch at the Bourbon market. For two people it was only 3000 CRC (4.30 USD)

Computer stores are now hard to find in Costa Rica, and I was starting to get discouraged. I had the option of buying online, but I really wanted a physical store as I thought this would be easier for warranty purposes and possible future repairs. I commented to Marco about this and he mentioned that he was very happy with the laptop he had bought from PC Store right in the center of San Jose, and the cost had also been affordable.

Success! I was able to get a brand new 17 inch HP Windows 11 laptop with 8 gb of RAM for right at 500 USD. It wasn’t particularly powerful, but more than enough for Carolyn’s needs and with a large monitor which would be greatly appreciated. Within 4 hours it was all setup in Carolyn’s home and she was very happy with the new gift from her daughter.

Carolyn had been worried about switching to a laptop from her old desktop with a CRT monitor, but she handled the transition like a trooper. She still preferred the old keyboard and mouse, but that was easy enough to leave connected via USB.

Guillermina prepared a wholesome meal which we all three enjoyed together.

I then headed to downtown San Jose to go to one of the many independent theatres. That’s one of the biggest things I love about this city. While most of the independent theatres have low brow comedy, even that frequently has deeper messages. Regardless, I think it’s amazing that so many theater groups are active in such a relatively small city. Shows are usually Thursday to Friday, so I figured I would be able to find something decent.

As I was looking at the offerings, I heard a voice call out (in Spanish); David, it’s me, David Josué. How have you been? David Josué was one of my two best friends in Costa Rica for many years, but due to various circumstances, we had completely lost contact for more than 7 years! There will be more about him tomorrow.

Some street art near a cluster of independent theatres.

I finally decided on Teatro Torres, even though it wasn’t actually a theatrical performance that night. It was a standup comedy night with four amateur comedians. It was a bit vulgar at times, but that’s typical of independent theatres in Costa Rica (and of much standup comedy everywhere), so it wasn’t that much of a surprise. Still, for only 4000 CRC (5.85 USD) with 2.25 hours of entertainment in relatively comfortable seats, it was definitely worth it. Also, given that they said upfront that most of them had never been on stage before, allowances had to be made.

Then I headed back to my room with the plan of meeting up with David Josué the next day at 1:00 PM at my favorite Korean restaurant in downtown San Jose.

On July 2nd I was once more up early and headed to the Curridabat branch of BNCR (National bank of Costa Rica), as it is open early on Saturday and I had some customer service issues to resolve. Since it was only about 1.5 km away and fortunately not raining, I decided to just walk over.

This space saucer looking place is called the national archive. I have no idea what is actually in there.

The streets were mostly empty at 8:30 AM

It was easy to take care of my issue with BNCR, but also a bit disturbing. The online banking system had been acting up the last several days and $1000 USD appeared to be missing from my account. Hopefully they get this problem fixed quickly since the entire point of online banking is that you shouldn’t need to frantically go in person! Still, at least in my case it got worked out quickly and then I grabbed a bus to downtown San José.

Yes, I know this photo makes me seem like a scary stalker.

WOW!, a bus driver who was a woman! I’ve never before seen a woman who was working as a bus driver in Costa Rica. It was the Zapote-San Jose route. Really, I was very excited to see that. Maybe it’s not a job that most women want, but it’s great to see that it now seems to be accepted fine in Costa Rica. Nobody seemed to be surprised to see her (except for me of course).

Once I arrived to the center, I walked towards the restaurant. On the way I passed by the national theatre and checked to see if there was anything on for the evening, but I didn’t notice any shows being publicized. Here there are frequently concerts, dance presentations and very occasionally a play. It’s been some time since I went there, but prices tend to be accessible to the general public. Unlike what happens at the independent theatres, productions here are understandably far more serious, with both high quality international and domestic presentations.

Like in most plazas across the world, there are pigeons galore. Even though it’s posted that feeding them is prohibited, there is clearly a reason that they still congregate.

Large student groups like these are super common during the period from June-July. This isn’t really considered “the best” time to visit Costa Rica, but it’s when they have long vacations.

View of the front of the national theatre

David Josué and I met at 1:00 pm for lunch at a great Korean restaurant called Fritos. The ambience isn’t amazing and the menu is limited, but everything is tasty and reasonably priced. It was completely packed when we were there.

We spent about two hours just catching up. Even after more than seven years with no contact, it was as if we had never been apart. That’s when you know that you are real lifelong friends. Ideally the lapses in time wouldn’t happen, but if you can pick back up right where your left with no awkwardness, then that’s an amazing feeling. Afterwards, for a change of scenery, we decided to head over to Mall San Pedro where we continued sharing until 9:00 PM! As I had mentioned earlier, this mall isn’t fancy, but it definitely serves it’s social purpose.

We finished up the evening with dinner at Revolución.

And with that the day was basically over and I headed back to my room for the last time. The next morning I once again easily took the bus to the airport and headed off to Virginia where I would be visiting with my brother Chris and sister Angie.

Again, sorry for the long post, and if you were hoping for a more touristy entry, then oops, but then you were warned at the beginning! My trip to Costa Rica (which will continue for a few more days after my visit to the USA) was probably very different from what yours might be, but I think you will still find it’s a great place to visit. If you have any questions or comments, just let me know in the space indicated below, and if your are really interested in what travels come next, just hit the subscribe button. Until next time, I hope your own lives are going well. See you soon!