Thanks to Jetlag, we woke early, but this did mean that we got to see the sunrise at 05:30 😅
We spent a couple of hours getting organised, figuring out where to get cash and a SIM card, organising our luggage a bit, that sort of thing. By 7am we were having breakfast and by 8am we were walking over to the local shopping center. Unfortunately the ATMs appeared to be on the inside and, being a Sunday, the center would only open at 11. So we headed back to the Hard Rock Cafe where we saw an ATM the day before, but which took a larger fee – ah well, so be it.
Cashed up, we jumped into a Taxi into San José. We opted for the Taxi rather than driving ourselves because we expected that the traffic in the city would be something beyond my day-1-in-cost-rica driving skills and we didn’t want to waste time looking for a place to park.
We walked through the town from park to park, and as luck would have it today was the day after “Dia de Los Difuntos”, the day of the dead or all souls day, so there was quite the party atmosphere in some places. As we were at one town square, the road suddenly got closed by lots of Police all around us. We worried only for a second, and then saw several hundred bike riders progress through town… We still have no idea why, but it was fun. A few people even seemed to dress up for the event, though most people seemed to just be riding their bike casually down the road.
After the bike-progression we walked through the cultural park, where, amongst other things, there were these giant angel wings. Could not resist a silly photo opp… Not long later Manja pushed a girl on a swing in a picture.
As the clouds started to settle in, we debated whether we should go to the Gold or the Jade Museum. So we decided to just see if we can fit both in, heading to the Gold museum first. The museum was pretty good, with information on coins, medals and general minting, as well as the historical context of Gold including information on the original inhabitants of Costa Rica. The building was also somewhat amazing, at first I assumed that it was an old bankvault, but as it turned out, the building was custom built to house this museum. I really enjoyed this museum, though some of the gold pieces did get a bit repetitive after the first couple of hundred 😉
After that we headed to the Jade museum, which is in this fancy new building, and had quite a high price-tag. With little signage we made the mistake of starting at the top of the museum, which was a whole floor of ancient pottery… With little or no context or signage. As we proceeded down the levels we understood: you should start at the bottom, where the exhibits are explained in great detail and using all sorts of technological aids. The museum gives you information on how ancient people lived in Costa-rica, the process of making jade things as well as an appreciation for how society was structured. I felt like I had a better understanding from the Gold Museum, which I would definitely recommend over the Jade museum.
Pretty exhausted from a day of walking around we jumped back into a Taxi to head back. It was only 10 minutes into the ride that we realised the Meter wasn”t running, so it would likely be a pretty expensive ride. Turns out that was so, the ride back was about 5€ more expensive. But given the prices were pretty reasonable to start with this didn’t bother us too much. By now the shopping center was open and we found the entrance – which looked like the entrance to the parking lot, but entered directly to the food courts instead 😂
We were just stopping by to get a SIM card for our phones, so that we could reliably use google maps and search for things on the fly. We walked back to our hotel and dropped off our things before heading out for Dinner around 5pm. Hey, we skipped lunch and started early 😉
When we got back we were both totally exhausted. Jetlag meant that we had trouble even keeping our eyes open, but we still forced ourselves to stay up to 8pm. Just before dropping into bed I thought it would be a good opportunity to drop my phone and install the spider app… Yup, cracked the whole screen. Grand. On that slightly negative note to an otherwise beautiful day, we dropped into bed.
Loved Arc angle Simoneus 😀 bummer about the cracked phone screen!