One Week: San Jose, Wildlife and Volcanoes

Nestled at about 3800 feet above sea level in the central valley of the country lies the largest city in Costa Rica.   About 3 million people live here in San Jose as natives and also as immigrants from all over the world including ex-pats from the USA.  For example, we had our first-ever hot pot for lunch in Chinatown yesterday.  Muy interestante! 

A main street or better labeled a highway runs through the city from north to south.  Because we like to get our steps in, we walked to the historic district and back yesterday, grabbed a bus (once we figured out how to pay) to the area, and walked back another day and may yet ride the bus to the far end of the city tomorrow.

To describe San Jose, I’d say it is modern, has many universities, good bus transportation, has a vast array of shopping opportunities mostly moderate to value-priced selections but it has high-end shops too.  The city is a bit dirty but has lovely clean parks and plazas.  While we feel very secure here, it does look a bit sketchy in certain areas and is especially worrisome for nighttime treks – which we NEVER do, and recommend no one ever do anywhere unless in large groups.  The people here are very nice and welcoming but visitors are obvious, and beware, a taxi driver or a waiter will overcharge tourists in a heartbeat if they think you don’t know any better. . . which is probably true most anywhere.

Our studio apartment is on the 22^nd floor of a lovely new building with a glorious view and a computerized, robotic parking garage.  Open a bay, drive in, touch-in your code and away the car goes into a slot in the tall building that houses 1000 cars in a tiny land footprint. The apartment is conveniently located near restaurants, grocery stores, and the major bus line.  We like it; it’s easy to live here.

Typical weather in Costa Rica is a high of 77 degrees F and a low of 66 and little rain.  We are experiencing an unusual weather system with typical temps but periods of rain every day.  So far on our walks, we have avoided heavy rain but have been misted upon several times.

We found all the major spots in the historic area of the city like the Parque de Nacional, Plaza de Espana, Plaza de Cultura, the National Theatre, Municipal Market of Handcrafts, Catedral Metropolitana, and ended up at the Central Market at about lunchtime.  Here, like many other markets we have visited, there we saw vendors selling fresh meats, poultry, and fish.  Thankfully stalls offering fresh and dried herbs offset the seafood aromas.  Shops for flowers and plentiful fruits and vegetables are on every aisle.  We stopped for lunch at a random booth just across from a fragrant herbs vendor.  I had sopa de marisco and Stan had arroz con pollo.  My soup was mild, with lightly cooked shrimp, a crab for flavor but too small to eat, and a few tiny clams.  It was very good.  Stan’s rice was seasoned well with finely, I mean finely chopped chicken, fries, and a tart cabbage salad.

On our walk home, there is a fancy car shop that had been in business since 1932.  Stan peeked inside and in a darkened corner saw a 1932 Buick that the owner’s grandfather acquired in about 1982 when the car’s owner gave it to the shop because he could not afford the accumulated restoration costs.  Since then the shop has been working on the car on and off ever since.  It is a jewel and although not complete, the restoration looks fabulous.  Stan and the 30-40-ish owner hit it off like buddies by discussing cars, their liters, carburetors, and jugs.  Aside from discussing cars, we learned the young man’s ancestors immigrated to Costa Rica in the 1920s from Belgium in search of a better life and more opportunity.  This is his home but he is worried about his country now.  As we witnessed in Puerto Rica, the cost of living is very high in Costa Rica as it is in much of Central America.  Taxes are high in San Jose (14% sales tax and 40% income tax) and the cost of goods is high – I can attest to that after shopping the local supermercado.  The average income in San Jose is $21,000 per year.  Whew!  How do families survive? 

The government provides Costa Ricans free health care but it is horrible, he said.  Private care and private insurance are much better.  That is something to think about.  Free healthcare can be a national resource when it’s well-managed but a complicated rats nest when it is not.

From the wall of windows in our apartment we look west and face a vast carpet of densely built houses and buildings with corrugated metal roofs below us in all directions.  In the background is a solid border of a tall, rugged-looking mountain range, a string that includes the Tilaran Mountains and Central Mountains.  Early in the morning as the sun rises slowly and shines toward the mountains, the houses are lighted-up, and the mountain peaks can be seen but as the morning blossoms, a cloud bank forms that obscures the mountain tops for the rest of the day.  On the other side of the mountains is the Arenal National Volcano Park which we hope to visit.  And to our south is the Manuel Antonio National Park on the Pacific Coast which we hope we can see in a day trip.

Fast forward . . . we spent three days exploring San Jose which is adequate.  Then in a rental car, we drove to Volcan Poas.  We were so excited. Neither of us has seen an active volcano before.  Costa Rica has over fifty volcanoes, five of which are active, meaning: the last eruption must have occurred within the last 10,000 years. 

The hour-and-a-half drive was interesting as we passed through small pueblos and greenhouse farms of strawberries and cilantro.  Clouds were heavy when we arrived at the Parque Nacional Poas Volcano.  A strong wind had picked up; good, we thought, it might simply blow the clouds away.  Per many sources, on a picture-perfect day, with no “clouds and mist, you’ll see the sulfuric, bubbling, green rain fed lake at the bottom, surrounded by smoke and steam rising from fumaroles.”  Wow!

We walked to the viewing sight with groups of other anxious visitors.  The closer we got, the denser the clouds became.  At the viewing sight, the clouds were even heavier.  Cold mist blew sideways chilling our hands and ears.  Without a falling drop of rain, our hair became damp.  Visibility was maybe three feet. Although we stood at the edge of the great crater that is constantly monitored for activity, we could see nothing.  Nada.  We waited around for an hour to give it its best chance then threw in the towel. There was no seeing Poas today.

On the return trip to San Jose, we saw stands selling strawberries and bought two large boxes, about two pounds each.  They were huge, a few were the size of plums, and they were glistening red.  The green caps were fresh and crisp as if the berries had just been picked minutes ago.  We couldn’t wait.  Maybe they needed a wash, but we didn’t care we ate a handful anyway.  They were the kind of sweet only strawberries ripened on the vine can be.  Delicious!  Fit for a king!

The next day we drove three and a half hours to Manuel Antonio Park.  There‘s no volcano there but plenty of wildlife. The highway was modern and fast-moving but financed by frequent toll booths.  Known for its wildlife trails we booked a guide so to up our chances of actually seeing animals.  We met all the others in our group and had a wonderful time with them chit-chatting along the way.  The walk was very educational; our guide pointed out a hummingbird sitting on its nest, and a giant grasshopper – a protein source for monkeys.  We heard howlers roar in the distance but saw up close white-faced capuchins and squirrel monkeys that flew from tree to tree.  A large dull-gray butterfly was perched on a branch on the ground but when it flew, we saw the fluttering iridescent blue inside wings of the Rhetus Periander or Blue Moon Butterfly.  A rustle in the leaves turned out to be black, brown and white coatimundi foraging for insects and roots.  The hike ended at a white sandy beach on Pacific cove.

Our real excitement for the day was the drive back to San Jose.  The car rental agency advised us to use WAZE navigation since Google Maps can be unreliable in Costa Rica. WAZE gave us two opportunities to reach San Jose.  One was the toll-filled route we drove to get to the park and the other took less time and had no tolls.  We opted for toll-free.  Lesson learned.  I repeat, lesson learned.  When driving in a developing country, always take toll routes when they are available. 

The road was horrible, deplorable.  Many miles were dirt, many more were pot-hole and rut filled and yet this was a numbered “highway” across the mountains, winding round and round and up and down.  You may be thinking, why not turn around?  Optimistically, we thought the first 10K might be the worst with dirt and gravel that would connect us to a better road.  That did not happen.  By that time we reached the next road, we were too far in to turn back.  Then things got worse.  Often the road was on the steep side of the mountain with a deep drop-off on the other side – I wasn’t scared but I did think of Left Eye, a member of the TLC group who sang “Don’t Go Chasing Waterfalls.”  I remembered she died in a mountainside jungle car crash somewhere in the tropics near in Central America.  Oh dear.  As our car bounced and jostled through small communities we imagined the people outside their homes were saying, “what on earth are these people doing here?” 

We crossed the entire mountain range on roads like this.  The drive was tedious, bumpy, nerve-wracking and far too long.  Sometimes we (I) worried about the wear and tear on our rented car. . . what if we popped a tire, broke a u-joint, broke an axle???   But as WAZE indicated, that route was quite a bit faster than the toll road, and despite our headaches, we both cheered and nearly cried when we could finally see the twinkling lights of San Jose.

The next day we drove about an hour and a half in a new direction to see Volcan Irazu.  Winding out of the city of San Jose is a trip in and of itself.  I cannot imagine trying to maneuver this city without a navigation app.  Once we got out of town, the road began to wind upwards.  Because the Caribbean is separated from the Pacific by only a narrow strip of land, Caribbean breezes clash with the cool winds of the Pacific and form clouds nearly all the time.  As we reached higher altitudes, a thick layer of clouds lie below us. 

The mass of smooth clouds looked like a field of deep white snow bordered by brilliant green hills.  Some places looked like we had reached the end of the earth.  All around our road were steep rounded hills of rich dark volcanic soil growing lush acres of onions, potatoes, pale green cabbage, and deep green kale.  Men and women working in the fields stood up to wave and shout hola!

There is no growing season here in Costa Rica. Everything grows year-round.  Short-maturing crops like those just named are planted over and over again during the year.  Potatoes are dug and new ones planted.  Other long-maturing crops like bananas, pineapple and cassava take 15 months to two years to produce one crop of fruit (one stalk of bananas per plant, one pineapple per plant and the single cluster of cassava tree roots).  New plants must be replanted after each harvest. 

The farm sights were like a garden lover’s dream.  The curving, hilly, narrow paved road through the mountain side farms likewise could be a sports car driver’s Le Mans but even a lover of fast cars can grow weary of the time and intense focus needed to navigate these passes.

Irazu last erupted in 1992 and continued until 1995.  The event was devastating to towns, farms, and animals.  When we arrived, the day was sparkling clear; no clouds hovered over the volcano.  My mind had imagined we’d see smoke, smell the odor of sulfur, and maybe see a hint of red glow deep in the volcano but when we took a look, all we saw was a gigantic deep black hole.  We stood on the fence to try to see the bottom but one might need a helicopter to do that.  All the morning’s driving gave us a big black hole.  No smoke, no sulfur, not even a little jiggle of the earth.  It was quiet as a mouse. 

That could all change one day as far down below the earth’s surface Irazu still lives.