Underestimated San José

After traveling Central America’s countryside and little towns, San José was a very welcome break from it all and the perfect city to end my Central American trip. I stayed 2 days in the city and it was enough to see the main things. Like the National museum with the history of Costa Rica and its butterfly garden.
The teatro nacional of Costa Rica of which its red roof apparently has its origin in Belgium. This Classical Renaissance building has a lobby out of marble with some statues that features artworks by European artists. There is an auditorium where performances are regularly being held.

Teotro Nacional the starting point of the free walking tours in San José

Museo nacional

Butterfly garden

Butterfly eating fruit at the butterfly garden in the museo nacional

The metallic school building Escuela Buenaventura Corrales which also was shipped from Belgium in the late 18 hundreds and put together. The metal plates all have  numbers and letters on them and are put together like a puzzle.

Metallic school

another picture of the metallic school building seen from a nearby park

The reason why I know this is because I did a free walking tour that started at 9 am at the teatro nacional. The guide was a little bit late and apologized for it, instead of a 2 hour tour, it was a 4 hour one which is long but we had several breaks and I really had the feeling I saw everything I needed to see to appreciated this underestimated city.
I guess the guide wanted to make up for the fact he was late, cause normally it’s not that long. It’s the longest free walking tour I have ever done but it was worth it.
There are 2 walking tours and I suggest you go with the guys in the yellow t-shirts as they have a better walking tour then those in the white t-shirts, I know I did both tours.
I read somewhere on the internet on someone elses blog that it’s a boring dangerous city, that’s the biggest bullshit I ever heard. Sorry for my language but San José is a safe city and it’s far from boring, they have some good bars and club where you can go out at night, but make sure you bring your ID with you or you won’t get in. They are pretty strict on that.

Back to the walking tour

What else did I see ? Statues of former politicians and presidents but also the one of the poor farmers in front of the national bank, some nice public parks, one of them is the national park with the national monument representing the war against the United States of filibuster William Walker in 1856. The Central market where some local food specialities, souvenirs and handicrafts are sold and the big white metropolitan Cathedral in the heart of the city.

statue of the poor farmers

The National Monument

national monument (picture I took on the second day when the sun was out)

Metropolitan Cathedral

Inside the Metropolitan Cathedral

Plaza de la libertad

Temple of music in Morazan park

In San José to my surprise I found a monument of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM) it’s near the Morazan park with its temple of music and Angel wings statue.

little monument of SMOM

After the tour ended I headed to the Grand Hotel Costa Rica which is just in front of the national teatre where I started the city tour. It’s a very nice hotel with a big lobby area and great view over the national teatre and the nearby shops.

Grand Hotel lobby

Gran Hotel sitting area

View over the plaza with the teatro nacional

 

Monteverde Costa Rica

The last country on my Central America trip was Costa Rica and the place I visited was Monteverde. In the green mountain valleys of Costa Rica lays the town of Monteverde, very known for its ecotourism. You can do a walk in the cloud forest reserve during the day with a guide who will give you information about the fauna and flora in the forest.  Take a good rain jacket or poncho with you cause more likely you will get wet during the day. Afterall it’s a rainforest and yes I was glad i took a rain jacket with me when doing this 2 hour walk in the forest.

Monteverde green valley’s of Costa Rica

 

Entering the town of Monteverde

Cloud forest of Monteverde

here I am with my rain jacket on in the rainforest

You can also do a nighttour which gives you more chance to see animals than during the daytime. I did both but during the nighttour I saw more wildlife : various insects, a scorpion, frogs, tarantula and the Costa Rican sloth hanging high up in the tree. There was a snake on a branch, some birds in the distance and hard to make any decent picture with my huawei P8 in the dark as most smartphones once you zoom in, all get blurry.

the red eye frog

Tarantula in the hole

Scorpion

sloth sleeping high up in the tree

 

 

There is a hummingbird garden with different species of these little birds flying all over the place and feeding themselves to the sweet sugar-water stored in these plastic flower shaped bowls. If you put your finger against the plastic feeder, the hummingbird comes to sit on your finger it worked for me twice, really a fun experience. The zooming sound that these little birds make is like a similar to a small engine.

green hummingbirds

I am putting my finger against the little plastic flower where the birds put their beak in to feed themselves and wait for one of the birds to come sit on my finger

The blue hummingbird

hummingbird feeder

In Monteverde as in many other places in Costa Rica you can do adventurous activities like ziplining for example. I didn’t do it cause I had a ziplining experience in Zambia at the Victoria Bridge last may. Anyway you can do this in the rainforest which is a different setting then at the Victoria Falls but maybe for me it was to early go ziplining again.