Blogs from San José, San José, Costa Rica, Central America Caribbean - page 2

My fifth stop to my Anthony Bourdain No Reservations Central America Trip 2016 is Costa Rica. Off to San Jose.... read more

As I mentioned earlier there was no glass in the windows of our room only screen, so when the Howler Monkeys became vocal in the morning, the noise was not muffled. They started in at 5 am which ended my sleep for the night. As it got lighter outside, I got dressed and decided to look for the monkeys. At the next building there were several people with cameras pointed to the trees. In the trees were monkeys, but they were Spider Monkeys not Howlers. I have no idea where the noisy ones went, but the Spider Monkeys were putting on a show as they ate on the fruit of the tree. In addition to the monkeys, birds were flying into the trees to eat as well. I was pleased to see Montezuma Oropendulas and Collared ... read more

Dear friends, we’re back! Our first night in Costa Rica is in San Jose where we’re waiting at a very nice hotel for Tiffany and Alexa to arrive.It’s a long time to get down here ( thanks Boeing), but we’re finally feeling the tropical heat. We spend the day doing some local eating, local driving, and relaxing in the pool. The traffic is a little bit crazy (I wonder why there’s so many accidents) But we managed to make it to the mall to pick up a Sim card, greet Tiffany and Alexa at the hotel, and have a nice dinner. Tomorrow is an early morning to start a long drive to our destination on the beach for a week.... read more

Fri 30 Nov-Sat 1 December - Day 35 to 36 - San José The capital city of Costa Rica, San José, is nestled in a fertile valley among coffee and sugar-cane farms. There is not much left of the colonial era architecture, due to the damage done by earthquakes, but it was certainly worth seeing the National Theatre, built in 1897. We arrived at our accommodation Hotel LaRosa del Paseo after a 40 minute drive from the airport. It was dark by the time we checked in at around 5.30pm. We went to an Argentinian restaurant for dinner and as you would expect, the meal was cooked to perfection. Our first full day in this capital city was spent walking along its many pedestrian streets and seeing the main sites of the town. This included visiting ... read more

For us the answer to this question is via Volaris, a Mexican budget airline, this being the cheapest way to make the short journey from San Salvador to the Costa Rican capital. Despite a few glitches with their booking website and it taking a couple of goes before we successfully managed to check-in on line, generally everything with the Volaris flight goes smoothly. As we don’t have access to a printer I download the boarding passes to my tablet which works fine for all the baggage, security and boarding checks. The bag drop turns out to be one of the simplest I’ve encountered and there is zero queue, immigration is also strangely deserted, which means we are early for the flight departure. The plane departs on time and arrives early. San Jose airport is only 20km ... read more