1 - 0 to Saprissa

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It was US$12.50 each for a bus ticket to San Jose with Tracopa. It is not easy to find their office. We had to ask someone. We sat behind Kathryn who we had met at The Purple House. She was living in Costa Rica. Of the 10 people on the bus, 6 were foreigners. That was unusual for us. We were used to being the only foreigners on the bus. Leaving at 8:30 am it took about an hour to get to the border. We hopped off and had our luggage inspected by Panama customs then we stood in a long queue for the stamp out of Panama. Somehow Kathryn needed a tourist card but she didn't have it and would need to pay US$10. We gave her that because she had no change and she headed off. A chubby guy then lead us the 100 meters or so past parked and waiting trucks, past the bus/truck wash that our bus just went through, and into the queue for Costa Rica immigration. After that we joined the other foreigners and our bags that were already out of the bus again and waiting for Costa Rica customs. We didn't see Kathryn on the Costa Rica side yet so sent our chubby friend back to find her. Once we were back on the bus she soon showed up with a tale of having to pay the money down the block at a bank. The tourist card you pay US$5 for when you enter Panama from Costa Rica but the office was closed when she entered so she didn't get one. We tipped our chubby friend after he asked. He wasn't affiliated with the bus company like we thought. He made a living from helping people. The bus filled up with locals then but we couldn't leave. The road was so congested with vehicles, especially big articulated trucks and the bus took 15 minutes or more just move a few meters.

The remainder of the trip was beautiful. Very lush and green. We followed a big wide river for a while before climbing into the clouds. It rained and cooled off rather a lot. The vegetation got shorter and shrubbier and when we reached the ridge the view of the mountains and valleys below was stunning. We passed crops of tall palm trees and what I think was a variety of agave. Then we started seeing coffee plantations as far as the eye could see. Arriving on the edge of San Jose we caught the wonderful aroma of coffee roasting. We were passing a processing plant.

Leaving the terminal we had a tout take us over to the taxis and he pointed at one that a moment later had a corner missing from his rear bumper thanks to a bus that was exiting the terminal. We quickly took another taxi because the flow of taxis was now interrupted by the accident. We dropped Kathryn at terminal for Turrialba and tried to show our driver the map with the location of Casa Ridgeway. It should have been very close. Ignoring the map he phoned someone as he drove in what was obviously the wrong direction. We spotted it eventually and he didn't charge us everything on the meter. Meters here are called Marias.

The Casa Ridgeway was a lovely building from the 1920s with high ceilings. Our room was big but we had to share bathrooms for US$24. No worries. Our room was dedicated to Oscar Romero, a martyr from El Salvador. Run by the Quakers it seemed a peaceful place. The kitchen was very clean at Casa Ridgeway and we prepared our own breakfast of eggs each morning. One morning Isabel, who ran the hostel, did us some French toast as well.

Downtown was quite nice and modern with lots of bookshops and a few touristy hangouts that we didn't want to visit. We tried not to be walking around too late at night but really we didn't see any dodgy looking people. We stayed in San Jose while visiting museums and rather enjoyed the city.

Kathryn had recommended a restaurant called Tin Jo which we found a few blocks from our hostel. It was an Asian restaurant, beautifully decorated and fully staffed. From the menu we could choose Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Philipino, Indonesian, or Thai. It was quite upmarket and we faced US$10 a main but what the hell. The sake was cheap at US$6 for half a litre. Pieter had a fantastic adobo pork and I had an Indian vegetable curry that I couldn't finish. After recovering from a vicious cold that I caught in Panama, I now had raging diarrhoea. Good news was I reckon the sake killed the bug. Well, I would like to think so anyway.

First we went to the National Museum, a lovely old fortress still bearing the bullet holes of the late 1940s civil war. In needed a paint but was pretty cool without it. It was US$2 entrance and we enjoyed the permanent display of anthropological stuff. We had a lovely surprise when we followed signs to the 'Secret Garden'. Turned out to be a butterfly house with some pretty green fellas and lots of big blue Morphos. We were in awe as 4 of them floated in front of us.

The next day we visited the Children's Museum. A former prison, it was now yellow with the guard towers converted to castle turrets. US$1 each to get in. It was huge and we wandered for ages through the rooms with interactive educational things about space, ecosystems, human biology, animals, dentistry .. all sorts. Outside was a big helicopter you could climb in and the nose of a big airplane was attached to a wall and the wall was painted to make it look like the airplane was coming out of the wall.

We walked looking for the Coin and Stamp Museum but it was obviously moved from the beautiful post office building. Soon after we found it in an underground building next to the theatre which also housed the rather spectacular Pre-Colombian Gold Museum and some temporary art exhibits. They had 3 levels heading down and it cost us US$7 each to visit.

Next we went off to find the Jade Museum. US$2 each to get in to see the biggest collection of American jade in the world. And it was very interesting because you don't see much jade normally. There was jade jewellery and little animals and status symbols as well as some gold and pottery.

One evening we were invited to a football match by a member of Couch Surfing. We meet near the stadium and some foreign English teachers joined us. The match was between the purple home team of Saprissa and some other Costa Rican team in black and red. Cyril, who invited us, was offered seats by a tout but he wasn't convinced they were genuine so went to the ticket windows instead. For US$5 each we got good seats 2nd row back from the front just off the center line. This was great except for the constant flow of food sellers blocking your view. We would often have to stand up to see properly. They sold pizzas a lot, including Pizza Hut, and potato chips and drinks and some typical foods and disposable raincoats for US$2 each. We got yellow ones. It was drizzling as we arrived. There were lots of girls with team shirts on. Unfortunately, one of the team sponsors is Bimbo bread ... use your imagination. The game was interesting with the players streaming all over the bright green pitch. The home team got all the yellow cards and they were definitely the more aggressive. The indiscretions here were much less subtle than in a European game. The hard-core home team fans occupied the stands at one end and the entire game they were stamping and clapping and chanting. And the commotion they made when Saprissa scored just before half time was quite a spectacle with people getting pushed around and jumping on fences and making enough noise to deafen anyone within a few blocks of the stadium. Saprissa won with that single goal and apparently we were lucky to leave without falling victim to a urine bomb. There were lots of police but everyone behaved. The police even formed human barriers forcing orderly queues for the swamped buses.

In the room next to ours at Casa Ridgeway was a rather strange guy. Pieter had seen something abnormal in his eyes. He stayed in his room all the time, door ajar, playing soft music. Returning late from the football and a couple of after-match drinks we were greeted by sounds from his room as if he was in pain. But it didn't seem genuine. The guy from the front desk asked us if we wanted to move rooms. Initially we said no but when Pieter spoke with Isabel by phone we found out he was Schizophrenic and decided to change rooms. Pieter hung around and waited for Isabel because she didn't know what do to and Pieter had experience of these types of people. About a month ago this guy had gone off and they called in the Red Cross. Again she called the Red Cross but they said there was nothing they could do. It was not possible to force him to take his meds and his family in the States were ignoring the situation. The best thing to do was to get him sectioned but that would cost US$300 and the Quakers couldn't afford that. They were also too caring to kick him out. The only other course of action was to get the US Embassy involved but they had already failed to return calls. We left the next day for Turrialba and when we returned a few days later no progress had been made. We only hope that something has happened now to get him the care he needs.

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Photos

A pair of beautiful Macaws
We saw them in the zoo. I didn't mention the zoo, it wasn't very nice accept for the birds that weren't in cages and the squirrels who hung around.