Costa Rica, land of many insects.

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Hello again,

I thought I´d wait until after my second trip to San Jose before I got around to writing it.

Flying over the coast and jungle into Costa Rica seemed quite exciting, but San Jose turned out to be quite similar to most other small citiesm although it was full of people with exciting stories of adventures all around Central America..

In the few days before I went to Cuba, I wandered around the markets, a museum in an old fort, which included a butterfly house, another museum containing random artwork, some parks, a plaza, the National Theatre, and the zoo. Just as I got to the zoo it started pouring with rain, but luckily I had an umbrella. Suprisingly enough noone else was at the zoo, but most of the animals seemed to be enjoying the rain so it didn´t really matter. There were a lot of animals in small cages, but the tapir had a large swimming pond, as did some of the others. There were lots of signs saying not to feed the animals, and not to ´moleste´the crocodiles (it means annoy in Spanish, apparently).

The hostel I stayed in was quite nice, with a pool and hammocks, internet, a bar, a tv room etc, but it turns out it was infested with bed bugs (either that or chicken pox germs, or some sort of substance I´m allergic to). The first night was fine, but when I woke up (at 3am to get a taxi to the airport) the next night I was covered in little red spots, which continued to get worse and remain itchy for about a week, and still haven´t completely dissappeared.

I didn´t bother going back to that hostel after Cuba, and luckily this time I only got attacked by mosquitoes, possibly at the rooftop bar. I only had a day in San Jose this time, so just went for a walk around and got caught in the rain (after the day before telling some people the only thing they needed to know about San Jose was to always bring an umbrella). Having to get to the airport to fly to Mexico I had no choice but to traipse back to the hostel, and get changed before leaving to get the bus.

I think that´s about all I have to say about San Jose, except perhaps that it´s full of Americans. They´re everywhere. Something similar to Australians in Bali.

I´m sure I´ll make it back to Costa Rica one day, and I can make it out of the city to somewhere more exciting.

P.S. - I forgot to mention earlier that in Buenos Aires the energy drink of choice is called ´Speed´, so one will go to the bar to order ´vodka and speed´instead of Red Bull. I didn´t try any but it sounded amusing.

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Comments

[Jai]

Bloody Bed Bugs
Yeah those are bed bugs all right. Kate and i had the same thing happen to us in madrid. Kate especially was covered in itchy red bumps. I think its fair to say without any hyperbole that being bitten by bed bugs is a fate worse than death.

[Kate]

yes, yes it is