Today's adventure starts already at 4 AM when the last person from my dorm arrived. It was an Argentinian lad... He tried his best to be quiet but I guess he had quite few drinks that night. As he crawled up his bunk I woke up. Next thing you know he starts snoring. Great - I am thinking another short night sleep after my travel marathon from Europe to the new world. My body hurts and I wish I could fall asleep again. But I know myself - once I wake up after more than five hours of sleep it is almost impossible. So I give up trying around six and finally start my day.
Short bathroom visit is followed by speedy yoga/stretching session and one hour of reading. Than starts the whole routine again.
Cafe, toast, peanut butter, pineapple, watermelon, cafe and repeat - breakfast included in the price of accommodation must be used to its fullest. Than I am joined by my newly found crew and we can go and explore the city again!
Second day in the city started with a good laugh as we already knew which way to go and didn't had to concentrate on the navigation. One joke was changing another and before you know it we reached the center.
San Jose is full of statues and fancy looking graffiti. Sometimes I am not even sure which one appeals to me better. In the case here it is at least well balanced. Some of the statues are quite interactive and I tried to become part of them - as seen on the picture...
Heck I would almost forget that I got a chance to ride a local moto-bike. So called delivery drivers wet dream. Bunch of pizza boys were servicing their machines when we were walking by and I couldn't resist and insisted to the crew that we need to stop and check it out. I was met with little to no resistance. Those bikes are absolutely amazing...
After a while one of the guys was offering us to take a picture sitting on his bike. Me thinking it's an obvious scam to take few dollars out of them but still I threw out a joke that I want to try it not just sit on it. He accepts.
Next thing you know I am in the saddle. What a ride it was! Even though very short I felt like a kid again. After he made me stop I offered him some small coins that would amount to something over a dollar. But he didn't take any, he did it purely for fun and companionship...respect.
Next program was obvious - try to find me a t-shirt, knife and nail scissors.
One of the biggest tourist attractions is the local old market. I had a feeling I could be lucky there, so we direct ourselves to the main boulevard and off we go. Out of nowhere there is a guy selling little pocket knives...
Exactly what I need I think. But I keep my poker face and pretend I am not that much interested. He asked for way too much. First he asked for twenty bucks. No way! Way too much! Next offer is fourteen. I told him to wait for me in case I am not going to find anything in the market and politely left the scene.
It was surely a scam as I have later found the very same knife for five dollars. But let's not talk bad about this guy. His service was to bring the product to the main street and save people the hustle to search for it. Fair enough but I had time. More than plenty of it.
Refreshed by lunch we continued with our plan to reach what seemed like a pretty big park. In fact the biggest in the city. Out in the distance there was a storm brewing and we had to hurry up. The park was also a little bit less impressive that what we expected.
Even though the local fauna is great the park looked almost boring. However we did found even a termites nest...
The biggest attraction would definitely be a small lake in the middle but as you can see for yourself there wasn't much water in it.
A whale skeleton was for sure the local highlight. Apart from that few bamboo forests and patios connecting them with other parts of the park. We did in fact see more police than cool things over there. So I wouldn't recommend you to bother to visit it. Maybe after you run out of all the things to do in San Jose, which is about after one or two days. Sure one can visit plenty of museums but are you going to pay sixteen dollars to see museum of gold? That is a question I still don't have answer to, but as you can see I didn't go.
All the best,
Global Local