Continued from yesterday”¦ Not too long after we had checked the GPS, the road finally shifted to be both up and down, and while we had plenty of uphill stretches of road, we slowly but surely were losing altitude overall.
At about 1630, we rounded a bend a saw a huge city below. This must be San Jose. The road quickly descended and dropped us into the heart of the city. This was where we got totally confused. Lonely Planet has 4 detailed maps of San Jose, each of a different neighborhood, and we had a hard time finding the map we were on and figuring out how it connects with the map of where we were going to. Part of the reason we couldn’t figure out what map we were on was that we couldn’t find a street sign anywhere. Eventually, we managed to get oriented and had a vague idea of where we needed to go.
At one point, while the light was red, some street performers ran out into the intersection and juggled what looked like bowling pins until the light turned green. That was definitely amusing.
We found the right street and followed it. It happened to be heading downhill and we saw that ahead there were thousands of people standing in the street, completely blocking traffic. Hmmm, this could pose a problem in our route.
Needless to say, we made a turn and tried to figure out how to navigate around the shindig. The road we picked dead ended a few blocks down at a park. We saw what looked like a set up for a concert in the park and quite a bit of security around. We turned again and found ourselves trying to navigate through a maze of short streets with bumper to bumper cars, a lot of pedestrian traffic, and no street signs to help us figure out where on earth we were. Whatever was going on was definitely big and seemed to encompass several blocks. We eventually weaved our way out of the traffic jam, figured out where we were and found a street that was going northeast, the direction we needed. Here is a random shot taken while stuck in traffic.
Our overall impression of the city was that it is pretty average all the way around. We passed through some nice areas and some not very good areas. There are old historic neighborhoods that have been fully restored, but other old areas where the buildings are crumbling. There are new, modern and upscale sections, as well as other newer sections where the buildings appear to be cheaply slapped together. There were neighborhoods of little one stories and sections of high rises. Nothing looked especially bad, and nothing looked third world. Conversely, while we did see some nice buildings and areas, nothing stood out to us as especially stunning.
The vast majority of the people walking around town were teen-agers, especially near the special event site. The teens in Costa Rica look identical to the teens in America same hairstyles and fashions, same body piercings and tattoos.
At this point, we were in between maps, so we didn’t know exactly where we were or where we were going. We just knew we needed to go northeast. The area we were driving through looked like suburbs. As roads changed direction or ended, we kept making turns to try to continue in the general northeast direction. We pulled over at a gas station and asked for directions and found out we had made it to the outskirts of Heredia. Yay!
Heredia was founded in the 1570’s, shortly after the first settlement in Costa Rica was established. It was inhabited by Spanish aristocracy and later became a wealthy coffee producing area. San Jose, which would later become the nation’s capital, was not established until almost 200 years later. Today, thanks to urban sprawl, Heredia has become more of a suburb of San Jose than its own separate city. We chose to stay in Heredia instead of San Jose proper for two reasons. One, it is close to the airport. Two, Lonely Planet described Heredia as a super great place — a sophisticated high tech business area, a fun university town, and a rich historical center all in one.
We had planned to do a couple hours of sightseeing before checking into the hotel, but the drive had taken two hours longer than we anticipated. It was now close to sunset, so we decided it was best to go directly to the hotel. From what we saw, Heredia didn’t look that great. Like most urban areas, the buildings are packed in very close together. They range in size from 1 3 stories, with most being 2. Most buildings are older and well maintained, but there are a few new and especially nice ones. There seems to be no zoning at all, so you have a house, then a restaurant, then an auto mechanic, then another house in a block.
What was disconcerting was how locked down everything was. Every single building had bars on the doors and windows and heavy duty security fences along the property line. Many properties had razor wire topping their security fences. There were no cars parked on the street. None. They were all tucked away behind the locked fences. The prison-like fencing took away all of the city’s charm and made the city feel downright scary. Heredia is supposedly a much safer area than San Jose, but visually speaking, you would assume this is the more dangerous place. Like San Jose, there were a lot of people walking around. Being as it is a university town, it was no surprise that most everyone on the street looked to be in their late teens or early 20’s.
Fortunately, there are street signs here. After going in circles a few times on the one way street system, we pulled up to our hotel, a cute white old house with blue shutters. It was just after 1800. The sun had just set and the sky was getting dusky. Phew! We made it before dark! The clerk on duty buzzed us in through the gate, and after checking us in, had us park our car inside the fence.
We asked for a restaurant recommendation and he suggested an Italian place a few blocks away. It was a great evening for a walk. The weather was quite pleasant. It was cool enough for jeans and a sweater, but certainly not cold, and not nearly as humid as it was along the coast. Sadly, the restaurant was closed. We walked a few more blocks and found several Chinese restaurants, but no other kinds of food. Not even Tico (Costa Rican local cuisine). We hadn’t mentioned this, but in every town we passed through, we saw a lot of Chinese restaurants. In fact, we saw more Chinese restaurants than Tico, which we thought was weird.
Chinese usually isn’t our favorite cuisine. We asked a local for a non-Chinese recommendation within walking distance and he couldn’t think of one, but told us which of the Chinese choices was the best. We wound up going there. The food was OK overall, though they did have a pineapple won-ton sauce that was especially delicious. The portion sizes were unbelievable! That restaurant may very well win for serving the biggest portions of any restaurant we have ever been to. And it was dirt cheap.
We debated going sightseeing after dinner, but decided we were too tired. We had gotten up early and needed to get up early again tomorrow. We decided it was best to go back to the hotel and go to bed early.