The Way to San Jose

On March 28, we made our way into San Jose.  We were there a couple days in which we ended the third leg and started the final leg of this trip.  I wish I could tell you something about San Jose but I really didn’t see much of it.

 When we arrived in San Jose, I got a room to myself for the first time the entire trip.  It turned out to be the executive suite, at least by the standards to which I’ve become accustomed.  I had my own bathroom and it was the only room in the hotel that had a balcony – and it was a damned good-sized balcony.  It also had a queen-sized bed.  After my arrival, somebody (sometimes up to three people – but not in a good way) was in the bed pretty much non-stop until I checked out.  So much for having a room to myself.

By the time we arrived, it was almost dark.  Also, just after arriving, we learned that somebody from the new group was almost mugged at gunpoint less than two blocks away from the hotel.  Okay, I get it – not a good neighborhood.  The people from the present group were going to a farewell dinner at a Chilean restaurant but I have skipped the farewell dinners all along on this trip and didn’t see any reason not to skip this one.  Instead, I walked a couple blocks away and lived the dream – I had Taco Bell in Central America.  Something else to scratch off the bucket list.  As I ate, I sat in my room and watched television for a little while.

After the group returned to the hotel, I went downstairs and met up with everybody.  Since I had the big balcony, the party eventually moved into my room with the usual suspects.  My English friend had the upper-half of a bunk bed with an older woman with a snoring problem so when she passed out (not an uncommon occurrence for her), we just dropped her in my bed and then I hung out with my Australian friend until around 4:00 am, when she left and I fell asleep.

I woke up around 8:30 am and my English friend had left.  Around 10:30, I finally made it out of bed and downstairs.  There, I found my Australian friend asleep on the couch and my English friend drinking coffee.  Their trip ended here in San Jose, so they had already checked out of the hotel.  Since my bed was empty, I let my Australian friend come up to my room so she could sleep up there.  She had a headache, so we plied her with more medicine than anyone should ever take for a headache.  She was out for a while.  Meanwhile, my English friend and I had some jerk chicken and beer (and possibly rum) and went and brought back some lunch.  Around this point, my English friend was tired again and also went to sleep on my bed.  For a while, I was there as well, lying at the foot of the bed.  My Australian friend finally came to and the two of us went to the bus station to pick up tickets for the two of them to go to Panama City.  We had to make two trips because we needed my English friend’s passport and that ended up in my pocket.

After we returned, we had a dinner with both the old group and the new group.  My English friend was still passed out and we couldn’t wake her so we just let her sleep.  After dinner (tortellini carbonara that was delicious), we returned to the hotel only to find our English friend in a panic because she thought that she was late for her bus and couldn’t find her passport.  Soon, we were able to quell her fears and then my best friends for the past month were on their way out of Costa Rica and my life, at least temporarily for one of them.

So you see, I didn’t really get a chance to see all that much of San Jose.  Just a few blocks around my hotel and a little bit more of the city as we took a taxi to and from dinner.  The third leg had ended and the fourth leg had begun and I wasn’t all that excited about the members of the final leg.  We’ll start on that in the next post.