Many of our friends and family have been to Costa Rica. None have spent much time, if any, in San Jose, the capital. The impression we got from everyone was, “get in, and get out to the countryside or beach as fast as you can.” Even blog posts and travel writers state it as a stopover point and mention a few highlights before moving on.
Pictures online tell a different story—colonial buildings in bright colors with swirling wrought-iron balconies, palm tree lined pedestrian roads filled with festive Pura Vida signs, bustling markets, and smiling locals. We wanted to see it, experience the place where many locals live and work and thrive. Since we would be in this country for three months, we felt a week in the capital was enough time to get to know it before moving on to the beach.
We arrived midday at the San Jose airport, and if you read my previous post about our flight, you’ll understand our prickly mood— Red Eye to San Jose
The heat that smacked us as we deboarded had us all sweating by the time we trudged up the boarding bridge. The terminal was quiet but having sat at the back of the plane, we were the last to get our luggage and join the queue at customs. And what a queue it was. Hundreds of people from dozens of flights lined up in a Disneyesque line that twisted for seeming miles. Yes, we chose to travel during Covid, and I was prepared for times of close proximity out of our control, but we were looking at hours of standing elbow to stinky travel body elbow with a thousand strangers. When we approached the line, Sophia stopped in her tracks, refusing to move, and summed up our collective mood nicely with a loud “No.”
An angel, or Costa Rican Airport Authority worker, saw us, recognized Sophia’s body language, and made the gesture every parent dreams of—he opened the Costa Rican citizen rope line and waved us through. We hugged and cried and laughed for joy. Then put on our serious faces at the murderous looks from the other passengers as we, with less guilt than we probably should have had, skipped to the front and only had to wait ten minutes.
This whole experience set us up to love San Jose immediately. We were through the rest of the airport and outside in a taxi within twenty minutes. I won’t sugarcoat it—the drive into the city is not attractive. Certain areas look like a hurricane recently swept through and hadn’t been rebuilt yet. Other parts were filled with high-rises and new shopping centers. Costa Rica has one of the highest living standards in Central and South America, but it does look vastly different from what that means to many travelers.
San Jose was not love at first sight, though, in hindsight, it was really our mood and perception. Our hotel, the Hotel Presidente, was lovely, with bougainvillea climbing the balcony’s and stairs, open to the sky wood-beamed ceilings, and a lobby filled with books and vintage typewriters (I mean, come on!), but we had been up for thirty-six hours, not eaten in 12, and at this point, all felt like our surely three-year-old.
We dumped our bags and left immediately to find sustenance. Now, if that had been our only mission, we probably would have been fine, but we made the mistake of asking the hotel for a recommendation for a restaurant that would suit both of our finicky eater’s needs. While we did eventually find this fantastic restaurant, it was after two hours of stumbling over broken sidewalks, exposed drainage ditches and circling a red-light district one too many times to seem like an accident.
When we returned to our room, Tim and I honestly wondered what the hell we were going to do in this city for the next seven days. It didn’t look anything like the pictures, and we guiltily, prematurely, agreed with all the naysayers who smartly skipped it.
Then something lovely happened. We heard a squawk, and opening the curtains, found a pair of green parrots on our windowsill. They tuttered for a minute while checking us out and flew away together in a graceful swoop, their wings almost touching across the rooftops. We went to bed well-fed in an air conditioned room and slept for ten hours.
For the next week, we ate better than we have in years, fell in love with a small suburb called Escazu full of art and adobes and parks, and basically roamed and roamed a city we now have unforgettable memories of. The locals were incredibly friendly and welcoming everywhere we went and forgave our horrible Spanish without hesitation.
Seven days later, we couldn’t believe it was time to leave. Due to Covid, we decided to skip indoor activities but still didn’t see everything we planned on. The Post Office is a national landmark, but we only saw the outside. There is a $10 fee to see the inside of the National Theatre, but I’m told, if you eat at the café inside and ask to use the bathroom, you can wander the halls for a moment for free and see the opulent rooms heads of state used to entertain royalty in. At the inside market, Mercado Central, a man makes vanilla ice cream, and only vanilla, so good that copycats have opened all over the country but none as good as his. In seven days, we missed all this. If you go, you have to tell me about it!
Here is a list of our favorites:
Hotel Presidente – Corner of Calle 7 and Avenue Central. Simple rooms, lovely staff, wonderful restaurant and bar upstairs. Sev would say it has the best buffet breakfast ever! Double queen room about $90/night.
http://www.hotel-presidente.com
Mercado Central – Calle 8, Paso De La Vaca, 8am-6pm Monday-Saturday. Closed Sunday.—an inside maze-like market full of produce, crafts, tourist gifts, spice shops, apothecaries, and sodas (small eateries).
Pedestrian Walkway – Avenida Central, approximately a mile long and spanning from Calle 3 to Calle 20 in between first and Second Avenue. It is lined with everything from local shops and restaurants to Starbucks and McDonalds.
Correos de Costa Rica, Post Office – Calle 2 between Avenue 1 and Avenue 3. A gorgeous late neo-classical building with a working post office and café.
Tenedor Argentino – Av. Segunda Frente Al Costado. This is an Argentinian-style grill across the street from the beautiful National Theater. They had fat juicy steaks smothered in garlic and cilantro and wonderful empanadas, but the best thing was this ridiculous multitiered dulce de leche meringue cake. Yes, it was as good as it looked.
Restaurant NaPraia – Edificio Sigma, Dente, Across from the mall San Pedro. About a $5 taxi from downtown is a huge mall. HUGE. We got lost in it. Across from the mall is this fantastic seafood restaurant. We had the house seafood platter with grilled octopus, tuna, prawns, and chimichurri. It was only $20. We were laughing out loud it was so good and made us so happy. That’s just one of the reasons Tim and I get along so well.
Escazu – Suburb about 10 minutes taxi ride from downtown San Jose. It’s split into three levels—lower, middle, and upper. The lower is full of newer businesses, restaurants, art galleries, breweries, and wine shops. The middle is the oldest area, full of families, smaller local restaurants, and an excellent playground for kids. Upper Escuza has large homes, art galleries, and a few restaurants, along with fine views of the city and water.
Four excellent restaurants in Escazu:
Sin Domicilio Fijo- Av. 32 134. Art gallery, boutique shop, and fabulous restaurant. We had black sesame crusted tuna with caramelized potatoes, tomatoes, and yuca in a passionfruit sauce that was absolutely delicious and so big we actually couldn’t finish it. We also had an amazing dorado ceviche that was beautiful, but we ate it before I could take a picture.
Madfish – 100 SE de Rose Plaza en San Rafael – Wonderful seafood restaurant we went to on purpose because it had great reviews, then got trapped in when a torrential rainstorm hit and lasted for three hours. We didn’t mind at all. The food is from the Caribbean side of the country, and I had a spicy coconut curried fish that was so good I picked up the bowl to drink the sauce. Tim’s ceviche was the perfect cooling counterpoint, and we traded back and forth.
Appunto Gourmet Market – Del Cruce de Escazu – Totally unassuming front entrance had Tim and the girls asking to go back to Sin Domicillio Fijo—until we stepped inside. Easily one of the most beautiful restaurants I’ve ever been to. It had a freaking river running through it! Besides the amazing food – eggs benedict, huevos rancheros, and whoever heard of red velvet waffles, it had a playground next to our table. Sev said she was in heaven, and we had to agree. The inside of the market was equally incredible with cakes, pastries, empanadas, pates, prepared salads…I could have eaten there all day.
Sunshine Dunning 