San Jose, Costa Rica

This is me on the evening of my departure and yes, this is everything that I'm bringing with me. The black duffle was an add-on to ensure my pack wasn't over the 50lb weight limit (it was 45lbs) but also so I could bring a few luxuries, like a dressing robe (I know, silly, right? but staying in hostels, it will be nice not to have to bring all my clothes into the usually very wet bathrooms).

I´ll periodically add on to this post until I leave Saturday morning to meet up with Brett and Michelle at the airport to catch our ride to Manuel Antonio. Don´t expect any beach photos or anything yet. San Jose is a rather dull ugly city, and I´m not planning on doing anything touristy, but it´s everyone´s entry and exit point to the rest of Costa Rica.

I´m staying in a $12 per night hostel in the Los Yoses area of Costa Rica, which is apparently near the University, although I haven´t explored the area enough to know. I arrived around 10pm Wednesday night and quickly went to bed to get 11 hours of sleep! So far today, I´ve just ventured out for lunch and to buy groceries for dinner.

I ate lunch at a local Costa Rican restaurant called El Balcon. It´s in a residential area down the street from the hostel and my fellow diners were 6 people dressed in work suits and a local taxi driver. They also have a busy takeaway service with two guys on bikes delivering food to the area, so it seemed like it might be a good bet for cheap, local food.

This was my first experience here where I had to use hand gestures and Spanish. I managed to order one of the daily specials with chicken, making sure that it was a full plate with rice and beans, not just a piece of chicken or something, and a fruit juice drink. I´m not sure what juice it was, but it was tasty and sort of like strawberry. The plate of food was amazing. The chicken was a slow cooked chicken leg with some potatoes in what looked like a yellow curry sauce, but it was actually quite mild. There were black beans, white rice, a cabbage salad and fried plantains as well. I ate it all!

Then I ventured out to the grocery store. Even though I´d rather eat out, I thought that with my dislike for eating out alone and with trying to save money, maybe making food would be a better option since the hostel here has a decent kitchen and I´m not feeling too adventurous in San Jose. For $12 I bought a bottle of olive oil, a bottle of jalapeno sauce, an avocado, a large tomato, an onion, a head of lettuce, a mango, a large zucchini, and two fillets of white fish. Pretty good value considering the olive oil was $4 of it. As you can figure out, I´m having pan fried fish, zucchini and a salad for dinner tonight and tomorrow night, with mango for dessert.

The reason I´m using dollars to describe costs isn´t because I´m just converting from Costa Rican colones to dollars for my readers. It´s because pretty much everywhere in Costa Rica accepts dollars. You will usually get your change in colones, but the conversion will be displayed for you on a calculator or something or it will be small enough that you can be sure you aren´t getting ripped off. The current conversion is 550 colones to $1, so it´s a nice easy number to convert in your head when looking at prices.

The hostel here has free Internet, and there are very few people staying here this week (I even have my own 6 bunk dorm and bathroom to myself!), so I´m taking the opportunity to be online a lot. This includes me trying, and failing, to research how to obtain a decently priced mobile phone. The telecommunications system here is a monopoly and government-run by I.C.E. The only way to obtain a line rental is to inherit one through someone who doesn´t need theirs anymore, or to be lucky enough to have a corporate company you work for provide you with one, for example. For us regular travellers, we appear out of luck unless we are willing to pay the exhorbitant rate of $10 per day for a rental phone. This would be ok for a week or something, but doesn´t seem reasonable for the 6 more weeks I am here.

I may break down and get one towards the second half of my trip, when I am traveling alone and want the security of having a phone, particularly if I decide to rent a car, and the flexibility to call friends and family. Until then, it looks like I´m tied to using calling cards from land lines and pay phones. Sigh. Not ideal. Not ideal at all.

Update 10pm Thursday. I think I may have found a phone. Well, actually I have already provided credit card details to a company and they are meant to deliver the phone in person to my hostel tomorrow morning. I´m so excited that I´m hesitant to even write this. First, I have to get the phone. Then I have to test out calling internationally, texting internationally, having people call me. Once it´s all working, then I´ll feel relieved. I also got what appears to be a reasonable price in this market. But since I just found out what my annual bonus is, I´m not so worried - I just need a phone!!!

My dinner was fantastic by the way, and jealously admired by 3 guys from Barcelona who were in the kitchen assembling their version of bocadillos for dinner - baguettes spread with tomato, processed cheese, and serrano-looking ham.

Update 4pm Friday. I HAVE A PHONE! You have no idea how thrilled and relaxed I am now. Fantastic. If anyone wants my details, email me. I can't send texts, but I can receive them and I can text to your email. It's also free for me to receive international calls, and it should be considering how expensive the plan is! Anyway....made myself pancakes for breakfast, a yummy salad and fish for lunch and will treat myself to dinner tonight at El Balcon. Tomorrow morning I meet up with Brett and Michelle and head to the villa!.....We are spending a week in this area.