My Birthday Adventures!

My wonderful wife set up a day of exploration and adventure for me to celebrate my 51st birthday.  It's difficult being so far away from family and friends for all the special days and holidays, so a day spent visiting some cool local attractions definitely helped make the day special.

Birthday morning started with hopping the bus to downtown San Jose and walking to the rental car office.  We rented one of these bad boys -



- a Daihatsu Bego.  Okay, so it's no Hummer or Escalade.  Really more of a small SUV, so not all that macho.  Never heard of this particular model.  Turned out to be a nice ride.  We decided on four wheel drive because we didn't know where the day might take us or how the roads would be once we turned off the Pan American Highway, which runs…

…well, it depends on who you ask, I suppose.  Theoretically, it runs from Prudhoe Bay to Ushuala.  The entire US interstate system is unofficially designated as part of it, as well.  Canada wants nothing to do with it, so won't admit their roads are included.  Anyway, we would only drive about 30-40 kilometers of it, so it doesn't matter how long the damn thing is.  

We did the pre-drive inspection, made sure the tires looked good and off we went.  Morning rush hour in a Central American city of 3+ million people = awesome, with lots of honking!

We made our way out of the city and headed toward the town of Cartago, which would be the jumping off point for the days adventures.  Surprisingly, there were adequate road signs indicating we were heading in the right direction.  Then, of course, the signs dried up and we found ourselves driving in circles somewhere near Cartago but not quite in Cartago or maybe we were in Cartago.  It was hard to tell.

One good thing about almost every town down here is that if you can spot the church, you can figure out where you are and where you need to go.  Churches are at the center of most towns, so once we spotted the steeple and made our way to it, we were at the parque central - the center of town where the street numbers are Avenida 1 and Calle 1.  Once we figured out which direction we needed to go (we weren't as far off track as we'd thought!) we drove up, up, up, up, up to the top of Volcán Irazú, Costa Rica's highest ACTIVE volcano. To give y'all back in Portland a reference point, it's just about ten feet taller than Mt. Hood.

Throw the ring in, Frodo.

Who knew it could be in the 40's in the tropics?!  Not us - we found ourselves completely unprepared for both the temperature and the rain.  It was damn cold, especially considering we'd been topical beach bums for the past few months.  Even with the rain and clouds, it was still an incredible experience.  We had glimpses down into the 1,000 foot deep crater. Pretty epic and a little creepy.

Look out!  There's a volcano behind you!!

The smart people started packing out.

Manly moonscape - or Moonly Manscape?

I told her not to go past the sign… did she listen?!?  Nooooooo!

For something truly creepy, next we explored the Sanitorio Duran, a former prison and insane asylum.  It’s just off the road that runs up the volcano so getting there was no problem.  This place was featured on 'Ghost Hunters International' and is considered to be the most haunted location in Costa Rica. Even in broad daylight, we were a little freaked out.

Rich and Aiden, this stop was for you guys!

How the tour works:  
1)  Pay the caretaker $2;
That's it.  After that, you have the run of the place.

From the hill overlooking the Sanitorio Duran

I ain't 'fraid of no ghost!

But it wasn't all scary.  Some of it offered artistic opportunities.

This shot is through six windows of three separate wings of the complex.

And some of it was silly, handsome, and big.  In that order.

OoooOOOooooOOO, a ghost.

Ghost Hunter's has got nothing on us.

We didn't stick around to wait for the dinosaurs.

There were a few other tourists visiting the site.  Aaannnndddd… there was an entire busload of trainees from the Academia de Policia.  It appeared they were there to do some sort of bonding field trip-py training.  From what we saw, however, they mostly scattered around, hiding from one another in all the alcoves, hallways, bathroom shower stalls, little rooms and closets, lying in wait making ghost noises and scaring the crap out of each other.

One officer was wandering around, walking slowly, eating marshmallows out of a bag, a big smile on his face.  As we passed him in one of the spooky hallways, he offered us a marshmallow.  I took a pink one.  “Gracias!”  It seemed a little out of context, exploring these haunted premises, on edge the entire time – and having a friendly policeman offer me a marshmallow.  Hmmm…

In addition to marshmallows, police down here carry guns – lots of guns.  Sidearms.  And shotguns.  The fun short barreled models that hold lots of shells and quell riots.
When they broke for lunch they:
a) secured their weapons by locking them in the bus
b) kept their weapons with them in case Belize invaded
c) assigned one person to watch over the neatly stacked weapons
d) piled them haphazardly on a bench outside so they could eat lunch in the building, on the steps or under a tree

If you guessed (d) you would be correct!

Official Costa Rican Gun Storage Protocol in action.

[I wore my Contour video camera while we wandered the grounds.  I need to edit the footage and I’ll post that at a later date.]

Even though we felt well-protected by the police and even though we toured the place by the light of day, we admitted to each other that the ol’ spidey sense was tingling the entire time.  You can’t help but get a little tense wandering around this place.  It wasn’t just the thought of the ghosts that are rumored to haunt the place.  There are stories about weird experiments-on-humans stuff that happened while it was a mental hospital.  (shudder)  And you can just imagine how wonderful prison life here must have been.

Imagine being crazy… It's easy when you're here...

After being on high alert while touring the sanitorium, we drove to Cartago to see the Basilica de Nuestra Señora de Los Angeles, a magnificent Byzantine-style church built in 1635.  It's considered to be the most revered church in the country, mostly because it is the home of the Virgen de los Angeles.  Because of the dark color of the stone, it's also called La Negrita and it is a stone likeness of the Virgin Mary.  La Negrita was found on this spot in 1635.  It’s said that the woman who found La Negrita took it home - twice - and each time it magically appeared back at its original location.  The story is that there were five attempts over the years to move it and each time it was found back where it was discovered.  A miracle, indeed.  Rather than trying to move the unmovable, either to an existing church or to the mother ship in Europe, they built a shrine around it, and then the church around the shrine.  Regardless of your beliefs, the shrine and La Negrita was quite stunning - and humbling - to see.  It was truly amazing.

Gray church, gray sky.  Today's show is brought to you by the color gray. 

But the gilt paint inside created a nice warm glow of color.

See the Jesus Beams shining down!

Not the greatest picture - La Negrita and the shrine - and lots of gold.

Worshippers walk to the shrine on their knees.

Also found in Cartago are La Ruinas (The Ruins).  The remains of a church that was never completed, it’s now been turned into a park.  It’s fantastic!  Why was it never completed?  Good question!  Because earthquakes kept collapsing the roof, that’s why.  But the walls remained and so at some point the city planted trees and grass, put in a pond with fish, lighted walkways and benches, a few garbage cans.  Tada!  It’s really gorgeous and it was packed when we visited.  It’s well used and a great repurposing of a beautiful old building.

A wonderful full city block refuge.

There is another story about La Ruinas and why it was never completed.  You see, this site is also considered to be quite haunted, the ghost at this site being a priest!  During the construction of the church in the 1500's, it seems the priest was having a rather torrid affair with the mayor's wife.  Upon discovering this infidelity, the mayor flew into a jealous rage and killed the priest.  Soon after, an earthquake caved in the roof of the church.  This happened not just once but several times.  Each time the church was nearing completion, an earthquake destroyed it, always leaving the walls standing.  Locals claimed it was the spirit of the priest – and his BFF, God – that were causing this.  Eventually, they gave up and built the church at a new, less haunted location.

But to hell with volcanoes and ghosts!  The craziest, most courageous and most daring thing I did on my birthday was - I DROVE IN SAN JOSE RUSH HOUR!  If you've ever experienced driving and/or drivers in Central America, you'll understand the epic-ness of this.  Ask my son and daughter-in-law.

After getting back home and cleaning up, it was time to get some food.  We had a great dinner at Product C, a high end restaurant in one of the swankier areas of San Jose.  A play on words, Product C has cultivated a sea to table supply chain for itself and other Costa Rican restaurants.  There was a time when even on the Costa Rican coast, it was hard for restauranteurs to buy fish - it was all for export.   Fish that were perfectly delicious but not on the target export list were discarded, being tossed back rather than sold to eager locals.  Too much hassle, I suppose.  Now, thanks to Product C, excellent local seafood is available to chefs and to the public (the restaurant has a retail fish counter inside).  For more on the back story, check out the New York Times.

I had oysters on the half shell, we had an excellent bottle of wine and wonderful meals.  It wasn’t until part way through dinner that we remembered that Product C serves locally produced micro beers.  Gasp!  We finished dinner, went for a walk and then returned to Product C to sit in the bar, where we tried a few different brews.  We enjoyed Segua Red Ale and Libertas Tropical Golden from CRCB (Costa Rica Craft Brewery) and an excellent sour and samples of an intriguing brew in development from Treinta y Cinco (Spanish for '35').

It was a great day, full of adventures, exploring, new experiences, great food and drink.  My wife spoiled me!

I suppose I deserve it.

More San Jose Stuff

More on Costa Rica…

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We spent a portion of a day in the suburb of Heredia, which is situated north of San Jose proper.  One of the country's primary universities is located here as are several international companies.  Intel makes chips here, for example.  And not the good kind, either.  They're for computers.  (sigh)

We caught the bus into town, then hooked up with the line that runs out to this 'burb.  In addition to simply wanting to check out the town as a potential living/working location, our other goal was to get registered for a race.  Not just any race, either - this bad boy was to be Event 50 in the 50@50 Project.  One of the locations hosting sign ups was a Brooks store (sorry, Becky B) in town, so we figured we'd kill two birds with one running shoe.

We got off the bus and wandered around a little, trying to locate the parque central.  These parks are almost always at the center of town, so navigating anywhere else from there is easy peasy.  However, locating the park is not always so simple.  Heredia is hilly and the part of town the bus dropped us was on the high side.  We had great views down over part of the town.  Half a dozen or so blocks away we saw a likely location - a big church and lots of trees.  We decided to head that direction but when we got there we realized this was not the city center.  It was cool, nonetheless.  

For our full wanderings and bus trips, check out this day's Garmin map.

We decided to regroup over lunch, so we did what every traveler does in Nicaragua - we ate Chinese food.  It was pretty damn good, too.  Bex! had a great fried rice dish and I had woba de pollo, which is chicken with… um… er… chicken and… let's see…  Yeah, I still don't know.  It's some sort of puffed, crisped corn or rice.  Crunchy, crispy served on a sizzling hot cast iron platter.  Lots of veggies.  I quite liked it.  The woba came on the nuclear heated metal plate with the chicken and vegetable stew on the side.  The server then ladled the stew over the woba, the sauce turning to vapor as it dripped through the woba and hit the cast iron.  The aroma was tantalizing and the taste did not disappoint.

We asked our server for directions to the park - we were only a few blocks away.  Sweet!  The park was quite large and, as usual, filled with people.  Latinos know how to enjoy their outdoor spaces!  As is normal, the park was framed on one side by the city's primary church.  The Iglesia de la Inmaculada Concepción is a simple, beautiful church.  Whitewashed exterior, humble interior.  It's been remodeled and reconstructed over the years (earthquake!!), the last time in the mid-1800's.  The stained glass windows were shipped from France and the bells were brought north from Cuzco, Peru.

Classic city planning

Modern day petroglyphs

The other cool landmark, located just across from the park and kitty-corner from the church is El Fortin.  The link is in Spanish but if you're not inclined to work on your language skills, click the 'translate page' button to switch 'er to English.  La Torre (The Tower) is the last remaining portion of an old fort from the 1800's.  I especially like the diagrams of the building on the right side of the wiki page.  The walls are incredibly thick and the gun ports (the small windows) taper down to a slit on the inside.  Pretty fascinating!

Short and squat - the tower, that is.

"Hey!"
[Note:  I write most of the content and Bex! writes most of the captions]

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We took a self-guided tour of the Teatro Nacional of Costa Rica.  This is the country's preeminent showcase for the arts.  It is a beautiful building, any way you look at it, inside and out.  Our tour guide (mentioned in a previous post) told us the theatre was built because the government had booked a famous Italian opera singer for a performance.  After hearing of the 'primitive' theatre they had chosen for her, she refused to come to Costa Rica until they built a venue worthy of her talents.  A true pain in the aria.  Construction started in 1891 and was completed in 1897.  I didn't dig too deep on this story so don't know for sure if it's accurate.  But it makes for a great tale!

It's hard to describe this theatre in words, so maybe some pictures will suffice.

Louis XIV would be proud of the opulence.

'Roar -oar -oar -oar'  Thank you Katy Perry for ruining lions for me.

This was the floor, man!  The freakin' FLOOR!  I was afraid to take a step.

Please unwrap your candies before the show starts.

End scene.

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We went to the Tica Bus office to change the date for our tickets back to Nicaragua.  I got excited when I saw this sign:

Brown chicken brown cow!

I thought we were going on the Via J Erotica Bus.  I was sadly disappointed to find out it actually says 'Viajero Tica Bus' - viajero is Spanish for The Traveler or The Wanderer.  I guess that designation works for us, too.

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Located in San Jose, La Sabana Metropolitan Park is a vast expanse of green space within the city.  I can honestly say that this park was filled with people almost every time we passed it in a bus on the way downtown or visited the park itself.  It has activities for darn near everything and everyone.  Here's a map via El Garmin from when we ran and explored here.  Below is a pic of a large map posted in the park. 

Looks like a good place for a scavenger hunt

The park is also home to Estadio Nacional de Costa Rica (upper left corner, above).  This is a gorgeous stadium, home of Costa Rica's national football team - who made the World Cup, thankyouverymuch.  It's brand spankin' new, too, opening on March 26th, 2011 - better known as Bex!'s birthday!  Interestingly, China paid the entire cost of construction - around $100 million.  Not sure what Costa Rica gave up for their part of the arrangement, most likely a long term trade agreement.  During our stay in town, they never had any events there, unfortunately.  In addition to soccer, the stadium has also been the site for many concerts, artists ranging from Sir Elton John to the Red Hot Chili Peppers to Miley Cyrus to Pearl Jam to Shakira to Lady Gaga to Judas Priest/Whitesnake.  

The park has existed in some form since the 1700's, when the parish priest for the city's church donated the land.  It went though many iterations over the years.  Then in the 1930's the city had the brilliant idea to locate Costa Rica's first international airport here, which operated for some 40+ years.  When the new bigger nicer airport opened, the citizens pressed for the land to be returned to the park, developers be damned.  And in a rare instance of a government actually listening to what the people want (yeah, I'm looking at you, USA - now, pay attention) La Sabana Metropolitan Park was reborn in full.

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On the opposite end of the park from the stadium is the Museo de Arte Costarricense (Museum of Cost Rican Art).  As you can tell by the building, this used to be the control tower and airport terminal.  Nice repurposing, San Jose.

Roger wilco.  You have permission to appreciate art on runway 6.

They had many wonderful displays such as some very old woodblock prints and a small exhibit of 'street art', items made from cardboard and other everyday materials.  One of the temporary exhibits was by Costa Rica's Juan Kelly.  These rather unusual paintings were collectively called 'Transciones y Transformaciones' which I believe is Spanish for 'acid trip'.  Paintings of flying horses and dogs nursing from cows and lions hiding from zebras.  Beautiful detail but the content left us scratching our gringo heads.

'Barca Soberano' by Juan Kelly

The museum also has a sculpture garden outside.  These pieces run the gamut, from modern to classic.  It was interesting - and hot, so we were back inside after a quick walkabout.

Don't let Fluffy on the furniture.

Reminds me of the movie 'Aliens', although I'm not sure why...

Knee-to-chin-asana is Costa Rica's contribution to yoga

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We've mentioned the great shopping district in downtown San Jose located on the Avenida Central.  This two block wide shoppers heaven stretches almost two kilometers and has virtually everything you could want.  There are international name brand stores, local businesses and street vendors selling produce.  It's a place that is full of energy and a vibrancy that comes from people interacting with each other.  It can be a little chaotic but the people watching is fantastic.

In the video you'll notice the 'postre window' which is a part of every fast food restaurant here - an express window that sells only desserts.  And they do a LOT of business.  Some places, like the McDonald's shown in the vid have two dessert-only windows.  In some places, we saw stand-alone kiosks.  Fast Food America, spreading joy and diabetes throughout the world!

Ice cream for lunch, mmmm

A lot of the ground floor space along the Avenida Central is for businesses and people selling whatever it is they happen to be selling.  If a person gets overwhelmed with that, there are ways to catch a break - namely, restaurants (aka 'bars') located on the second floor!

Second floor seats provide good views for short people.  Not that I'm short.

Pedestrian only - no room for cars!

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More on San Jose later, including how we spent my birthday.  [Hint:  Volcanoes and ghosts and craft beer!  Oh my!]