San Jose

We only had one night in San Jose and weren't expecting a lot, however the hostel (Selina San Jose) alone made it worth the visit. There are a few picturesque spots smattered among mostly run down areas. Though if you can get over its seedy side you'll be able to find some really great cafes, museums and more in the capital city of Costa Rica.

One of the parks nearby Selina

Getting There

We got the 6:30am bus from Monteverde which you catch from the bus terminal just opposite the shopping centre - you need to pay in cash and it's advisable to get the tickets slightly in advance as we only just got the last tickets.

Where we stayed

Selina San Jose - We loved the Selina hostel in San Jose. The Selina group is a chain of hostels around Central and South America that are at the higher end of quality and usually price. Possibly because of renovations we got a bargin, and it came with a cool restaurant, bar, kitchen and rooftop - the only real con was the room size, they are tiny!

tip - if you book directly through their website rather than hostelworld or booking.com you will save $$

Food and Drink

• KULA Health Bar - An awesome cafe with great food and coffee, just around the corner for Selina.

Journal

Arrival

The journey from Monteverde was about five hours, back down the windy roads we'd come up, but this time in a coach. We'd grabbed the last two seats at the back of the bus by the toilet. Luckily the toilet didn't smell and the only issue with the seats where the people coming and going meaning we needed to move our things every now and then. I'd read online that we might need to change at a place called Alajulea about an hour out of the city but it turned out to just be a stop at the airport with no change necessary.

As we came in to San Jose we began to see the large sprawling city, all it's hustle and bustle and big, ugly concrete buildings. We weren't expecting much as we'd heard it was more of a concrete jungle than a place of beautiful architecture. That said, as we passed through the city centre we did see a few nice parks, and buildings. We arrived at the terminal and decided to walk to our hostel as it didn't look far on the map. We came out of the terminal I tried to make sense of where we were, I couldn't see anything which mapped up to where we were so walked down a few streets til I saw a few landmarks. It turned out the bus had stopped at the different terminal to the one I was expecting. San Jose has a crazy amount of bus terminals and they are all named in completely illogical ways, for example some buses going to the South Atlantic coast leave from "Atlantico Norte", or the north terminal and which terminal the buses leave from seems to change every now and then. We had arrived at the Empresa Alfaro terminal.

Once I had worked out where we were I realised it was slightly further to walk than I had expected however it was just about okay to walk. The street we walked down was a little dodgy, with prostitutes and what looked like transvestites lining the streets. I was a little worried about our safety as with our big bags we would look like prime targets however after a few blocks the street began to pad out with a few more locals doing there shopping and went from a seedy vibe to just a run down one. We came to a couple of parks which were pretty, though a little dilapidated. Just on the other side and a couple of streets over was our hostel which was on a very quiet back street.

Day 1

We checked in to the Selina hotel though because it was only 11am by this point our rooms weren't quite ready. We put our backs in to storage and went in search of some food which we luckily found a few doors down at a promising looking cafe. The cafe was called the Kula Health Bar and the food and coffee looked delicious. We spoke to the owner who sat us down and talked us through the menu before she had to leave for the day. She made sure we would be okay with the Spanish speaking chefs and asked us to order up at the counter when we were ready. The menu looked great though a little out of our price range so we ummed and ahed and finally decided to share one of the tasty looking sandwiches. We didn't get a coffee as we could save money back at the hostel by making it ourselves.

Very tasty sandwich and salad at Kula Health Bar

The sandwich was really tasty and came with a whole heap of garlic butter and really nice salad which made it one of the better meals we'd had in a while; We savoured every bite! After the cafe we headed back to the hostel to make ourselves some coffee and to see if the room was ready. It still wasn't quite ready, so we explored the hostel which we found to be huge, and really, really cool. It had everything from a huge kitchen, movie room, restaurant and bar, and a great rooftop. They usually have a swimming pool too however they were doing renovations when we were there so it was out of action. We busied ourselves in the kitchen having our coffee and caught up on the world by which point our room was ready. The downside to the hostel turned out to be the room size; They were tiny, with barely enough room for the bed let alone our bags. We squeezed in and chilled out on the bed which was really comfy, especially when compared to the bed we'd had in Monteverde.

The Selina hostel had lots of cool areas that would be perfect for an afternoon blogging
(We just didn't have time)

Next on our to do list was to find the post office and send all our souvenirs, birthday presents and extra clothes home. As San Jose was a capital city we hoped we'd have a little more success than in Monteverde. We found it on the map and packed all the things in my bag and headed off. Luckily our hostel was close to the centre of the city so the post office wasn't far. Many of the other hostels we'd looked at in San Jose were miles out and you needed to work out the local busses to get around, which as we only had one day there we didn't really have time for. We walked around the main streets of San Jose which we found to be a mix match of brand named shops such as Nike, and other little privately owned shops which looked a little less appealing.

We easily found the post office which is a huge building and looks more like a Cathedral and went inside to find it was almost empty aside from the desks at the far side. We asked a security guard where we could buy a box to send our items and he shook his head, this wasn't that type of post office apparently! We asked where we could buy a box and he directed us down the street and said we'd find a market if we kept going. We followed the street for a while and didn't find anywhere other than one of those shops that sells everything. It looked like it might have boxes so Kate went in to check it out, as I wasn't allowed in because of my bag. Kate found some boxes but they weren't quite right, I saw that they actually had boxes that some of their items had clearly come in and went in to enquire if we could purchase one which looked perfect. The shop assistant was very helpful and asked a few others including one man who appeared to be the owner, he waved me through and said I could take it for free, I was doing them a favour!

Out searching the streets of San Jose for a cardboard box

We went back to the post office where we packed the box and tried to pad it out with as many things as possible so our birthday presents wouldn't get broken and then proceeded to one of the desks to ask about sending it. The desks looked quite daunting in the large room and we were worried the language barrier would hinder us, however when we got to the desk a nice lady did her best to weigh the box and with use of google translate and a calculator we worked out it would be about 100 AUD to send the box home. It was a lot of money, but the box was pretty large, and it would mean we wouldn't be carrying the stuff around for ever; We decided it was worth it.

After we'd sent the box - and feeling a lot lighter - we went round to some of the shops to have a look at hats. I'd lost my second hat of the trip in Isla Ometepe and the shops around San Jose looked very promising. We quickly found that the shops were actually very expensive with the prices being very similar to Australia so I decided to not get a hat here. It would have to wait. We sauntered back to the hostel where we felt we deserved a drink. Along the way we stopped in at a supermarket to pick up some spaghetti and sauce for dinner, we also grabbed a broccoli to get some vegetables in to our diet!

We got a couple of our first beers in Costa Rica at the hostels bar, as it was happy hour it was only a 1000 Cordoba which is about 2 dollars for each beer; Good, but not quite as cheap as Nicaragua! We grabbed a second round and took it to the kitchen to cook our dinner. Luckily there was no one else there so we didn't need to compete for kitchen space which is always a little tricky. The meal was really filling, and the Parmesan cheese we bought really helped give it some flavour. It wasn't the best meal, but it was cheap!

The Selina Hostel Kitchen

We made use of the hostels wifi after dinner and did a bit more research about our next destination Puerto Viejo on the southern Atlantic side of Costa Rica. There was limited information online about bus times and prices, and also which bus terminal to go from. We also had trouble working out where we wanted to stay in Puerto Viejo as we were hoping to camp to save some money, unfortunately it can be hard to book or even confirm camping is available until you get there. On this occasion we'd sent a facebook message to the accommodation who eventually replied saying camping was available if you just show up. We headed to bed after deciding we'd try to catch the 10am bus in the morning, this would mean we'd get a bit of a lie in compared to all the early starts we'd been having recently. And on that note, it was time for bed.

Day 2

The view from the Selina hostel rooftop

We got up around 8ish to give us time to have breakfast (yoghurt & muesli) as well as brew some coffee, then it was time to pack. We planned see how we were doing for time and perhaps catch a taxi to the North Atlanic terminal to get a bus ticket if we didn't have time to walk. On the way out at 9am I asked the guy at reception if we should be heading to that terminal or not. "No, no" he said, "to go to Puerto Viejo you must go from the Gran terminal del Caribe" and promptly drew us a map. We decided to call an Uber to get us there in time as we didn't want a mix up. The Uber driver arrived shortly and again we asked whether this was the right bus station to be going to, "definitely" he replied. Sure enough when we got to the bus station the ticket office told us that we were at the wrong bus station, we needed to be at the north Atlantic terminal. Great.

We put on our bags and decided we had just enough time to walk the kilometre to the other bus station as we didn't want to spend extra money now we'd already spent some on a taxi. It was pretty hot by this point so soon enough we were very hot and sweaty. We made it to the north Atlantic terminal at about 9:45am, with 15 minutes spare. We went up to the ticket desk and asked for 2 tickets. Some Spanish came back that we didn't quite understand and after further discussion I found out they had tickets, but none that came with a seat. This was a 4-5 hour journey and the idea of standing the whole way was not one we relished, however leaving much later would mean we'd get in to Puerto Viejo quite late, making finding our hostel difficult. We went for the "A pie" (standing) tickets and found out they were exactly the same as the seated tickets at about 5000 colons, outrageous! Nevertheless we paid up and soon were lining up for the cheap seats... well, for the cheap standings, actually, we were lining up for the standings. This was going to be fun!