STAYING IN A HOSTEL IN SAN JOSE

I had first intended to move from the ridge back to San Jose for the end of my dental work, and had a reservation at Aparthotel Christina, the nice place that we stayed at in 2006.  However when Bev offered the spare bedroom on the ridge, I can cancelled my room there and decided to save some money.  That was before I learned so much about the bus commute, especially how long it could be, and how the appointments work at the doctors office.

When I couldn't get back to the doc because I couldn't make the bus ride without a nearby potty, I realized I was going to have to move into the city if there was to be any chance of getting done by this coming Wednesday-thats just 3 working days.  I leave on Thursday.  I've accepted that I may have to just rebook my flight home and will if forced into it, but I don't want to.  I really do want to come home.

Sadly, Apt. Christina was booked for small singles and I wanted to pay less that $40 a night...taxi rides had eaten up my spending money and I still had a final payment to the dentist for the work

So I consulted my tour guides, the map of the city, my memory of hotels people had said were good and sent out about 25 emails Friday and Saturday.

This is the start of Costa Ricas summer.  It's been beautiful on the ridge for a change.  Cloudless warm days and breezy-not windy-nights.  What I had been hoping for the past 3 weeks was happening just as I was leaving.  Oh well.

San Jose has the main airport and everyone who flys in to this city usually stays at least a day.  Emails came back "No Vacancy".  After about 15 of them, I asked a new friend and she suggested I try the budget places, like hostels.  They were cheaper and usually the last to fill this time of year because it isn't quite a school holiday.  That comes next week.

So I wrote to a hostel booking agency in town asking for a room with a private bath and they booked me at the Hotel/Pension/B&B/Hostel/Apartmento de la Cuesta.  Downtown, just a block off of the main drag and about 6 blocks from the much feared Coca Cola terminal.

They had several rooms available and I could choose which one I wanted when I got here.  I never paused to wonder why, when all the other places had been booked solid, was there one with several rooms available.  The guide book didn't have anything bad to say about it, it commented some rooms had private baths and that it looked like it had been decorated by Barbie and Ken.  Free tipical breakfast. Thats all.

It has an ok website and looked like it just might be the ticket so I paid my 20.000 colones deposit and started to pack up my bedroom in the casa on the ridge.

Sunday, Bev had a big fiesta to go to.  I wish I could have gone but the need to clean up my space, do laundry, pack and the ongoing gut problems made it an non event for me.  I called for Gerry from Jersey the Taxi-man to come between 12:30 and 1:30, figuring that might get him there by 2:30 which was about when I wanted to leave.  I'd forgotten Gerry had spent 7 years in the states and knew the difference between Gringo and Tica time-he was there at 12:15.

So I threw my unpacked and wet things into the shopping bags I'd brought, great synthetic fiber ones I'd gotten as 'gimmie' gifts last summer, and headed out of town, first picking up 3 of his cousins who were going to a Raggaeton concert at a futbol stadium in the outskirts of Alejuela.

He was laughing about how the 3 teens had begged him for a ride and he's said he had a job to go to San Jose first and maybe when he got back he'd take them.  But the concert was to start at 1300 and the kids wanted, HAD to be there for the opening act-it was a local one and they knew the band. 

"We go right by Alejuela on the way to San Jose." I said

"Yes, we do." replied Gerry

"Well call the kids, if they are ready in 15 minutes, we'll just take them.  I'm not in a hurry."

"You sure?"

"Sure-why not-no problem" I replied.

The kids were ready, in the front yard waiting as we drove up and away we went, with many "Muchas Gracias, senora" and one "Thank you" from the sole english speaker.

 We made it there by 1 PM and the kids practiced their english, said thank you very much and ran off to live in the world of Bob Marley circa 2008 for a while.

Gerry and I drove into San Jose and I got my directions out.  The traffic was terrible!  I'd figured that on Sunday there would be, at least, a little less traffic but it was stopped dead at the Datsun dealer where the turn from the Autopista onto Paseo Colon is made.  Then I noticed a lane was blocked off by big barrels and rope, there were some runners in the land, lots of plastic water bottles on the ground by La Sabana Parque...there was a run of some sort happening right on the primary streets of San Jose.  

It took up almost another hour to get from the Parque side of town to the opposite end, where my hotel was, then another half hour to find the hotel.  At this point I was still thinking hotel.

In 'Tipical Tico' fashion, each person we asked directions for gave us different ones.  It is 100 meters from the Parque National.  

Which Parque National?

It is 50 meters from la registario civil.

Which registario civil?

We finally found a taxi guy in the area and he told us correctly how to get there.

It was not quite as I expected.

more to come........