A Weekend in San Jose

This past weekend while waiting for phase 2 of my trip I was given the opportunity to travel to the capital of Costa Rica, San Jose.  While we were there we stayed in a very nice hostel and were able to go around the city and see the sights as well as do some major souvenir shopping.  Below you will find some pictures of my adventures.

 This is the hostel that we stayed at in San Pedro which is just a short 5 minute bus ride into San Jose.

 This is a view from our balcony into the nice back yard at the hostel.  Even though it is in the middle of a large city I loved all the green space!

 This is the room that we all shared for 2 nights.  We had a private room with our own bathroom and balcony.  This hostel was a lot better than I ever imagined they would be.  You can also see Shannon trying to get all her new purchases back into her bag.

 This is the communal kitchen that everyone shared.  Here you can see Shannon and Manuel right after we ate breakfast.  Every morning the hostel makes pancakes and has fresh slices of pineapple for us to eat.

 This is Ashley and Manuel sitting in front of me on the bus as we were going into San Jose.  It was only a 5 minute bus ride and it only cost 225 colones which is less than $0.50!  This is how we got into the city both days and the public transportation system here in Costa Rica is very reliable and it seems to be the way everyone gets around. 

 This is one of the many American chains that we saw when we were in San Jose.  The thing I like about them is you can see the "Postres" in the front of the restaurant which is the desserts so you really don't even need to go all the way in to get dessert.  We decided to not eat ice cream there but instead went to a more regional ice cream place called Pops (which you can see in the picture right below).

 This is a view of one of the main streets in San Jose and it is a walking only street so no cars are allowed to drive on it.  This picture was taken on Sunday when there were not very many people out and about when compared to Saturday it seemed everyone was out.  The city is relatively clean considering how many people travel through and live here.  I was also surprised at how many trees and parks there were even in the middle of San Jose.

 This is a picture of me with one of the statues that was on the street.  We have no idea what the significance was but I decided it was a good photo opportunity.

 This is the post office in downtown San Jose.  It is a beautiful historical building that is very different from the buildings around it. 

This is a picture of a church that was less than a block from the hostel.  On both Saturday night and most of the day Sunday the bells at the church were ringing as church began and ended. 

Overall we had a great two days in San Jose looking around and getting lots of souvenirs.  We sadly had to wish everyone farewell as they began their travels back to the States.  On Sunday though we were able to meet our professors at the airport and were able to ride with them back to EARTH and begin our one week stay with them.  This week we will be doing many similar things that I have done on my previous stay but also have some added trips into the community and to a saw mill which I am really excited about.  We will be here at EARTH until Thursday before we move around ending up in San Jose for two more nights.  The rainy season is in full force here in Costa Rica.  Yesterday it rained from 3 pm until noon today when we had about a 5 hour break before the storms rolled back in this afternoon and as I write this we are just getting buckets and buckets of rain.  So I will try to send some of the rain back to Columbia since I know it is very dry there.