Trip to San Jose, Costa Rica. Any advice/warnings?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I’m headed to San Jose, Costa Rica next month on a Dental Vacation (dentures and implants) and don’t know much about this city outside of what I can read online.

I’d like to hear from fellow dopers about their travels to Costa Rice (San Jose, in particular) and anything I may need to worry about or what I should look to spend my free time doing.

I’ll be spending about a week down there and staying in a hostel (Fauna Hostel in Escazu).

(I’m unsure of which forum to post this in, so chose MPSIMS as it seemed the proper place.)

Thanks!!

Steve

2

San Jose is perfectly fine for a Central American city but it is surprisingly large and mostly boring. Costa Rica itself is awesome as a whole but San Jose is the Cleveland of the country. Is there going to be any time to get out of San Jose to see the good parts of the country? I am a huge Costa Rica fan and may even move there in a few years but the only times I have stuck around San Jose were to stay in hotels before and after flights. Don’t get me wrong, there is not much wrong with it but not much of note either. Most people speak some English and almost all front desk employees are fluent in it. I do hear that their medical and dental tourism industry is top notch and inexpensive so you should be all set in that regard.

I have lots of recommendations for other parts of Costa Rica (it is a small country) but San Jose mainly has the same stuff you would find anywhere else. The people are nice and the food is fresh if you look in the right places. I mainly just walked around the times I have been there but I was just killing time before I went to the places I really wanted to go.

3

It’s been a while since I visited there. Some things I enjoyed:

  • downtown (somewhere) there is this kind of underground museum in this square. The museum had some cool (Mayan ?) artifacts.
  • keep your eyes open on the streets, sidewalks for little “parades” of leaf-cutter ants carrying their cargo. I love these guys, and it was cool to see them just going about their business on the sidewalk.
  • if you have the time (like a free afternoon), you can visit a local volcano crater, Poas (not Arenal, which is much further). It is pretty close to San Jose, so do-able as a day trip.

It rains a lot in Costa Rica. I was told January and February were the only “dry” months. So hopefully it won’t be too wet when you’re there. As a consequence of all the rain San Jose has some serious potholes - like meteor crater sized ones ! The joke down there is: how can you spot a drunk driver in Costa Rica ? He’s the one that’s not swerving.

4

  1. QFT. There are large parts of San Jose that look exactly like any typical mid-sized city in the US - same fast food restaurants, same retailers, etc. The only difference is that the signs are in Spanish.

  2. Let someone else do the driving, as there areno street addressesas we know them in San Jose. At best, it’s like this:

  1. This may seem obvious, but Costa Ricans speak Spanish. You don’t have to be fluent to get by, but knowing basic phrases is most helpful.

  2. It’s OK to negotiate prices, even in most of the “big box” retail stores in the mall. One of my favorite phrases became “Cuánto cuesta esto con descuento” - How much does this cost with a discount.