Day 10 San Jose Touring

Today we woke up in the Barcelo San Jose and will sleep again in the same hotel but we did a driving tour to see sights in and outside the city. Caravan is good about staying two nights in the first hotel. It allows guests to catch up with the tour in case they are delayed by flights. 

At 7:20 AM we met our guide Laura in the lobby with all the Caravan guests from our tour. She escorted us to our bus - a Mercedes and we all chose seats at random. After today, Laura will assign seats and we will move on a rotational basis to a new seat each day. 

Laura is an excellent tour guide who shared all kinds of detailed information about Costa Rica. The city of San Jose, Costa Rica is 44 square km and has a population of 350,000. Costa Rica got its independence from Spain in 1821. They celebrate Independence Day along with the rest of Central America on September 15. The population of the whole country is 5 million people. 

This building, yellow in colour, used to be a prison and then in the 1990’s it became a children’s hospital. 

Once we left the city of San Jose our first stop was at a small coffee plantation which we had stopped at for lunch when we toured Costa Rica in 2010. 

This is the view from the steep embankment where they are growing coffee!  Laura told us that Nicaraguans come and pick coffee in Costa Rica. For a basket of coffee beans picked that would weigh 20 pounds, they would earn $3 US. A really good, fast picker might be able to pick 8 to 10 baskets in a day in tough conditions. Nicaraguans then send much of that money home to their families. 

We then had the privilege of receiving a cup of coffee and a sweet bun. For people like me who do not drink coffee we received a hot drink made from sugar cane called Agua Dulce. It was flavourful but sweeter than I would have liked. Many people (J included) bought coffee to take home!

We then headed to Rescate, a wildlife rescue center. The main goal of Rescate is to heal wildlife and return them to the wild. For some animals that is not possible. 

We had about two hours to walk through the Rescate on our own. These were some of the animals we saw:

Green McCaw above. 

Scarlet McCaw above. 

Close up of iguana that just run wild in the Rescate. 

White faced spider monkey. 

Of the above cats we saw jaguar (first time ever!), puma (or cougar), a manigordo or ocelot and a caucel or margay. Pretty exciting because they were all awake and moving if not particularly active. 

We then went and enjoyed a buffet lunch at the Restaurant which was lovely. 

After lunch we went to an ox cart artisan workshop. They have been in existence for 102 years. 

A sample ox cart here with a mural of the original production centre depicting the set up a century ago. They still produce the wheels for the ox carts with simple technology and have artists paint the fancy designs. It takes 100 hours to make the cart and 120

hours to paint them. They sell for between $3,000 - $4,000 US. 

On the drive back to San Jose we saw fire in the ditch. Farmers burn sugar cane to get rid of the leaves and then it is easy to chop down the cane that is left. 

I guess a fire got out of control!

Back at the hotel I wrote this blog and J played games on his iPad. We will have supper shortly and pack our bags for tomorrow’s departure!