2015 Rainforest Revisit - Part Four- Tour of San Jose

The Non Hop-Off Bus

10.08.2015

I felt a few drops of rain, but it didn't actually rain. We went up the pedestrian street which was much easier on the scooter.

and got back to the hotel about noon. The scooter was still in the green (meaning it had a fairly full charge still - the levels are green, yellow and red - you don't want to get into the red). I had asked the guy at the desk if he could recommend a guide and how much would it be, and when we got back he said it would be $80 for three hours. I said that was too much. But I thought we could do the hop-on-hop-off Costa Rica City Square Tours that the man at the Tourist Information Desk in the hotel at told us about. So I made reservations and he said they would pick us up at 2:10. Bob charged the scooter and napped. I downloaded photos- I took 157 and Bob took about 80. When we went down, I just had my cane as I was not planning to get off the bus anyplace, and then I found it was $30 per person. Which is right much. There was some event on the 17th floor and the driveway of the hotel was clogged with cars so we had to go across the street to get on the van. I asked if I could sit in the front seat and they said yes. It was better for photos because I could see both sides of the street although there were still reflections. There was another couple with us from California
Ticket for the tour

Ticket for the tour

While this was an extensive, thorough tour of the city, which I enjoyed, I felt it was somewhat expensive, and in particular it is NOT a hop-on-hop-off tour. The hop-on-hop-off tours I have taken in other cities (Madrid, Barcelona, Copenhagen, London, Sydney, New York, Savannah, Honolulu, and Amsterdam where it was hop on hop off boats), there are vehicles circulating on the route. There are multiple stops on the route, and you can get on or off at any of them, see the attraction, and then get back on another bus. This tour was not that. There were two stops to get off and view the attraction and everyone was to get off. I cannot walk far. I thought it would be OK for me to just stay on the bus and not get off anywhere. Had I known that this was a city tour with two stops and not a tour with optional stops, I would have brought my scooter so I could go in and view the museum with the guide. As it was I missed a good part of the tour because of the mis-labeling as a hop-on-hop-off. For the price, I could have (and later did) hire a car and driver to take me with my scooter to places I wanted to go for three hours. After my review was stolen from VT by TripAdvisor, the man who ran the company disputed my assessment of the situation. There were places to get off, but since there was only one bus, it would have been a dead end if we did that.

Statue in the park from the hotel

It is a two hour tour. As the Parque Morazán was opposite our hotel, we started there

entrance gates Parque Morazán from the bus

Temple of music and phone bank

Down Calle 9 by the park toward Sleep Inn

Carlos Gardel Statue

Then we passed by the

Yellow House (Casa Amarillo)

Costa Rica’s Yellow House was built using funds donated by Andrew Carnegie in 1912, It is a noteworthy (and noticeable!) building that is across from the Parque Espana. It housed the Central American Court of Justice. It was built for the headquarters of the first permanent international court of the world, the Central American Justice Court. This never took place because when the building was about to be opened, the convention was over and therefore was given to the government of Costa Rica. It has since been appropriated for use as a presidential home, a temporary facility for the Legislative Assembly and sometimes also the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Culture. It was declared a national heritage in 1976. There is a plaque next to it on the "Republic of Argentina Passageway" which says
Paseo
Republica de Argentina
line I can't read)
Municipalidad de San Jose

Plaque next to the house

We saw quite a bit of different architecture

decorative iron fence

and we went past the Children's Museum

Taxi from a tour bus

One part of the tour was the new bus depot which has been built

New bus station with the orange stripe

in one of the most horrible neighborhoods in town. He said they intended to clean that section up, but he didn't sound optimistic.. It wasn't the place where we took the bus in 1996.

Neighborhood street near the bus station

I took photos of a lot of the fast food places

Popeyes, Burger King and Papa John

KFC

Costa Rican chicken

Golden Arches - they are everywhere

We got to the first stop (Costa Rican Art Museum) It is in an old airport terminal building with a disguised tower and the guide got off with the other two people. Bob and I stayed in the van. The guide told us that it has a wood carving wall which shows the history of Costa Rica. The guide showed me a photo he took of it on his cell phone. I did not know that the tour would stop for everyone to go in (it is free so it costs the tour company nothing) so I was not prepared and could not go.

Museo de Arte Costarricense

We did see some of the sculptures outside and the hopscotch games painted on the parking lot.

Museo de Arte Costarricense

Sidewalk art at the Art Museum

Guide_unchaining the parking lot

We passed by the

Hotel Gran Oro

employees in front of the hotel

where I had thought we might have lunch (lunch would be cheaper than dinner)

Metropolitan Cathedral of St. Joseph

statue of the Pope

We also saw

Holland House

Beer Factory

Museo Dr. Rafael Angel Carmona

1908 - Railroad Station

The Costa Rica National Museum sits directly across from the country's Legislative Assembly. The museum is situated in the Bellavista Fortress, which was built in 1917 and originally used as military barracks, specifically during the 1948 Costa Rica civil war.

The_wall_with the bullet holes from 1948

The guide didn't explain about the Civil War - I guess he thought we already knew about it. But the Costa Rican Civil War lasted for 44 days (from 12 March to 24 April 1948). It started because of the vote of the Costa Rican Legislature, dominated by pro-government representatives, to annul the results of the presidential elections held in February, alleging that the triumph of opposition candidate Otilio Ulate had been achieved by fraud. The rebel army under commander José Figueres quickly defeated the government of Legislature backed President Teodoro Picado. Figueres ruled for a year and a half as head of a provisional government junta which abolished the military. Figueres' junta oversaw the election of a Constitutional Assembly in December, which produced the 1949 constitution. The junta then stepped down and handed power to Ulate.

Police guard outside house of president

St Thomas University

University outside stairs

Near the university, there was quite a bit of wall art

Art on the wall

wall art

and we

Passed by China Town/ Bario

And we saw the pink building. I was interested in this building (which wasn't far from our hotel) before I knew anything about it. It seemed a little different. In fact, it is made of metal. I've seen other metal buildings - specifically one in the Dockyard in Bermuda. After the big earthquake, in 1890, the Forging Association of Aiseau, Belgium constructed a metal building designed by the architect Charles Thirion. It was the San Jose Graduated School for Boys and Girls. At the end of 1892, the pieces of the building arrived to Costa Rica, and it was inaugurated in 1896. In 1917, the girls section of the school was given the name Julia Lang, and the name Buenaventura Corralesa was given to the boy´s section. It is still a school and the park in the front of it has a playground.

The metal building and fountain

Through the trees

Front of the building with the name

We also saw the Parque Espana which is between Ave 3 and President Roosevelt on the north and south and Calle 9 and Calle 11A on the east and west. On one side is the Centro National de la Cultura and on the other side is the INS building which housed the Jade Museum (until the Jade Museum got its own building), the metal building (which is a school) and Jardin de Paz which on the other side of the Jardin de Paz is Morazan Park.
Originally this space was occupied by the National Liquor Factory (c 1856). It was renamed Place de la Concorde in 1917 and was renamed Paque Espana in 1920. The park has lovely trees, In 1963, the President of the United States, John F. Kennedy , visited the site and planted a ceiba tree. Many birds come to roost here at night. It has several monuments, the largest, most notable and well-known statue is of Spanish conquistador Juan Vasquez de Coronado , next to a fountain in the main entrance to the park.

North Entrance

Statue

sculpture

Trees

Toward the end of the tour, my camera battery started to die so I tried to limit my photos, but I ended up with a little less than 200 of them. Bob didn't take any photos because he didn't bring his camera.

National Theatre entrance from hop on hop off bus

The other couple wanted to go to the Gold Museum and the National Theater, so they let us off at the hotel and went back to the Gold Museum with them. I understand that this company has now gone out of business.

I set the camera battery to charge (and the alternate camera battery needed to be charged also) and downloaded and started entering photos, and we repacked so that we could put two big bags (the Luggie bag and Bob's big bag) in storage here at the hotel. When we got everything organized, Bob took the two bags down.Then because we felt that the hotel restaurant was a bit expensive, Bob walked to Burger King to get us Whoppers for dinner.

We wanted milk shakes but they apparently didn't get the concept, so we got sundaes.