Where the streets have no names…

They have no street names in San jose, Costa Rica. Well, they do, but they don’t label anything and nobody actually knows what the street names are.

We took a death cab from the airport to our hostel downtown. Everybody drives like maniacs, but I expected that. Anyway, it was almost a 30 minutes ride, and cost us about $20, but it was defeintely the only logical way for us to get to the hostel. Within minutes I was chillin’ in a hamaca:

This is downtown San Jose? No way. This the courtyard of our hostel surrounded by a bustling extremely noisy city (but interesting). To keep the crazies out, they use razor wire.

Not that the city feels unsafe. It doesn’t feel any more unsafe than Toronto, but with the amount of activity constantly going on in the streets (it’s hot, so I guess everybody spends most of the time oustside) I wouldn’t doubt they’ve had to deal with riots and things in the past. Anyway, we walked around for a good while, the city was neat although we definetely were eager to hit the coast. Here’s some pics:

And the hostel was pretty decent. It was simply called Costa Rica Backpackers. We met some people and got some advice on where to head next.

Costa Rica Backpackers also had a nice kitchen. We would go to the Super Mercado and buy some Rice and Beans and some fruit for a few dollars (1500-2000 colones) and maybe some Tang. A good way to save some cash and avoid some of the awkwardness that comes along with knowing little Spanish and trying to order food such as our experience at Taco Hoy…

At night we watched a young gypsy play with fire. I got this picture of Bri with the fire girl behind her. Bri would later lose these sunglasses (and ruin her mp3 player) while frolicking drunk in the ocean.