Saturday, May 7
We have arrived in San Jose. Definitely a big city and light-years away from the lovely volcano upcountry we just left.
Our hotel, the Hotel Presidente, is right on the pedestrian mall that leads to the Central Market. Tourists, predators, drunks, panhandlers, people going about their business, street vendors, young skinny people of all genders in tight jeans and urban hairdos all out there strolling along.We walked up and down most of it but did not explore the Central Market. We’ll leave that for another day when we are fresh.
Our room is very nice, tile floors & a decor with a Spanish feel to it. It’s a suite and Mick has already arranged the living room furniture to his liking, since we wil be here for a week. Surprisingly, it does not have a coffee maker and they cannot provide one for us. That means Mick will be bringing our coffee gear to the hotel restaurant in the morning and making our coffee at the table.All he needs is hot water.
We were also surprised by the lack of real restaurants on the ped mall. Plenty of unpleasantly familiar fast-food: Quiznos, Subway, Pizza Hut, Wendy’s, McDonalds, etc etc. Yuck. There is a restaurant in our hotel, of course, and one across the street. The “concierge” did not have a list of nearby restaurants for us. We ate across the street tonight and were not impressed. Breakfasts at the hotel are included with our room so that is good.
The hotel clerk was able to steer us to a grocery store, where we bought some spring water. It’s only a couple of blocks away so very convenient. The name of the store is MasXmenos, but guess what company is on their name tags? WalMart. That’s right. Destroying local economies around the world.
PLUS there’s a hotel gym which is really nice. The elliptical trainer it has is good because the foot pedals are close enough together. Some are too far apart for my gait and they hurt my knees. This one is good, YAY!!! It also has a large exercise ball & mats so I can do some Pilates. Aaaaah.
Tomorrow we are getting a private tour of the city. We are making a list of things we want to locate near our hotel so we can feel more oriented about where we are.