City Culture & Cool Creatures

On the Thursday and Friday of Zoë's parents holiday here we visited San Jose and INBIOParque.

We followed (more or less) the walking tour of San Jose that was suggested in one of our guide books, this allowed us to see the main features of the capital city, including it's numerous parks and plazas, and also to visit a couple of museums.

The National Museum of Costa Rica is a good place to find out about the history of the country, Pre-Colombian and after Spanish colonisation. Entry was relatively inexpensive too ($5). It is housed in an old fortress, still pitted by bullet holes from the civil war, and there are many exhibition rooms, one section with photographs explaining the building's past life, and a very disappointing butterfly garden. Perhaps the beautiful butterflies don't like living in a fort.

The Jade Museum houses the largest collection of jade in the Americas and there are also displays of pre-Colombian pottery and sculpture all of which gives an insight into the lives of the indigenous people of Costa Rica. There is also a gold museum in San Jose which we have visited on a previous occasion. To be honest we preferred the gold museum as there was a bit more to see. The jade museum entry cost $7 per person.

Our own private walking tour ended at the grand Teatro Nacional which was built thanks to a coffee tax in the 19th century when the country's social elite decided the country was lacking a theatre suitable to attract world class performances. We didn't see any world class performances whilst we were there but we did stop in the theatre's lavish cafe for some top class (but pricey) ice-cream and coffee.

On Friday we visited INBIOParque. This is a large park and educational area where you can experience various types of Costa Rican ecosystems, see lots of different plants and a few animals, insects and birds too. We were unsure whether we were going to come here with Zoë's parents, but the unfortunate closure of the La Paz Waterfall Gardens due to the earthquake made up our minds for us. We have been here before and enjoyed the feel of the place, so we were quite happy to revisit. We had a lovely few hours strolling around and as a bonus saw a sloth with its baby moving slowing through the trees. Delightful!

INBIO also has a man-made lake which is inhabited by various wildlife including iguanas, a real favourite of Zoë's.