San Jose Day 342 26/08/2015

The day started with an early awakening courtesy of the rooster.  We treated oursleves to another lovely breakfast at the nearby cafe before packing and walking the short distance to the bus stop. It was extremely hot but luckily there was a little bit of shade that we could take advantage off. The bus arrived just before 1100. We had thought that Puerto Viejo was the start of the journey so were surprised to see that it was already quite full. Luckily we managed to get 2 seats together and we set off west along the coast. We soon realised that the air conditioning was open windows but were pleased with ourselves that we'd saved $90 which basically paid for yesterdays kayaking trip. We stopped in a few villages along the coast before arriving in Puerto Limon. The city, the largest on the Caribbean coast, was the birthplace of United Fruit (think bananas) and is clearly still an important industrial area with truckloads of fruit being moved around and masses of containers stocked along the roadside. We passed at least 2 Del Monte factories! From here we travelled in land and up across the Cordillera Central mountain range. The temperature dropped as we increased in altitude up into the cloud forest. The road then descends to finally reached San Jose, located in the bowl between 2 mountain ranges, where we arrived just after 1530. From the bus station we got a taxi to Don Carlos hotel in the Barrio Amon district where we were staying for next 2 nights. Despite what we'd read about the ruthless taxi drivers ours seemed pleasant enough and took us straight to our hotel without any trouble, and the fare was cheaper than what the hotel had said it would be. After checking in and dropping off our bags we walked to the main centre and had a late lunch at Alma de Cafe in the Teatro Nacional which had lovely frescos on the ceiling. In the eveing we went to Cafe Mundo nearby our hotel for dinner. The italian is in an old Barrio Ofoya mansion, a lovely building with a nice atmosphere and good food.