diez y seis

We are safely back at home in Uvita now. The drive home went very smoothly on the new Caldera highway from San Jose to the Pacific coast. We made it in about half the time it took us the day we arrived in CR. The highway is still being worked on,

with periodic rockslides, mudslides and floods closing it to all or some traffic, but our ride was very easy today.


We stopped for dinner in Jaco, a tourist and surfer town with a gorgeous beach, where we had eaten our first Costa Rican meal 2 weeks ago..

See if you can spot the European tourist who forgot his swimsuit.

. From there it was a wet but uneventful drive to Uvita, where everything was just as we left it.



Going back to yesterday, we started out with a great complimentary breakfast around our hotel’s lovely pool.

Then we caught a cab (best idea of the day) downtown, and saw the National Cathedral,

National Theater,

the Gold Museum,

 

and an exhibit on Costa Rican history, including this cool chick.

After some lunch we returned to our hotel for a rest. Samuel really enjoyed watching cartoons in Spanish. He says he can understand them. He is a quick learner!

We took the Terios on our second trip downtown, but had a little trouble navigating. Here is one of the San Jose street signs.

It’s attached to the side of a building in the middle of the block. The corners are completely unmarked! Note to self: Don’t ever try to drive in San Jose again!

Today, we enjoyed another great breakfast, and packed up the Terios to leave SJ. We played another round of Stump the Tourist, trying to find the Museo de los Ninos. Even with a good map and the directions given by our hotel’s front desk, we still required the help of two different pedestrians to find the place.

Eventually we did, and joined a few hundred other families enjoying their last day off from school at this new and very extensive place. It is in a former military prison, and contains close to 100 fun and educational exhibits, most of them hands-on, and geared to children 4 through 10. Sarah and Samuel had a ball! Among other activities, they played a giant game of chess,

got scared by an Egyptian mummy,

put on a puppet show with Amy,

and got to shop in a fully equipped supermercado (complete with cashiers who tell you if you stayed within budget).

It’s a wonderful place. We could have spent much more that the 3 hours we were there, but we had to get on the road. On our way out of town, we passed a Mufla shop,

and went by some of the barrios we had “visited” unintentionally the night before.

Finding our way was easier in the daylight, and we are glad to be back here.

More news tomorrow!

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