San Jose

30. April: We get up at 7:30, at 8:20 breakfast is here. There's not enough space at the small table, since two new persons appear too, they are Swiss and have spent their first night in San Jose arriving from Colombia and are as disappointed as us from the hotchpotch situation. They eat standing at the table. Madeleine appears sometime later and she pushes the two 'Tortuguero' trips which she has on offer. It must be quite lucrative business for her, I imagine, selling these trips to most of her lodgers! We're unsure what to do and we don't really like her style of doing business so we tell her we'll inform her later.

Sunset at Madeleine's place, San Jose	Amor shop in San Jose

We tell her the room is too small and we'd like to go back to her mother, Hannelore. At first she says it's ok, then she breaks into rhetoric saying that she and her mother have separate businesses and she won't earn anything by this, etc. and makes quite a fuss.

The Swiss guys are prepared to give us their room, but I'd rather just go to Hannelore. They decide to leave anyway after all, moving to a Hotel in the centre of San Jose. Madeleine says Hannelore will ask 30$, but we paid 25 the last time and we believe that much is enough. We arrange that Hannelore will pick us up in the evening.

San Jose with mountains in background	San Jose colonial house to rent

We depart for San Jose by bus, leave our clothes at the laundry, shop, check our e-mail, and eat at KFC. We need to pick up our clothes and Annewien is a bit on edge since I internetted too long, we rush to the laundry store, not knowing when it would close. Luckily it is still open, so we shop some more, fetch the laundry and take a taxi back to Madeleine's. It's rush hour and we progress slowly.

San Jose colonial hotel	In San Jose historic quarter

At the room I try to find out how the weather conditions on Volcan Poas are at the moment. It is cloudy and you can look into the crater only if it's cloud-free. I call a number of places, the best of which is a hotel near Poas, where the phone is picked up by an English woman actually speaking: English. Madeleine pops in and says Hannelore will be over at 18:30, I write some postcards and at 19:00 the phone rings, Hannelore is on the line and says she will be over in 'half an hour'. It is 19:40 till she is there, she's very friendly and drives us back, stopping at a supermarket 'MasxMenos' on the way.

San Jose church	Sunset over San Jose pedestrian mall

I buy a bottle of red wine and some nuts at the supermarket and we finish the bottle in our room (Hannelore's delighted to offer us a glass), we talk a lot and then sleep, being very tired and somewhat drunk! We had called Madeleine previously saying we would like to book her Tortuguero trip. It is expensive at 185$ per person and the program described sounds somewhat skimpy. We'd checked out other offers that day in San Jose and we couldn't find a better deal. We're undecided about going to Volcan Poas the next day, and although everyone indicates that the chance of seeing anything is small, I decide to give it a try.

Continue to 1.5 Volcan Poas