Puntarenas, Costa Rica

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Pura Vida! Everything is Pura Vida in Costa Rica. Literally, that means pure life. But it is used for a lot more meanings in Costa Rica. We'd heard it before but never had it explained. The guide today said it had been adopted by the nation after a movie. I immediately thought of a movie we'd seen with the phrase used alot, but that was not the film he was talking about but a much earlier Mexican film.

We'd visited here before at this same port. Like before we must have been on a full day excursion because we saw little of the actual port of Puntarenas. We had no recollection of the sail in up the gulf where it sits as a long narrow sand spit. I think we must have arrived and departed in the dark last time. I know we went to Poas volcano and Sarchi last time and had lunch.

Today we met at 9:45am for our San Jose City Tour. It was an hour and 3/4 drive there. We stopped for lunch mid way. It was a good lunch. They had a tree there that we had also seen in Nicaragua and Cuba. It had a sign that read Jicara. The guide in Nicaragua swore they made some beverages from the insides and used the hard outer parts as containers or maracas. In Cuba they said it was inedible as I recall. Today the guide called the fruit a gourd and passed dried ones around that were light and hollow. The guide in Nicaragua got out of the bus and picked one and passed it around and it felt solid and heavy. Interesting. The other interesting thing was both guides talked about gallo pinto, a dish of rice and beans that the people eat 3 meals a day because they are so poor. I think it might have been more of a joke thing here though because we saw it on an art poster at a museum gift shop and on an apron at another souvenir store. Our guide today told us that all of Central America was under Spanish control until September 15, 1821. Somehow we had seen that date in each of the 3 Central American countries we'd visited without anyone making that clear. Also, we visited Antigua, one of 4 capital cities of Guatemala without it ever being explained there that it was the capital of Central America, not of Guatemala. I guess it was a good final tour for us here in that we got a lot more information to put things in context. Based on the bus and the roads, Costa Rica is more prosperous than Nicaragua or Guatemala.

In San Jose, we drove around then parked beside the National Theater, one of the oldest buildings in the capital from 1897. We visited the National Theatre building for about an hour, then waited out a pouring rain since we'd been asked to leave everything except cameras on the buses. It turns out they walk about a block or 2 to get to the Gold Museum after and they have a bag check there the guides were hoping to avoid somehow. I don't know why because each of us still had to go through a metal detector and have umbrellas held. Clay went  back to the bus while it rained to retrieve ours but some people bought umbrellas from a street entrepreneur and others ignored instructions and carried everything anyway. It was awkward. They knew it had poured off and on all day. It was not unexpected and they knew about the walk while we didn't. Anyway. A blot on an otherwise good day. We toured the Gold Museum for about an hour too. We stopped midway on the bus ride back for souvenir shopping in a big souvenir store off the highway. We bought more coffee. We learned that Altura on coffee is translated as altitude. I don't know how we failed to get that before since as far as we know all coffee is grown at altitude and not at sea level.

Everyone must have been all aboard long before sundown. We were on bus 6 of our tour, so I believe we were the last bus of the day long tour. We were supposed to be all aboard by 6:30pm and sail at 7pm. But, shortly after we got to the cabin, the ship left at about 6:15pm. I think this was our earliest departure ahead of schedule.

We lost an hour tonight but tomorrow is a welcome sea day. The Captain announced during dinner that we were in for some bad weather. He was speaking during an amazing thunderstorm as we sailed for open ocean. Fingers crossed for some calm seas.

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