April 1st, 2024 - Back to San José
Our last day at Corcovado has begun. We met for the last time at 6:00 a.m. for breakfast in the Rancho Corcovado restaurant (we all had yoghurt with granola again). At 7:00 a.m. we went adventurously by boat through narrow canals in the mangrove forest back to Sierpe, where our Mitsubishi Montero-Sport 4x4 was waiting for us.
From Sierpe, we drove back to San José in our car. The journey was trouble-free overall. At around 1:30 pm we reached our last stop of the trip, the ‘Grano de Oro’ hotel, right in the center of San José. The boutique hotel is very nice, elegantly decorated in Victorian style. Our room was adjacent to a large and very beautiful courtyard, which was also very well climatized. Despite the outside temperature of around 30 degrees, it was pleasantly cool.
After we had ‘installed’ ourselves in our room and rested a little, we set off on a short trip into the center of the city. There we visited a very large market hall where you could buy all kinds of food, household appliances, souvenirs and even pets. The narrow market alleys were teeming with people. Our friends stocked up on Puerto Rican coffee there.
We then went on to the cathedral. Overall, it seemed rather functional, no comparison with the pompous buildings of the ‘old world’. However, the interior is very large, apparently there are even more churchgoers here than at home.
And finally, we visited the Teatro Nacional.
The construction of the Teatro Nacional de Costa Rica began in the second half of the 19th century. At that time, Costa Rica had a very small population. There were just 20,000 people living in San José.
However, the booming export of coffee led to increasing prosperity and the demand for cultural events grew. In order to build the theater, the president at the time imposed a coffee tax and raised enough money to finance the construction. After initial construction problems, an Italian architect was brought in. Even with the new planner, the construction process was rather slow and was not completed until October 1897.
The building is very beautiful and houses a nice café, which we then visited for coffee and very tasty cake.
We then strolled through the pedestrian zone back to our hotel as the sun went down.
At the hotel, we first checked in online for our return flight. Lufthansa made us a very tempting offer to upgrade our return flight to “Business”, which we couldn’t resist.
Dinner in the very tastefully decorated hotel restaurant was once again excellent. After a cocktail, I had carpaccio of sea bass and then chateaubriand with 3 sauces. Simone had tartare and salmon. For dessert we had crème brûlée and an espresso macchiato.
Truly a fitting end to a great trip. Tomorrow we will sleep in first. We have arranged to meet for breakfast at 9:00 am. We have to check out by 12:00. Then we take the car back to the rental office and from there we are taken to the airport.