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All good things...
Oct. 3rd, 2010 06:26 amWith the organized tours behind us, we had sort of a "free day" yesterday. The sun was shining once we got up and about, and we met some of the folks we'd been touring with this past week for a visit to a local mall that we'd heard much about.
As the van we had ordered arrived to take us to the mall, I wondered whether it had become dry enough for a colony of leaf-cutter ants to resume their work, carrying what appeared to be an endless stream of leaf bits from far away down into a sewer grate to what I assume is their home under the street. It had.
I wanted to take some better pictures, but the van was waiting, so I packed up the camera and jumped into the waiting vehicle. As it turned out, the mall (multiplaza) was not all that far away, and one of our number even said it was within walking distance (though this information was taken with a grain of salt, as said member of our number was very physically fit).
Some of us expected a mall with more of a souvenir-oriented bent, but I saw pretty much what I expected: a mall that looked like (and had prices very much like) malls back home.
Banks work on Saturday here, including the government-run Banco Nacionale. Just about every bank I saw had a line forming literally at the door, because only a certain number of people were allowed into the bank at a time. The taxi driver who took us downtown told me that this state of affairs was neither unusual, nor a Saturday-only phenomenon. As I passed by the Banco Nacionale, I saw that quite a bit of the floor area of the bank was taken up with seating, and the seats were apparently there to allow customers to sit in relative comfort while they awaited their turn with a cashier.
Prices were pretty much full-up US-style prices (though actually, I'm no authority in that department, because it's been some time since I've been to a full-up mall in the States).
Downtown, we eventually found a fairly well-stocked souvenir shop downtown, housed in an old brick building with wooden guts (the central staircase creaked as I climbed to the second floor, and you could see what I assume was termite damage in places). While wandering the premises, we ran across a crocheting circle.
On our way back to the hotel opposite the Teatro Nacionale, I stopped by a Libreria Internacionale bookshop and picked up a self-improvement book (autoayuda) as a soiuvenit. Hopefully, I'll find the time to muddle through (I find I can comprehend a surprising amount of Spanish when it's printed, though how much of that is actually misunderstood remains to be seen).
Leaving San Jose, Galina and I took a bus back to the Uruca district. Unfortunately, the bus didn't go back along any road I could recognize, so after a little while, we started to ask some of the other passengers where we were. A young man indicated that we had just passed the street where we needed to get off, and the driver was nice enough to make an unscheduled stop for us to get off.
I wasn't at all sure we had alighted at the right place, and were fortunate enough to run into a gentleman who spoke English and explained where we had to go to get where we were going.
It wasn't far, but as it turned out, the young man on the bus had understood our destination to be our hotel, while the older man on the street thought our destination was the Best Western down the street, so we ended up walking down (and up) the two long sides of a roughly rectangular path, plus the distance between those two sides, which took us past the Best Western. Had we just struck out as the young man had indicated, we would have walked just the distance between the two sides of the rectangle.
But had we done that, we wouldn't have run past the supermercado,, where we grabbed a quick dinner (I had galle pinto and chicken) and a handful of groceries before heading back. Unfortunately, while we were eating, it started raining again, so we found a coffee kiosk and had some coffee while we waited for the rain to stop, but it just kept coming. Eventually, we decided to head back to he hotel under our umbrellas, but were fairly well soaked by the time we got back.
It is very nearly 6:30 am as I post this. Our transportation to the airport leaves in 3 hours. We need to pack.
This vacation was too short, but I'm still looking forward to getting home.
Cheers...
As the van we had ordered arrived to take us to the mall, I wondered whether it had become dry enough for a colony of leaf-cutter ants to resume their work, carrying what appeared to be an endless stream of leaf bits from far away down into a sewer grate to what I assume is their home under the street. It had.
I wanted to take some better pictures, but the van was waiting, so I packed up the camera and jumped into the waiting vehicle. As it turned out, the mall (multiplaza) was not all that far away, and one of our number even said it was within walking distance (though this information was taken with a grain of salt, as said member of our number was very physically fit).
Some of us expected a mall with more of a souvenir-oriented bent, but I saw pretty much what I expected: a mall that looked like (and had prices very much like) malls back home.
Banks work on Saturday here, including the government-run Banco Nacionale. Just about every bank I saw had a line forming literally at the door, because only a certain number of people were allowed into the bank at a time. The taxi driver who took us downtown told me that this state of affairs was neither unusual, nor a Saturday-only phenomenon. As I passed by the Banco Nacionale, I saw that quite a bit of the floor area of the bank was taken up with seating, and the seats were apparently there to allow customers to sit in relative comfort while they awaited their turn with a cashier.
Prices were pretty much full-up US-style prices (though actually, I'm no authority in that department, because it's been some time since I've been to a full-up mall in the States).
Downtown, we eventually found a fairly well-stocked souvenir shop downtown, housed in an old brick building with wooden guts (the central staircase creaked as I climbed to the second floor, and you could see what I assume was termite damage in places). While wandering the premises, we ran across a crocheting circle.
On our way back to the hotel opposite the Teatro Nacionale, I stopped by a Libreria Internacionale bookshop and picked up a self-improvement book (autoayuda) as a soiuvenit. Hopefully, I'll find the time to muddle through (I find I can comprehend a surprising amount of Spanish when it's printed, though how much of that is actually misunderstood remains to be seen).
Leaving San Jose, Galina and I took a bus back to the Uruca district. Unfortunately, the bus didn't go back along any road I could recognize, so after a little while, we started to ask some of the other passengers where we were. A young man indicated that we had just passed the street where we needed to get off, and the driver was nice enough to make an unscheduled stop for us to get off.
I wasn't at all sure we had alighted at the right place, and were fortunate enough to run into a gentleman who spoke English and explained where we had to go to get where we were going.
It wasn't far, but as it turned out, the young man on the bus had understood our destination to be our hotel, while the older man on the street thought our destination was the Best Western down the street, so we ended up walking down (and up) the two long sides of a roughly rectangular path, plus the distance between those two sides, which took us past the Best Western. Had we just struck out as the young man had indicated, we would have walked just the distance between the two sides of the rectangle.
But had we done that, we wouldn't have run past the supermercado,, where we grabbed a quick dinner (I had galle pinto and chicken) and a handful of groceries before heading back. Unfortunately, while we were eating, it started raining again, so we found a coffee kiosk and had some coffee while we waited for the rain to stop, but it just kept coming. Eventually, we decided to head back to he hotel under our umbrellas, but were fairly well soaked by the time we got back.
It is very nearly 6:30 am as I post this. Our transportation to the airport leaves in 3 hours. We need to pack.
This vacation was too short, but I'm still looking forward to getting home.
Cheers...
