Whew... only one week left. Crazy how time seems to fly, but then when I think back to the airport and when Bryan and I were watching the mountains get closer through the airplane windows, it seems like forever ago. But I can't start getting all nostalgic yet, because I do in fact have to finish out this last week before I'm truly out of the woods.

I didn't leave town this week; I wanted to get a bit of a feel for San Jose. Four hours was enough for me.

Bryan and I hopped on a Bus around about 11:30 and took it to Coca-Cola market, and set about trying to find our way to the Museo Nacional de Costa Rica (more or less the museum of national history). In the process, we were told five different sets of directions (none of which were correct), thwarted two attempted pick-pocketings, and earned another fun story.

It turns out that the beggars like to earn a little bit of coin by showing tourists how to find certain landmarks in the city. The fact that there are no physical addresses in Costa Rica makes it difficult to find your way around sometimes, and so this is a potentially helpful service. Neither Bryan nor I had small enough amounts of change to offer to anybody who would show us the way, so we ignored attempts at such help. However, one guy was very isistent that he show us the way and wouldn't leave us alone. He get saying "Museo nacional, si? Si, yo les mostrare! Venga, venga!" (National museum? Yes, I'll show you! Come, come!"

So finally I said, "Si, bien, pero no vamos a pagarle a usted. No tenemos dinero suficiente." (Okay, fine, but we're not going to pay you. We don't have sufficient cash." He nodded his agreement and took us to something that looked very museum like, then said in very accented English, "Now one thousand for me." (1000 colones, roughly two dollars). I looked at him and very fimly said, "Yo le dije que no pagaria. Esto es que yo dije, y esto es que yo hago." (I said that I wouldn't pay you. This is what I said, and this is what I do.") He wasn't very happy about this and would not leave us be. He kept changing the amount back and forth from a dollar to 1000 colones. I kept repeating myself before Bryan finally reminded me that he probably wasn't going to listen. So I bid him adieu and went inside the edifice he had shown us to. He stood at the gate and stared at us the entire time.

The little punk took us to the wrong place.

We were in the national theater. But we couldn't leave, because this guy was standing out there staring at us like we had just killed his parents. So we went inside the cafe just off the lobby and sat there for ten minutes in the hopes that he would be gone when we left.

He was kind of gone. He had given up on glaring any money out of our pockets and had started begging around from other people in the entry plaza, and Bryan and I made a swift and stealthy escape. A couple of blocks later we finally looked behind us and saw that he had not followed us. We asked for directions again, ended up in yet another wrong place (and I know we followed those directions correctly, the people in San Jose just don't like gringos), and so we gave up on the idea of ever finding it and decided to head home. We stopped in a cigar shop and checked some stuff out, then went through the central market (just kind of so we could say that we've been) and headed towards the bus stop.

On the way, we saw some guy get arrested. I'm not sure for what, but he certainly wasn't fighting it so I guess he thought he had it coming or something. Kind of interesting, because people weren't stopping to stare nearly as much as I would have expected. I guess it's kind of a common thing in the area, but it was a first for me.

So Bryan and I hopped back on a bus and found our way back home. We were back around 3:30, more or less four hours after we had left. God help the Baylor Jazz Band, thank goodness they get to leave the city while they're here.

Buenos tardes, mis amigos. Estoy cansado.
-Juan