I am sitting in the living room of a hostel in San Jose. It's a nice temperate evening, just warm enough for a t-shirt, but without even a hint of the clamminess that has plagued us on this trip. Sadly I don´t have a t shirt, as all I took on this trip were bejewelled halternecks, strange old lady shrouds and four pairs of shoes. So, I am dressed like a nut nut in a red raincoat left by Kim. San Jose, though it pains me to say it, is a dump. With the exception of Accra in Ghana, it's the ugliest and most boring capital city I have ever been to. It doesn't seem to have much culture, and considering Costa Rica is so expensive, it doesn't even do swanky cafes or bars that well. Through a series of unfortunate events (largely the fault of the creepy commune from earlier in the week), we have been here for five days, when in an ideal world you wouldn't give it more than one. It's very flat, and the architecture is mainly low, scabby, concrete houses. While it must be conceded that the roads aren't as crazy as the rest of Latin America, it still smells of musty pee everywhere, and drivers still persist in hooting their way around every corner. In San Jose there are also trains which go over the roads and bellow loudly every few minutes. This is presumably to alert people to the fact that a rapidly moving train is about to be in their midst but it´s pretty annoying at 3am. They do however, have a rather fabby food market right in the centre of the city. It's a general goods market, so has that fantastically bonkers and eclectic feel that I love about foreign markets. Lots of odd wee things like carved piggy banks glazed in vividly awful hues, quilted bags, tin cups painted like gypsy caravans and beautiful little herb stalls, with everything you can think of, from calamine to dried catnip. I so wanted a photo of one stall which was haloed in dried marigolds and herbs, and manned by a beautiful old woman, but she looked pretty furious when I tried to catch her eye, hopefully wafting my Nikon about, and I always feel a bit funny asking people for photos anyway. The market has an amazing seafood section, and we found some lovely fleshy fish (can't remember it's name but it was almost like chicken; Tailapa maybe?)bought some ridiculously overpriced vegetables and made a nimmy fish curry. It was to be my last night of indulgence as my jean zipper burst, proving irrefutable evidence that this trip has done nothing to help my waistline. The expansion of my gut was tentatively confirmed by poor Matt, and I am NOT going home fatter than I left so have said goodbye to my dear friends empanadas, popcorn, tortillas, churros, guacamole, re fried beans, candied peanuts and all the other small treats I have been filling my languid days with. The food here isn't even that delectable, compared to India say, but it's so filling and comfortingly stodgy. I do love the fruit though and that's a good option I suppose, but dearest fried starch, how I shall miss your salty, wonderful, ways. Anyway, back to the Last Supper. It was really tasty and nice to be cooking again, after a few nights of eating out, and not very well. At this point we were staying in a Quaker hostel, which was predictably naff (and cockroachy) but it had a telly showing Pride and Prejudice so I was utterly content despite the fact Kiera is a poor man's Jennifer Ehle.
We moved hostel the next day to Costa Rica Backpackers which is where we have all stayed a few times before. It's ok; reasonably roomy with a lovely kitchen and outdoors bit. Yesterday we went to the Modern Art Gallery (shut for repairs) and another art gallery http://www.musarco.go.cr/instalaciones.php which was showing some lovely wee exhibitions by Juan Manuel Sanchez amongst others. It had a lot of pictures of sad street dogs that I liked a great deal, and beautiful delicate line drawings of bairns playing (as well as the lovely deers at the top of this post. I liked it a lot, and it was so great to get out of the streets and into a quiet, air-conditioned building. Afterwards we went to the park which was hilariously ugly and barren and watched ducks on the "lagoon" which turned out to be a grimy little pond full of kids flailing about in life jackets. Lonely Planet has been nothing if not consistent in its fictional descriptions of truly shite places. We managed to fit some live dance into our packed schedule of wandering the streets and whinging, and stood for all of 4 minutes watching an unfortunate teenager flail about in her stockings on stage in a square opposite the National Theatre. It managed to be creepy and boring at the same time.
We spent last night (our last together) subdued. Bought a bottle of rum and drank it with a mad Dutch guy who showed us YouTube videos and joined in a conversation that spanned feminism, sexual abuse and eugenics in one fell swoop. My conversational offerings were as lightsome as ever and I managed to exhaust everyones spirit and induce retirement to bed, earlier than everyone might have done, had we continued to watch links of monkeys riding piglets (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_sfnQDr1-o&noredirect) He also kept referencing Braveheart, which we have found to happen a lot over here. Whilst I find it disturbing that Mel Gibson provides the face to Scotland for many a foreigner, I suppose it could be worse.
This morning I said goodbye to Angela and Matt and had a good cry on a bench, watched incredulously by local youths. It feels so strange not to have Angela here after 7 or so months of living together; even sharing a bed for most of it. They left for Nicaragua, and I fly to Colombia tomorrow. I am excited if a little bit anxious about it. I'm au pairing with a family and while they sound delightful it will be odd to live with strangers in a family home at the age of 27. I hope my Spanish improves. It couldn't get much worse, and it will be interesting to see how I get on without Angela´s more confident and adequate attempts. The family live in a suburb on the outskirts of Bogota which is great as I LOVED Bogota. I thought it was one of the most beautiful cities I've ever been to with a wonderful atmosphere and arty feel to it. I hope it's a great place to live too. I'm delighted at the idea of being around a child as well. I miss having bairns around. When you're in hostels everyone is the same age. Well, except for the 50+ mid-breakdown sufferers who seem inexplicably drawn to me wherever I go. There is one in my room just now, eating cereal loudly. She keeps shouting obscenities and making me jump. When I read this back again it seems even odder. I'm pretty sure she has Tourette's but she also keeps referring to herself as "neurologically messed up" and "mental". I can't say I'm inclined to disagree and have successfully avoided her all day, but as night approaches I find myself resisting the urge to invite her for a cup of tea. She must be a bit lonely. Pot, kettle, black.
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