Day 13: San Jose

Sunday, June 22nd, our goal for the one full day we have in San Jose was to see the markets and visit two museums, the Gold Museum and the National Museum of Costa Rica. We got to the markets around 9:00 in the morning and at that time most shops were just starting to open. Even though many shops were not open, many people were walking down the main street. Music was playing from the stores and the street was pretty lively. There was a vendor selling coconut water in coconuts. He used his machete to open up the coconuts. I didn’t get one but based off of the reactions of other people in Engineering Abroad, it was a refreshing delight.

Towards the end of the street was the Gold Museum. The museum housed all of the different kinds of currency used Costa Rica from the Spanish Real to the Pesos and tokens used in the 1800s by coffee plantation owners and to the Colones which are used today. Fun fact, Costa Rica’s mint used a Heidelberg printing press for the signature of the president up until the mid 1990s. A couple of blocks away was the National Museum of Costa Rica. The museum was built in an old fort, Bellavista Fortress, in the center of San Jose. The museum featured the fort’s barracks, holding cells, and lookout posts. On top of the fort there were exhibits showing the history of Costa Rica from the pre-Columbian era to the present day. A highlight of these exhibits was the wide variety of indigenous stone carvings with some that were around 1,000 years old.

Tomorrow, we leave Costa Rica and return home to California. These past two weeks have been a very valuable experience. We learned a lot about Costa Rican culture and history. And most importantly we learned how we directly made a positive impact in Providencia by helping them reach their sustainability goals.

-Aidan

Statues outside Banco Central de Costa Rica

National Theater of Costa Rica

Exhibit in the Gold Museum

Butterfly Garden in National Museum of Costa Rica

Ox Cart in National Museum of Cosa Rica

Last Dinner