Exploring Alajuela

The view from the Juan SantaMaría Museum.

Saturday, I decided to leave the house and travel to the city of Alajuela.  Here's the summary, 6 Americans who just wanted to get out of San José with no set plans and eager to explore a new city--it was great.

We were living the tico life during the trip, care-free attitude with no sense of time.  Our plans were to meet up at 9:30am to catch the bus to downtown.  After nearly missing two buses and picking up a fellow American on the way, we finally made it downtown at 10:30am. Nobody really cared that it took us nearly an hour to get downtown, which was the best part.  There was no rush or hurry.

I would describe Alajuela as a mini-San José. It's the capital city of the province Alajuela, so it's a popular and busy like San José, but not as quite that bustling.  It has parks, museums, plazas, stores and everything a big city has.  Other than size the different climates sets apart, Alajuela and San José.  Alajuela is much hotter than San José. It was about 90 degrees and sunny in Alajuela, while 80 degrees in San José.  

We decided to check out the local farmers market, when we arrived. It is supposed to be one of the largest and best markets in Costa Rica.  Hundreds of people were there buying and selling fresh produce.  It was living culture.  We walked around looking at all the fruits and vegetables, stopping at some stands to ask what the names of some things were.

Alajuela Farmers Market

Sometimes being a foreigner has it's perks.  See people pay more attention to you just because you look different. Several times we were offered free samples of fruits and vegetables.  One time I went up to talk to a man selling small, green banana-looking fruits.  I asked him what they were and what not.  He ended up giving me three of them, to try.  I offered money, but he said this to me in Spanish, "it's free to you because you are a foreigner." I'll take it.

When we were done at the market, we walked through the town to the central park.  There was not an open bench to be found, the park was filled with families, couples and kids.  Seeing people spend their day in a community spot is a common sight in Costa Rica. After finding ice cream and McDonald's, how much more American can we get, we sat down and watched kids sing and dance to Disney song's in Spanish.  "Honor to Us All" ("Nos vas a brindar honor"), "Under the Sea" ("Bajo del Mar") were my favorites, and I attached the links to the Spanish YouTube videos.

The Juan SantaMaría museum was directly across the street from the central park, so we went and
checked it out after the music ended.  It housed military artifacts from the Second Battle of Rivas and artwork spanning from colonial art depicting the Second Battle of Rivas to satirical pop art.  The Second Battle of Rivas was fought between Costa Rica and William Walker, a man who at the time was trying to control Nicaragua, and had a future goal of controlling all of Latin America. The battle also gave Costa Rica their national hero, Juan SantaMaría.  Walker was an American, and has very interesting endeavors in Latin America.  


After a day of exploring a new city, it was time to head back to San José.  At the end of the day, I'm always excited to get back to San José, back to my host family and house (I know it's not my house, but it feels like it is).  
¡Pura Vida!