They don’t use addresses in Costa Rica. For that matter, very few of the streets have signs. Perhaps they don’t even have names! It makes for interesting times for tourist drivers. Our hotel for our last night here, located on the outskirts of San Jose, gives its address as “9 kms N from the airport toward Poas Volcano.” It also provides GPS coordinates. Our car rental agency does the same. So too, the places we stayed.
I didn’t really understand that specific addresses are non-existent here until today, our last day. I used Google Maps to guide us from the south coast to our San Jose hotel, using its name – which came right up. Google brought us to the middle of the town where the hotel is located, but nowhere near the hotel itself, which turned out to be 6 km away. It took phone calls and local knowledge to get us where we needed to be.
For lunch we visited our first “soda” – Soda Trini. Sodas are tiny little roadside cafes, typically with just a couple of tables and plastic chairs. Trini, a cheerful Costa Rican woman, served us the typical Tico meal of beans, rice and chicken. Costa Rica has many charms; unfortunately Tico cuisine is not among them.