The little restaurant at the hostel wasn’t open this morning, but fortunately there were lashings of free, good quality coffee. Suitably fuelled up, I headed the few blocks over to the National Museum.
This remarkable and extensive museum is housed in the former barracks and headquarters of the Costa Rican army, Cuartel Bellavista. Apparently, when the government of the day disbanded the country’s army in the late 1940s, the Museum Director proved most savvy in requesting the barracks to house its collection ‘in the spirit of community building’. He read the play book and was granted his wish. Museum staff must have been dancing in the street with the news as it meant they finally had decent digs to set up in and spread out. The work over the past 70 years has resulted in a world class institution.
Immediately entering the museum, you pass through double glass doors into a butterfly filled, glass covered atrium resplendent with lush, tropical gardens. With clouds of large, brilliantly coloured butterflies swooshing through the air, and occasionally landing for an obligatory photo opportunity, this place rates up there for enchantment value.
From a corner on the lower level of the atrium, you can climb up inside one of the original barrack towers to emerge onto the rooftop with brilliant vistas of San Jose and the surrounding mountains. It’s easy to see why the cuartel was built there in the first place. The upper part of this particular tower was demolished when the army was disbanded to prevent it being used for attacks on the city again.
From this point, you go back inside at the same level to explore the old barrack kitchen area, bathrooms and even the solitary confinement area. Interpretation panels in Spanish and English are accompanied by historic photos of when the building was a military emplacement. Reading the personal accounts of former soldiers based there, you have to think they would rather have had the place burned to the ground themselves. It was a particularly harsh life for a sentry during that time.
Once through this section you climb a set of stairs to pop back up into bright sunlight and a gorgeous central patio filled with immaculately landscaped gardens. The buildings surrounding the patio is where the Museum’s permanent collection is displayed and well worth a visit to get your head around Costa Rican history from pre-Columbian to present. All interpretation panels are in Spanish and English and exhibits are well presented.
Having not eaten since the previous day, I eyed a cute little restaurant over the road from the museum. Upon being ushered in and presented with a menu, I discovered prices were not to my liking but I had made the cardinal error of not checking the menu first so felt obliged to suck it up and just order something. I chose one of the cheapest things on the menu, rice with shrimps, and a beer. When presented with the bill, it was even more than I had anticipated with taxes and charges added on. For AUD65 I expect a pretty amazing meal but amazingly, this was not. I’m going to have to be on guard here a bit more it would seem.
Back at the hostel, I partook of Happy Hour/s at the hostel bar, chatting to fellow travellers and whiling away the time with tasty rum cocktails in hand.
Wild Woman Wandering 