San Jose
Posted in Costa Rica on Oct 23rd, 2008
San Jose is the capital of Costa Rica. Its usually the cheapest place to fly into. It is a fairly large city with a lot of modern conveniences. I always try to get out of there as fast as possible. Forty years ago you could have walked down the streets of San Jose at night in safety. Things are very different now.
San Jose has all the problems of a large North American city; it is polluted, congested and crime is an issue. Certain areas are perfectly safe but others are very dangerous. San Jose has all the things that I am trying to escape when I come to Costa Rica. If you really enjoy city life you may find San Jose to your liking. The traffic is absolutely horrendous and if you get stuck in it you will not be enjoying life. It’s really bad.
If you have friends in San Jose then you might want to consider hanging around and enjoying the nightlife. If you don’t know anyone here you’re better off heading out to exterior. This much I can promise you; there is nothing in San Jose that can compare to the natural Costa Rica. Veteran travelers to Costa Rica spend as little time in San Jose as possible.
A lot of the crime in Costa Rica is perpetrated by immigrants. Due to the high standard of living of the Costa Ricans they have allowed in foreigners to work jobs the locals don’t want to do. Some people have come to work and others have come to make trouble. Costa Rica is surrounded by countries with very violent histories and unfortunately some of that has made its way into San Jose.
Prostitution is legal in Costa Rica. I agree that an adult should have control over their bodies but that is a depressing industry. I doubt many women become prostitutes because things are going well in their lives. Some of the prostitutes are very young; in fact, some of them are kids. This attracts scum bags from all over North America and Europe. The Costa Ricans have harsh penalties for child prostitution but they don’t have the resources to eradicate it. This is a new problem for Costa Rica that has been created by demand from foreigners, not locals. My advice is to just steer clear of all that mess; bad energy, bad Karma, bad everything.
I don’t want to bash San Jose too much. There are some very nice neighborhoods and some very fine people who live there. I am from Tampa and its not like we don’t have problems. I just want to stress that with all that Costa Rica has to offer there really isn’t any reason to spend much time in San Jose.
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