A birdcage in one of the Grano de Oro’s courtyards

Second day of travel, December 18

Fountain down in the courtyard that our room was on in the hotel (Big image, small)

After breakfast in the hotel—in fact we had all our San José meals at the Grano de Oro—we started to cast about for things to occupy us for the day. I had expressed interest in the Gold Museum, and when Mark discussed with the hotel's concierge the touristic possibilities for us, he mentioned that possible destination. It turned out to be only a twenty minutes’ walk from the hotel, eastward along the Paseo Colón, main drag in town. So, at an appropriate time, we set out to find it.

San José struck me as being my first unquestionably third-world city. In the central part that we saw, it doesn't show any sign of planning or zoning. Chaotic, Mark called it, with much-patched sidewalks and swiftly-moving cars, though there does seem to be very good adherence to traffic controls. Lots of benign-looking policemen and -women, including two who seemed to be stationed near an ATM. In San José, you are not accosted by beggars or hawkers: our progress to the Museo was uneventful and pleasant. The population is highly varied: some Indios, a few blacks, and a lot of general Cenral-American types, but with lots of people looking very European. Very little obesity, so different from what we see of the Mexicans and Central Americans in Los Angeles, and blessedly few tattoos.

The Gold Museum turns out to be a function of the Central Bank of Costa Rica, which started collecting historic gold pieces early in the preceding century. Of course much of what was on display was the result of looting, so no completely accurate archeological or anthropological information came along with the pieces. There have been proper archeological digs since, and the information garnered from them helps put it all in a historical context.

Ordinarily one doesn’t expect to be able to take pictures in a museum, and as I said earlier, I was unwilling to go out walking with a big machine hanging around my neck anyway. But when Mark passed his little waterproof camera to the guard staffing the metal-detector, he was told that photos would be all right, as long as they were taken without flash. In spite of being able to, Mark didn’t use his camera anyway.

The quality of workmanship in the gold on display is very high. The main techniques were repoussé and casting. In the former technique, the artisan works on the back of a sheet of metal, and hammers out forms that project forward from the front side. The pre-Columbian Costa Ricans had the technique of lost-wax casting, a sophisticated method that has been invented independently many times throughout history.

In the complex of museums of the Central Bank, there’s also a Numismatic Museum, naturally of much lesser interest, but we made a quick tour through that too, after the Gold Museum. But at that point, I declared that I was museumed out for the day, and we went back to the hotel for lunch. As we walked along the Paseo Colón, I suggested to Mark that he should pull out the waterproof camera and take pictures of the mass of people out shopping this Friday. But he demurred, unwilling to be too much the turista.

The courtyard fountain (Big image, small)

At lunch, we both had Tico Sours, made with the locally-distilled liquor, and in concept very close to Pisco Sour. But after several years’ experience with our home-devised version of the Chilean-Peruvian drink, I found the versión Costarricense rather too sweet, not sour enough. It certainly had the right kick, though. For my luncheon meal, I had a “Sandwich Mediterráneo”, cheese and roasted vegetables, very nice, so that I could recommend it to Mark when we came back to the hotel after the tour.

Of the rest of the day, my journal is silent: I suppose we sat and read and napped, and then went to supper. Below, though, is a picture of Mark entertaining himself on his iPhone around 4PM this day (big image, small).