City Tour

For Spanish class today, my group hit the streets of San Jose to see how the city was put together and how historical events persist in the architecture and culture of the city. San Jose was chosen as the capital city of Costa Rica for its convenient location nestled in the central valley between the coffee plantations on the west coast and the port cities of the Caribbean shoreline. As a city of government and trade, the city was built around two centers of power on the northern slope of the central valley. The commercial and economic center was based at a railroad and customs complex while the executive power was built around another locus with the courthouse and legislative buildings. Fanning out between the two centers towards the north (uphill) the upper middle to high class houses loom over well-paved streets and thick wrought iron gates. From a given street corner you might see the foreign influence on the upper classes: a German high sloping roofed house with earthy colored trim faces a bright Spanish villa and is backed by the arched and columned frontage of an Italian domicile. As you look southward, elevation and economic status decline sharply.

Costa Rica is one of the three countries in the world with no armed forces. They have been without a standing army for fifty eight years but would proudly tell you longer. As a reminder of the violence and lack of diplomacy that comes with having an army, the last functioning barracks still proudly displays bullet holes on its turret just ten blocks from the center of the city. A section of the Berlin wall serves a similar purpose poised outside of a legislative building.



The morpho is the Costa Rican national butterfly. This one at the national museum is drying its wings having recently hatched. You can just see from the picture the inside of its wings is stunning blue mirrored display.