24-Hours in Costa Rica

A day and a half is not enough time to know a city. It is, however, plenty of time for a city to humble your itinerary.

A few weeks before I originally wrote this, I flew from Guatemala City to San José for what was essentially a very enthusiastic 24-hour layover. I had museums to see, food to eat, neighborhoods to wander and exactly enough confidence to believe I could do all of it on very little sleep.

I landed at 7:20 AM and headed toward Mercado Central. On that trip, I used a rideshare from the airport, and the pickup felt unofficial enough that my driver asked me to sit in the front seat. Travel lesson number one: transportation rules and norms change, so check the current situation before assuming an old experience is still useful advice.

Mercado Central was my first real look at the city. I had expected the kind of traditional market I had visited elsewhere—food stalls, produce, crafts, the usual beautiful chaos. It had all of that, plus designer storefronts and, to my surprise, a Starbucks. San José was already resisting the version of it I had constructed in my head.

I stopped at a small café for breakfast and ordered a sandwich and smoothie. Both were deeply forgettable. While I was forcing myself through the sandwich, a man approached the counter and eventually asked me for a meal. I bought him one. The encounter did not magically transform bad breakfast into destiny, but it did reframe the morning. The food was forgettable. The moment was not.

From the market, I walked to the National Museum of Costa Rica, housed in the former Bellavista Fortress. The history and archaeology exhibits were interesting, but the butterfly garden was the part that made me linger. The Jade Museum was right there too, and it had been on my itinerary. My body, however, had other plans.

I had barely slept before my 5:45 AM flight, and by the time I left the National Museum I was running almost entirely on stubbornness. I returned to the market for lunch, found a hair in my seafood rice, and accepted that perhaps San José and I were having an off day.

I headed to my rental in Barrio Escalante. When I arrived, the cleaner had only just started preparing the apartment. I was so exhausted that I waited for one bedroom to be finished, crawled into bed while she continued cleaning the rest of the place, and promptly slept until almost midnight.

So much for the evening itinerary.

The next morning was a much-needed reset. I ordered gallo pinto with eggs, plantains and the usual breakfast accompaniments and finally had the meal I had been waiting for. It was easily the best thing I ate on the trip.

My last real stop was the Costa Rican Art Museum in La Sabana. It is much smaller than the National Museum, which made it perfect for a short final morning. I was especially taken by Crisanto Badilla Argüello’s Cabeza Pensamiento II, a monumental head populated by smaller human figures. It immediately made me think of the phrase “living in my head rent-free,” except rendered at museum scale.

I tried one final restaurant before the airport. Google had given it excellent reviews. My experience did not. Such is travel.

When I first wrote about this trip, I was tempted to make sweeping judgments about San José’s food scene based on a sandwich, a stray hair and one very slow restaurant. Twenty-four hours later, that feels obviously unfair. A short trip gives you impressions, not conclusions.

“A short trip gives you impressions, not conclusions.”

What I remember now is a market that did not look the way I expected, butterflies inside an old fortress, a sculpture I still think about, finally understanding the appeal of gallo pinto, and the comedy of sleeping through half the itinerary I had so carefully planned.

I would absolutely go back. Next time, I would give San José enough time to introduce itself properly.