Getting There - Aneel's Travelogue

After breakfast at our hotel, we caught a cab into downtown San Jose. Our first stop was the Spirogyra butterfly garden. It's a small, but pleasant place. Amazingly, I was able to get some decent photos of one of the prettiest kinds of butterflies (the Blue Morpho) using my phone's camera, a feat that I don't think I've ever managed with my big camera.

Which is a promising sign, since my big camera is only semi-functional right now. My lens seems to not want to focus any closer than about 5 feet. Before we left the hotel, I tried to get in touch with a local camera repair shop, hoping I could drop it off before leaving on the boat and pick it up when I get back, but they weren't answering their phone. They might be closed because it's Sunday.

Our second stop (the Museum of Jade) demonstrated that possibility. It turns out to be closed on Sundays (contrary to the expectations of the concierge at our hotel), and may be closed for renovation as well. Also closed today: the museum complex with the pre-Columbian gold and ceramics. They had a nice posted list of the holidays for which they close, which didn't include today, but they were closed anyway. The National Theatre looks like the stage is being renovated, but we got to go into the lobby.

We strolled up and down the central boulevard, and stopped in at the La Merced church, which is one of the more elaborately painted churches I've visited. It's full of three-lobed columns all over that have brightly colored patterns.