A Day on the Town

San Isidro de el General is a medium sized city in the southern valley of Costa Rica.  Compared to the tiny villages we’d been staying in, it feels like a metropolis, but I’d guess the population at under 100,000.  We had some errands to run the other day and spent a few hours exploring the city. (That's Michael in front of the cathedral in the middle of town). It was a very educational trip. We learned how to ride the bus...

... which is not as easy as you might think.  "All the green buses will go back to the hotel," the reception desk told us.  So we got on a green bus, and proceeded to take a 40 minute tour of the countryside in the opposite direction from our hotel.  Once we got back to town we decided to take a cab to the hotel instead of guessing which green bus would actually take us the right way.

Our main errand in town was doing laundry.  First we had to find the laundry place (not a laundromat, exactly, because they do all the washing, drying and folding for you).

It was a fairly simple process once we found the place.  We dropped off our clothes and came back a couple hours later when they were done.  It cost a little more than it would have to do our own laundry in the States (roughly $8 for one load), but considering we didn't have to do any of the work it was okay.

While we were waiting we ate pizza and sat in the central park in front of the cathedral.  One thing I noticed about San Isidro is how clean it is.  And that goes for all of Costa Rica, really.  Littering is against the law, and you will get a hefty fine if caught.

San Isidro is also very accessible for people with disabilities.  All of the roads here have huge drainage ditches on either side for the rainy season.  So, to step from the sidewalk to the road you have to hop over a 12-14 inch ditch, or, simply walk across the ramp:

I was impressed.  Costa Rica really does have good infrastructure.

We'll be in this area for a few more days, and then we're moving further south to a little village called Ojochal.  It looks like everything is set for us to housesit for 6 weeks down there.  I'll tell you more about that in another post though, this one is long enough!