SAN JOSE SOJOURN

The small delights of Costa Rica's capital
Part One

by Kelly Monaghan

In 1880s, the great Italian opera star, Adelina Patti, refused to play San Jose, Costa Rica, because it didn't have a theater worthy of her. Over a century later, those who value big-city sophistication might feel much the same way about this slightly down at the heels metropolis. San Jose seems rather provinical despite its status as the national capital.

I suspect that for most visitors, San Jose is a waystation to jungle expeditions and coastal adventures, as it was for us. Eco-tourism, after all, is at the heart of the Costa Rican travel boom. But those who treat San Jose merely as a place to hurry through (or avoid altogether) on the way to their real Costa Rican holiday are missing out on some very real urban pleasures that offer a nice balance to the natural splendors on offer elsewhere in the country. Treating yourself to a day or two in San Jose at the beginning and/or end of your trip will not only keep you rested but also give you time to sample a few gems in this casual and unpretentious town.

The Gold Museum

In the heart of San Jose's tiny "downtown" lies buried treasure. It's the Museo del Oro Precolumbiano (Museum of Pre-Columbian Gold) and the building it occupies is a striking example of contemporary Costa Rican architecture. Its three stories are completely buried under the Parque Central, with skylights bringing natural light to the rock and pebble garden at the bottom. Despite the ultramodern use of pre-stressed concrete, the place is vaguely reminiscent of a recently excavated temple, which is perhaps the whole idea.

Just to get you in the right mood, you enter and exit the museum proper through massive steel bank vault doors with a uniformed guard on duty. The exhibit inside has been most cunningly designed. The space is dark and open and just ever so slightly ominous. After some tableaux that put what you are about to see in archaeological perspective, you are led through an open maze of ever more exciting treasures, dazzlingly illuminated in the overall shadows by brilliant pinpoints of light.

Pre-Columbian Costa Rica lay south of the great Mayan empire and its inhabitants were much less developed. No towering pyramids here, just simple jungle huts, which makes the art produced by these people all the more startling.

The first level is given over to plain body ornaments, bracelets, earrings, chest plates and the like that are often totally devoid of any design or elaboration. Then, just when you're thinking that's all this ancient culture produced, you descend a broad staircase to the real eye-poppers.

On the lower level are hundreds of golden amulets and figurines, ranging from simple, almost stylized frogs to elaborately detailed (but still quite tiny) depictions of shamans performing self-mutilation rituals that make me wince just thinking about them. Another display features scores of little golden bells that once hung by the hundreds in sacred jungle groves. The effect must have been as magical and awe-inspiring as any Gothic cathedral.

Before leaving, take a moment to visit the gallery housing regularly rotating exhibits of the work contemporary Costa Rican artists.

Admission is 3,000 colones (about US$10.50). Credit cards are accepted.

The Jade Museum

The name is more marketing than anything else because the jade in this museum is the least interesting thing in it. The real draws, for my money at least, are the ceramics and the intricately carved metates.

Unfortunately, the displays and signage give little guidance to visitors not already familiar with the objects here. But I gather that most if not all the examples shown are from Costa Rican sites. Some of them betray the stylistic influence of Mayan polychrome pottery and many are absolutely ravishing. The three-legged metates, too, are an eye-opener. The metate, which is still in use today, is a sort of stone platform on which to grind corn, but these utlitarian objects were turned into exquisite design elements by their ancient makers. When not in use, the metate would be stored standing on its end, revealing the intricate patterns carved on its underside and along the legs. Some standing metates evoke caymans emerging from the water and others bring you up short because they look for all the world like a piece of exquisite modern abstract sculpture.

There's the jade collection, of course, most of it betraying the fairly limited carving technology available to the artisans who fashioned it. It's reputed to be one of the largest collections of its kind, but with the exception of one or two pieces I found it rather boring.

Your tour through the museum ends on a raunchy note in a small room devoted to "fertility symbols." Or was this simply pre-Columbian smut? Some of the objects on display looked an awful lot like sex toys to me, but then I had a sheltered upbringing, so what do I know?

The Museo del Jade, to use its Spanish name, is located on the eleventh floor of the headquarters of the Instituto Nacional de Seguros, the insurance company that put the collection together. You'll find it on the north side of the lovely Parque Espana. Admission is 1,000 colones (about US$3.50).

Continued

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