Well, I've been to Puerto Limon. It's pretty much the biggest city in CR on the Caribbean coast. It's like a different country then San Jose. Much hotter and humid... very much in the rain forest. Many of the locals there are of Jamaican descent so you have a lot more blacks then in other areas of CR. It's a very poor area and the city is rough, but it has it's charms as well. And there's local MP's
I had one local take me to a tico MP very much off the beaten tourist path. I've also done some tourist stuff out of San Jose, like go visit the Poas volcano. It's not expensive to hire a cab for the day and have him take you there and to some other spots like the La Paz waterfalls. And of course there's all the eco-tourist stuff like the zip lines through the rain forest, etc.