location of civicrm.css on Joomla
I fixed it. I opened Administer -> System Settings -> Resource URLs.

I then changed CiviCRM Resource URL from [civicrm.root]/ to administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/

I then removed my hack (the symbolic link), refreshed the contribution page and all is well. I also verfied by looking at the source for the contribution page and it show the correct urls for css and jquery now.