Ethan:Week 1

Hola amigos,

So, we are finally in Costa Rica and are going to be for a while. It has been quite an adventure this past week from the people yelling in Spanish on street corners to looking at all the exotic fruit in the downtown market. Right now, I am going to tell you about getting here, my observation of the Costa Rican drivers, and the amazing food they have here! 

The first day involved long plane rides and finding our house in the crowded city. We got up at 5am, hopped on a plane and, BAM!, in about 6 hours we arrived in Costa Rica. We each brought a roll behind carry-on, a backpack, and one checked bag (1 for the whole family) and that was it. After renting some cars, and finding our house, we crashed, seeing as everyone was tired from the long day.

The driving down here is a little wild so I will say a few things on that. The folks down here only slow down a little bit for stop signs (Alto) and the only rule seems to be “when you can go, go”. Despite the lack of traffic rules, there is no road rage and the motorists are very friendly. The people will let you merge without a problem, and most people have their windows down so they can wave you on at an intersection or to pass. All the people that really want to get anywhere in a decent amount of time are on Motorcycles. Cyclists can pass between cars when there is traffic, which there almost always is. When you are in traffic on the highway you can always stop and buy a bag of plantain chips from the pedestrian venders and munch on those for a while. It’s always fun when you have to navigate around busses on a two-lane highway with a stick shift.

You can get food, and especially fruit, pretty cheap but it’s hard to tell with the monetary system they have here. The natives, Ticos, (they call the white people Gringos but I haven’t heard the people use that term yet) are pretty poor on average so use a system of money similar to the peso. They use Colónes, for which it is about 500 Colones for one American dollar, a loaf of bread only cost a buck and a half (760 Colones). The Colón is named after Cristóbal Colón (Christopher Columbus) who actually landed in Costa Rica on one of his several trips to the Americas. You can get six small Piῆas (pineapples) for about 1,000 Colones of you go to the market or a tienda (small store). By the way, the fruit here is amazing! We have piῆas, bananas and mangos nearly every day in a smoothie for breakfast. There are these little red spiky fruits called manon chinos which you break open and there is a small grape with a pit in it. They are a really good snack!

In the cities there are little restaurants called Sodas where you can get real Costa Rican food. We had some papusas and empanadas in the city that were muy bueno! I get the feeling like you can’t really eat a lot as there isn’t a lot of it the first place and beans can make you really really full. Our family is used to eating a lot so we are always ready to eat and have snacks, like right now (Mmmmmmm………..mangos……..). Anyway, the food is super fresh and juicy except the oranges (they are green and drier than I am used to).

It has been a good week but not nearly as bad as I imagined. Very few people speak English and if they do they are in the touristy places. Looks like I’m going to have to learn Spanish after all. We had two birthdays this week Isaac (now 9) on the 20th and Luke (now 6) on the 23^rd, it wasn’t much of a celebration but at least they got a cake! The Costa Rican slogan is the “Pura Vida” (The Pure Life) and people always say that to us as tourists. If we don’t get in a crash or get our wallets stolen I think we’ll survive!

Ciao!

Ethan