Costa Rica Food, People and Shopping
Costa Rica food was delicious. Because of the climate, this country has so many types of fruit and vegetables that every meal has a huge volume of the stuff and it’s all fresh. They also have stuff not normally found on an American table like Chayote, green oranges, orange limes, veggies of unknown name,

They love cooked plantains and black beans and rice on corn tortillas. Great stuff. They have the best best best best best beef. The stuff is so tender it would melt in your mouth. The food we ate was by far better than any cruise food we ever ate and cheap cheap cheap. These people are great chefs. We would be driving along and would pass by a hovel that called itself a restaurant. The place would look like a mess from the outside but it would be the only restaurant in town. It would typically have a tin roof and maybe not have 4 sounds walls. But since we had no other choices we would stop. But once you got inside, the place would be clean and neat; appealing in look and the menu would be varied and sumptuous. And some of these places had the most incredible views in the world to eat by. The food was incredible everywhere we went. And you could get a complete full meal for $3.00. Once I ate a giant platter of fried pork with a salad and tortillas for $2.00. Steaks were the best.

The people were also an anomaly. They all by far looked incredibly healthy – more so than Americans. Everyone was slim and had great complexions. The women were beautiful. I don’t know if they were in great health because everyone walks everywhere and thus get a lot of exercise or maybe the eternal spring weather has an impact or maybe the available nutrition which is so varied and plentiful but they all looked great – men and women – no matter where we found them or what their occupation or status in life. In the whole week I saw only one ugly fellow because he had a harelip but the rest of this man suggested health and vitality. The people as a whole don’t speak English except for those in the tourist industry and even then I had to use a lot of Spanish. But all were very friendly and helpful and the country has a high literacy rate. I was warned by all the guidebooks and by friends “guard your wallet wear a money belt” We never went to the city so maybe we didn’t see any bad people but the people we saw never seemed like they were going to take my money away. In fact they all seemed like they wanted to be friendly and they appear to dislike conflict of any sort.

Shopping had its shortfalls. The largest store we ever saw of any type was no larger than a corner McDonalds. All places seemed to abhor air conditioning so everything was open air buildings and sometimes the lights would be turned off to save on the electric bill. In some places we found security people walking around these tiny stores and that made us a little uncomfortable but not too. Buying comfort foods from home was difficult. Dave made a point to seek out sunflower seeds – his favorite snack - and there are none to be found in the whole country. Other items like ketchup and mayonnaise and laundry soap are sold in sealed baggies- not bottles or boxes. Very different. These stores were few and far between and none had parking unless you parked on the street blocking traffic which seemed to be a standard method throughout the country. Gas for cars was available but the stations were few and you constantly had to keep an eye open for a station in case your gas was running out. Bathrooms (unless they were at your restaurant) did not come with toilet seats or toilet paper – you had to supply your own and if you had none you used the open toilet bowl with no seat in the best way you could figure out. There were some significant cultural differences between this country and ours.

Anyway, tomorrow I will write more about our activities and adventures and the animals. Bye for now.