Ants, Compre Bien and a Highway Restaurant

We recently experienced an invasion in our house and surrounding outdoor areas of very tiny, reddish/brown ants. They were everywhere. As fast as I swept them up, they returned. There were piles of dead ant bodies.

Outside our back door (those brown piles are dead ant bodies):

Inside, in every room:

Yes, it is the rainy season and, yes, we live in the tropics but in our ten years of living in Costa Rica, we have never had an insect invasion like this one. We live peacefully with the odd insect who comes in our home but this was not acceptable.

It was time to call in the big bug guns. Who ya gonna call? Delgado Fumigadora, of course. Our bug technician was bilingual. The outdoor areas were sprayed as well as indoors. A return visit will be needed to spray the outside again. We, and many others, highly recommend this company. Price was very reasonable.

We had a lucky week! Both Lance and myself received our new Costa Rican Dimex (or cedula) ID cards showing that our permanent residency had been successfully renewed for another three years.

And … I won 80,000 CRC in groceries at Compre Bien, a Costa Rican owned grocery store that we frequent here in Grecia. That is equivalent to about $160 Canadian dollars.

Today (Sunday) was one of our designated driving days. These driving restrictions are in force to hopefully keep people at home in an effort to control Covid-19. We decided to go out to a restaurant for breakfast.

Searching online, I found one in San Ramon that looked promising. We never found it - it was not where Waze indicated it should be. So we gave that up and decided to head towards home and maybe find a restaurant that was open along the way. By happenstance, we passed one that looked promising (it had trucks out front, a good sign) - Comidas Tipicas El Paraiso on Autopista Bernardo Soto (highway 1) - so we stopped here.

It was a good choice. The service is cafeteria style. All the selections were identified and prices posted so you just have to point if you feel your Spanish is a bit shaky. I prefer this style of eating for breakfast and lunch as I can control the portion sizes and just get the items that I want. For me this morning it was a tamale, an egg cannelloni and a tamarind drink. The cannelloni is stuffed with meat and then wrapped in an omelette - I had never seen cannelloni prepared this way until we moved here. Lance ordered pinto (rice and beans), eggs, coffee and a sort of potato salad. Everything was excellent.

You will never guess what the final cost was for all these delicious items ….. 5,200 colones!!! That’s like $10 Canadian - for two people! This restaurant is very popular with locals.

Then, just to sweeten the pot, a special car drove up and parked. It just looked expensive … it had gull wing doors that swung open. We had to check it out when we left - it was a Tesla 10X! Except on TV, we had never seen one of those before. The starting price for this vehicle is about $91,000 in the USA, according to Car and Driver Magazine. I wonder how it came to be here and who owns it. 

I took a photo - the green-blue coloured licence plate indicates it is an electric vehicle. The people who got out of it and entered the restaurant looked just like everyone else - ordinary folk. Maybe this is a testament to this restaurant.

Click on images to enlarge.

Urgent Doesn’t Necessarily Mean Urgent

On Tuesday of this week, I had a routine appointment at our assigned EBAIS so the doctor could assess my latest blood work results and write new scripts for the drugs that I take.

I take the meds to control a couple of medical conditions I have had for years and years. I won’t go into them because it’s boring for everyone, including me. I’m only writing about this to explain how we coped when sent to emergency or urgency at our hospital.

Here in Grecia where we live, we have our own hospital, Hospital San Francisco de Asis. It’s about a 12 minute drive from our house. This is one of the advantages of living in Grecia as opposed to Atenas (where we first lived). The assigned hospital for Atenas is in Alajuela, about a 30 minute plus drive away (and horrendous parking).

So, my last blood work results were not altogether good, with elevated potassium levels probably/maybe due to one of the latest drugs I had been taking. The doctor told me that  elevated potassium levels can cause damage to the heart.

My doctor said she was sending me to the hospital for observation (we were communicating through my phone translator). She printed out an “urgent” requisition for the hospital. The receptionist looked at it and said I was to go there “ahora” (now).

Phooey. So off we went. We did not know exactly where to go in the hospital so we showed the paperwork to the guard at the emergency entrance. He pointed to a small lineup outside a door just down the street from him. Showed my requisition to the guard at that door and he sent me in right away.

Whenever I wasn’t sure where I was to go, I just showed my paperwork to someone and I was redirected. Everybody was so helpful. Ended up at an admittance window where my info was again entered into a computer.

After that, we were sent further down the hall to another room where my BP, temperature and oxygen levels were taken. Further info entered into the computers. Then directed to sit in the waiting room. What seemed like chaos to our eyes at first then became controlled organization as we sat and watched everything around us.

There are doctor consulting rooms all around. We actually didn’t have long to wait before my name was called. The doctor was really nice - the translation app on my phone is invaluable. All my medical history is immediately available on the computers for any doctor/EMT, etc. to look at. 

She did an ECG and sent me off for bloodwork. I didn’t have to stay for observation. We were not sure where the blood lab was and a very kind and cheerful young lady took us right there and handled my requisition at the counter for me.

So now we know how to deal with this section of our hospital. Lesson - just show your paperwork to anyone who works there! It’s obvious we are foreigners and Costa Ricans are always willing to help out.

I was happy to be sent home, knowing that if there was a problem I would have heard about it by now. But if I had been admitted, I would have had no concerns about the level of care I would have received. It’s top notch.

P.S. The guards that are all around the hospital are not there because it’s a dangerous place to be. They are invaluable for keeping lineups orderly (especially now with Covid), directing people to the right place and so on. I always go to them when I am unsure about where I should be.

Eyes on Costa Rica and Weather Records - May 2021 / Covid-19 Update

 During May, visits to this blog were received from the following 11 countries:

Senegal in West Africa is a new country. With Senegal, the total number of countries and non-independent jurisdictions from which visits have been received has risen to 133. Of this number, 13 are non-independent jurisdictions such as Greenland, Hong Kong, Puerto Rico, etc. The visit from Senegal originated from the capital city of Dakar.

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The following is a summary of weather for the month in the area where we live:

Apart from observing that the rainfall in May was less than that in May of the previous 3 years, there is not much to be said. Overall, temperatures were more or less normal.

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Covid-19 Update

The following table updates the information which appeared in my blog posted on May 9:

The death rate in Costa Rica is unchanged. That in Canada has dropped. That in the U.S. has risen by a marginal amount.

In April - May, there was a significant surge in reported Covid-19 cases in Costa Rica. Although I am in no position to say this with any certainty, I can point to "Semana Santa" (Easter Week) as being the possible culprit. Each year during this week, there are a variety of cultural activities which can bring people together. Also, there is motivation for thousands to travel to the beaches, mingle, and have a good time. In the absence of masks or appropriate social distancing, a surge was not unpredictable. 

Despite the surge, the death rate in Costa Rica has remained the same - suggesting again that if you are going to catch the virus you might be better off catching it in Costa Rica rather than Canada or the U.S.

Canada is somewhat anomalous. On a per capita basis, it has far fewer reported cases than either Costa Rica or the U.S. Yet, it has the highest death rate.

If you want to see how some other country is doing in comparison to those listed, then visit the website of Worldometer. Numbers for populations, reported cases and reported deaths can be obtained from that site. All that is then needed is some simple math to calculate the percentage death rate for the other country and the death rate in that country compared to Costa Rica.

Click on images to enlarge.