Avocados

Luis, our landlord, lives in Guanacaste province. He has a brother who lives on Prince Edward Island, Canada.

We are renting his mother’s house in San Roque de Grecia, Alajuela province. We live in sort of a Tico compound - we are the last house at the end of a lane. Luis has aunties and uncles who live in some of the other houses. It seems that everyone looks out for us!

We have a large avocado tree:

This year it is loaded with avocados. I picked as many as I could by hand and also using a fruit picking pole. Luis contacted me and asked if his two uncles could come by and pick as many as they could. Of course we said yes - there’s more than enough for everyone.

Duque (neighbour’s dog) came by for a visit:

We ended up with a good supply of avocados and the uncles had lots to take home with them.

Some of our haul:

We’ve already eaten quite a few of them. Avocados don’t start ripening until after they are picked  and they don’t all ripen at the same time so we have a continuing supply of ripe avocados.

The Tico Times has this interesting article about avocados in Costa Rica.

We also have a mango tree, two different species of orange trees and lots of limes:

There are still lots of avocados left on the tree.

The Importance of Having Contacts in Costa Rica

Click on images to enlarge.

We have made quite a few Costa Rican friends here and they are always available when we need help.

Minor is a bilingual retired EMT who now works for a Canadian company here. He has helped us with medical appointments at our hospital as our translator. He also helped us out during our last move. He arranged for a transport truck to help us move from Puente de Puedra to San Roque de Grecia, where we now live.

Alex is one of our taxi drivers when our car is out of commission. Recently we were parked at Super Rosvil grocery and our vehicle would not start - new battery was dead. Two strangers stopped to help. They gave us a boost but it still would not turn over. I WhatsApp’d Alex and 15 minutes later he showed up in his red taxi and got the car started. We drove straight home and let the car run for 15 minutes, as per his instructions. We continued driving the car as it continued to start and run.

The same thing happened again just the other day. Parked in downtown Grecia - battery dead. Lance flagged down a taxi and the driver got it going with a boost. Home we went. By the way, the taxi drivers are great for boosts and changing flat tires. I once had two Super Rosvil managers change a tire for me. They just came out of the store and did it.

We contacted our mechanic Josué. He recently installed the new battery. He picked up our Subaru at our house and took it to his shop. Turns out it was an electrical problem draining the battery. There were some other problems which he is now fixing and hopefully we will have our car back today. It’s not a new vehicle so problems can be expected.

There’s also Coco, a tow truck driver we know. I can WhatsApp him anytime if we need a tow.

Costa Ricans are great sources of information also. Alex referred us to Josué. Minor found Coco for us. They are wonderful friends. I once had a nice lady (bilingual) come up to me at our Ebais clinic. She offered her help when I saw the nurse and told me to call her any time.

Off Topic

As mentioned in my last blog post (April 2025) we have been having heavy rains. A storm that blew through the other day was fierce. Strong winds were blowing the rain sideways.  It resulted in this heavy mud floating down our laneway onto part of our patio and in front of our garage.

Our landlord Luis arranged for Toño and his helper to clean it up for us, which they did in short order.

Turns out the mucky mess is from a vacant lot next to us that is being developed and there is a lot of dirt piled up. Luis’ uncle lives near us and he is keeping an eye on the lot. Luis lives in Guanacaste (northern Costa Rica).

Tamarindo - Day 2

After a very restful night’s sleep, we had breakfast in the hotel bar/restaurant - Monkey La-La. You have to love that name. Breakfast is served from 0700 to 1000 which suits early risers like ourselves. There was a sort of small buffet set up, with cereals, fruit, teas and coffee, bread for toasting, jugs of orange and tamarindo juices. So I thought this was the menu that was included in our room rate. I got myself coffee, tamarindo juice, corn flakes and a banana. As I was eating this, the server came around with a menu of about six different choices. I ordered the European breakfast - two soft boiled eggs, two slices of ham, a slice of cheese and a big bowl of fresh fruit. Lance ordered the traditional Costa Rican breakfast - gallo pinto, fruit, cheese and scrambled eggs.

If you aren’t staying at the hotel, or have chosen not to have breakfast included with your room, this meal is a bargain at $8 USD. Anyone can eat here.

My breakfast, plus I had the cornflakes and banana, and coffee and juice:

Lance’s choice:

Monkey La-La, the bar and restaurant. Magpie jays were stealing food from the vacated tables but I wasn’t able to get a decent photo of them. Cheeky fellows.

This price is US dollars. I suppose it is in line with what tourist places charge.

Well, of course I had to have a hammock and I spent some time in it today reading:

The pool this morning, before it had been cleaned. The winds have been very strong so leaves are everywhere. I had a swim yesterday.

Miscellaneous photos:

We walked around town this morning before it got too hot. Lots of nifty shops and I bought a pair of shorts. Many restaurants - lots of different cuisines. I like the vibrant atmosphere here - tourists and surfers - just what you would expect to see. What has surprised me is that I hear English in the shops and here in the hotel. Prices quoted are in USD. I have to ask for the price in colones because that is what we carry.

For dinner tonight, we are going to the Bamboo Sushi Club, a short walk away. Finally, good Japanese food! I’ll post pictures later tomorrow! Haha, food photos.

We’re being picked up for the Mangrove Safari tomorrow around 0730 so I’ll have a lot more photos.

Street Vendors

My preferred way of helping people out is not to go through organized charities, but to give directly to the person or persons who are selling their products on the streets. I've bought toothbrushes, pens, fruit, vegetables and still warm chorreadas (thin corn pancakes) from vendors.

I enjoy the face to face interaction, get to practice a bit of Spanish, and meet the locals.

Today, a basket man came through our neighborhood with his homemade baskets. Our roads are quite steep in places so he was working hard carrying the pole loaded with baskets over his shoulders. He called out in Spanish what he had for sale, stopped at our gate and yelled "upe, upe" - the polite way of asking if the homeowner will come out.

According to Jack Donnelly, of Inside Costa Rica, "upe" comes from Nicoya, Guanacaste province, where people would make themselves known as benevolent visitors by saying, "Nuestra Señorita (Señor) la Virgen de Guadalupe". It was shortened over time to just the last syllable, upe. Presumably no evil doer would dare utter this holy name before assaulting a household.

 

Our basket vendor

 

The two baskets we bought. A good size - about 16" diameter.