Eyes on Costa Rica and Weather Records - May 2022 / Covid-19 Update

 During May, visits to this blog were received from the following 7 countries:

The total number of countries and non-independent jurisdictions from which visits have been received remains at 134. Of this number, 13 are non-independent jurisdictions such as the Isle of Man, Hong Kong, Puerto Rico, etc. Seven countries are less than average.

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May is the first full month that we were settled in San Roque de Grecia. Here is a summary of the weather for the month and a summary from the day we arrived until month end:

Compared to May 2021 when we lived in Hacienda El Paseo (a short distance southwest of Grecia), the average overnight low temperature in San Roque was about 1.5°F (0.83°C) lower. Somewhat surprisingly and despite being at a significantly higher altitude the average daytime high in San Roque was virtually the same as last year in Hacienda El Paseo.

Rainfall comparisons are a different matter. For us, 25.51 inches (648 mm) in a single month is a record for any month of any year in any place where we have lived and kept records in Costa Rica (firstly Vista Atenas; secondly Hacienda El Paseo; and now San Roque). Also, we have never before encountered 28 days of rain in a single month.

The nice thing about the rain is that on any given day it is often preceded by mornings with light or broken clouds and usually does not begin until early afternoon. Often, it only lasts for 2 or 3 hours or less. This serves to keep everything green and fresh. Thus, we have the so-called green season in Costa Rica.

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Covid-19 Update

The following table updates information which appeared in my blog entry posted on May 6, 2022:

Overall, the death rate in Costa Rica is down 0.05% since my last post. That in the United States is down 0.03% and that in Canada is up 0.01%

If you want to see how some other country is doing in comparison to Costa Rica, 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.

If you want more up to date information and statistics on the situation in Costa Rica, including various locales in Costa Rica, then the web site of the Costa Rican Ministry of Health ("Ministerio de Salud") is a good source. If you do not understand Spanish, then you should enable translation features on your web browser if they are available.

Click on images to enlarge.

Learning Spanish in Costa Rica

Before we moved to Costa Rica from Cloverdale, British Columbia, Canada, we took a six week basic Spanish course. I don't think it did much good.

We've been in Costa Rica for almost four years and just about every Spanish word we know now has been acquired from interacting with Ticos, especially our taxi drivers.

We have advanced to the level of being able to call for a taxi, order food delivery, order meat at the butcher shop and buy fruit and vegetables at the ferias (farmers' markets), order our meals in restaurants. Banking has become much easier, although I still sweat when my teller says, "Deanna ....." and I wonder where I have gone wrong.

When I shop for groceries, it is automatic for me to look for natilla and not sour cream, pan not bread, lactocrema not butter, atun not tuna and so on. My grocery lists are written almost all in Spanish. I can ask for the fruit and vegetables I want to buy from the street vendor and what the price is and understand what their reply is - mostly!

But yesterday, I learned something new from one of our taxi drivers, Rodrigo Espinoza Solano, who is a stickler for correct pronounciation and grammar. When I went to pay him in colones, I asked for "cincocientos" in change back. Wrong!! Although everyone else understands what we want.

In Spanish, when you are counting in the hundreds, it is like this: 200 = doscientos; 300 = trescientos; 400 = cuatrocientos; 500 .... different!!!

500 suddenly becomes quinientos. I asked why, "Qué?", but didn't get or didn't understand the answer. Rodrigo gives me a Spanish lesson every time I ride in his taxi and then he tests me the next time I ride with him.

Not only that, he plays wonderful Spanish music on his car radio.

 

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Saturday in Atenas

We needed to buy some things in Atenas today so decided to go into town and have breakfast at Cafe Cultura. I've mentioned this newly opened restaurant before in this blog and urge everyone to try it out.

We like to eat in the restaurant's walled backyard. They have tables with umbrellas set up on the grass and  the ambience is so nice. We both ordered the eggs Benedict with smoked salmon and fresh fruit - it's always good. Lance ordered one of their coffee drinks - you can't go wrong with them. I usually order a fresh fruit drink and this time chose one that is supposed to be good for the circulation.

Then off we went to Vargas, the Atenas hardware store. We had decided to buy a fruit picking basket and a long, telescoping pole to attach to the basket. Our mango tree is huge and we can't reach a lot of the mangoes that need picking without some help. The basket and pole work really well and I also used them to pick oranges from our orange tree. The Vargas folks are really helpful - they always make an effort to find what we are looking for.  Today our helper asked if we were Canadians so I guess we have an accent.

We also bought some fruit and vegetables from the street vendors - always a great deal and it's fun to practice Spanish this way.

My fruit basket and pole.

The pole when it is telescoped out - this was actually a subject of some amusement  as I got some wink winks from the hardware guys and ... well, I didn't understand all of what they said.

Quatro avocados - one mil (2 CAD)

Eleven tomatoes - one mil (2 CAD)

Tres strawberry baskets - one mil (2 CAD)

Very Busy

Into our seventh month and we have been incredibility busy socially. We are so fortunate to have many wonderful friends and making more all the time. We feel privileged to be invited into their homes and sharing meals and good times.

Enjoyed Beach Day on Monday - how could one not enjoy it. Lots of waves to body surf in, good food, good friends. I'm going to have to get some more bathing suits. Going to the beach a couple of times a month is such a great idea - we get the best of both worlds living in the Atenas area and visiting Playa Dona Ana.

See the cart in the photo? The fellow sitting in the shade operates his little business making granizados -  he shaves ice off a big block, puts it into a cup, adds powdered milk (if you want it), more ice, condensed milk and then covers the whole thing in flavored syrup - they are SO good. Cost: 1 mil (1000 colones), or about 2 Canadian dollars. I hope he is at Playa Dona Ana every time we are. Granizados can also be had at the Atenas park.

I'm still looking for a pipa guy - the vendor takes a young coconut (pipa) from iced water, machetes off the top, sticks a straw through the flesh and there you have it - a refreshing drink. I think there is a vendor in the park - just haven't found him yet.

Jose, one of our gardeners, dropped by last Saturday and we gave him his Christmas bonus. We sat around and had coffee and practiced our Spanish with him. He showed me how to better prepare pineapple tops for planting. I wasn't removing enough of the lower leaves.

We had a large bunch of bananas that were ready to be picked and he showed us how to do that too. His first method was to just punch through the pseudo stem, then he pulled one completely over with his arms. We fetched him a saw - much better. Jose has arms like a weight lifter. So he sawed the whole banana plant down and then it was an easy matter to cut off the banana bunch.

Our first tropical Christmas is only ten days away. I draped a strand of lights over the lime tree stump and that is our Christmas tree.

 I so do not miss the craziness of a modern Canadian Christmas - all that endless mall shopping for stuff nobody needs, all that money spent, people making themselves crazy preparing too much food. It used to be simpler and that is how we want our Costa Rican Christmases to be - more meaningful and involving people, not products. Of course, it must also involve good food! but that doesn't mean I have to prepare it. Lots of businesses out there do it better than I can and we're helping to support the local economy.

Sixth Month Review

We have been here for six months now and still feel the same way about this wonderful country as we did upon arrival. We don't regret the move for one minute.

It is so beautiful. We are meeting lots of Ticos and making new Gringo friends from all over North America. Our Spanish is coming along in baby steps but that is still more than we knew when we arrived.

We agree that Atenas and the surrounding area seems to be a perfect place to live. It has the quiet rural atmosphere that we both like yet is close enough to the airport, San Jose, larger towns, the beaches and so on. Atenas itself offers lots of restaurants, groceries, shops, and services for day to day living.

The dry season has arrived - not much rain, sunny and warm days, cool nights and I love the brisk breezes that blow most days. We have started walking into Atenas more often.

Started tomato, basil and melon seeds. Finally won the battle with the leaf cutter ants by using an organic insecticide called Omitox but will still have to keep watch that they don't set up more colonies.

We have days at the beach with interesting friends.

Plus, we can buy this brand of cheezies here:

Mothers' Day in Costa Rica

Monday, August 15, is Mothers' Day here in Costa Rica. I was aware that the date was different from ours in Canada (the second Sunday in May). It's a big holiday here - Dia de la Madre, Feast of the Assumption-Mothers' Day - and is a national bank, school and business holiday.

We were grocery shopping at the Supermercado Coopeatenas this morning and had much more than 10 items to run through a till. However, the very nice fellow at the 10 or less till waved us over anyway. When he got close to ringing up our purchases, he asked me in Spanish if I understood Spanish, to which I replied "poco" (a bit, ha! and that's an exaggeration), and then I thought he asked if I knew tomorrow was Mothers' Day and I proudly said "Si"!

At that response, another fellow stepped up and handed me a lovely bouquet of flowers - apparently the actual question asked was "are you a mother?" and I said yes. Well, I'm not a mother but I have a mother ... so does that count? At least I was listening to what I was being asked and trying to understand what I was hearing.

Anyway, mother or not, I am so impressed that a grocery store was making this effort to honor the mothers that live in Atenas and area. I don't know how many grocery stores in Canada do this sort of thing. Here is a picture of the bouquet I was given - and the rose smells so nice.

Me Llamo Diana y tu?

Went to our first Spanish Level 1 lesson last week and it was interesting and fun. Our maestra is a young mujer from Mexico. We learned some useful vocabulary words, masculine and feminine singular and plural definite articles, some indefinite articles, basic phrases (Hola! Como estas?) and learned the pronunciation of the Spanish alphabet (el alfabeto). We also practiced speaking with each other but, wow, is it difficult to translate what you are hearing and then formulate an answer - and we are talking about simple stuff here. Seven more weeks to go.