Breakfast in San José

Yesterday morning, we took the Atenas bus to San José because we wanted to have breakfast there and do a bit of shopping.

Got off at the Coca Cola bus station (used to be a Coca Cola bottling facility, then became a bus station but the name still is used and you need to know this if you want your taxi driver to get you to the right place when time to go home).

Walked up to the pedestrian mall (Avenida Centro), which runs eight blocks from calle 6 to calle 9. This is the financial district ... and is the vibrant heart of San José, I think. So much activity, lots of people around. Some stores were closed, some were open because of the early hour. We wanted to find a bank and ATM's and lo and behold, we quickly found a Banco de Costa Rica.

Coming from a small farming community like Atenas, we are used to our BCR having only three ATM's and I think about eight tellers not necessarily all open at the same time. Even the ATM's don't aways work at the same time.

This San José BCR had two floors and lots of people to help us out. It was also very, very busy ... you get your ticket from the kiosk ... for us it was one transaction which I am used to ... but it was so fast to get to my assigned teller .. you have to pay attention to the voice and video recordings on where you need to line up and it is in Spanish. It also opened at 8:30 am whereas our Atenas bank doesn't open until 9:00 am.

Our banking done, we strolled on up the avenue, as the song goes. We found a shoe store and Lance bought himself some shoes. Next we went looking for a place to have breakfast and decided on the Gran Hotel, situated on the Plaza de La Cultura and across from the Teatro Nacional (National Theater). This hotel has been declared an historical and architectual monument by the government. They have an outdoor patio but we ate inside. As usual, it was a beautiful day and the tropical breezes were blowing in through open doors and windows.

We each ordered the bacon omelet which had strips of bacon inside and smothered in fresh tomatoes on top. A large bowl of Costa Rican mixed fruit was also included. For drinks, I had a mixed fruit bebida (drink) and Lance ordered a mora bebida (mora is "blackberry"). Excellent service.

Teatro Nacional

We enjoyed our morning in the city and must do it more often. It's just an hour away by bus from Atenas.

Pigeons bathing in the hotel patio fountain.

 

 

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Breakfast and Dia de las Madres

We decided to go out for breakfast this morning and headed to La Garita, Alajuela - a nice area where many of the viveros (garden shops) are located and not too far away from Atenas.

There are lots of restaurants along this stretch of highway three and we stopped at Restaurante La Casona del Mais, a typical Tico restaurant. We chose to sit at the back where we could look out onto the tropical hillside. The restaurant is open sided for the most part. Tables are wooden with benches. It's a busy place with lively music.

Today is Mother's Day (Dia de las Madres) in Costa Rica and the restaurant was busy - perhaps lots of mums were being taken out for breakfast.

For our desayuno (breakfast) we both ordered the same thing - pinto con huevos y jamon (gallo pinto with an egg and slices of ham, plus corn tortillas). Gallo pinto (spotted rooster) is a traditional Costa Rican dish - black beans and rice with seasonings and cilantro. It's so filling and I can never finish what's on my plate. There is no rooster in this dish! We also each ordered a bebida (fresh fruit drink with milk). I had zanahoria con naranja (carrot with orange) and Lance ordered a mora (berry).

Driving back to Atenas is always interesting. The road is very twisty and goes up and down. Lots of shift work with the vehicle. Stopped at Coopeatenas in Atenas to pick up a few groceries. We normally shop here or at El Canario for our groceries.

A sweet young lady at the entrance to Coopeatenas was handing out red roses for Mother's Day and she gave me one and said Happy Mother's Day in Spanish. I shamelessly took it (even though we have no children). It was wrapped with fern and tiny daisies.

Here is a short video I made of our day:

Breakfast and Dia de las Madres Costa Rica August 15 2015 from Diana Miskell Turlock on Vimeo.

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The Jade Museum and Dim Sum

On Tuesday morning of this week, we rode the Atenas bus to San José to visit the Jade Museum (Museo del Jade y de la Cultura Precolombina. This link is in Spanish but can be read in English by using Google Translate). The building is located on Central Avenue on the west side of the Plaza de la Democracia. The phone number is 2521-6610 and it is open Monday to Sunday from 10 am to 5 pm.

 

If you are going to the museum by taxi and your driver does not speak English, the phonetic translation is: "moo-seh-oh del hah-day". If your driver is still mystified, it will not be because of your pronounciation, it will be because he has no idea where the museum is. Our driver solved this problem by phoning up his supervisor, who spoke English, and Lance talked to him and we were soon on our correct way.

The Jade Museum was founded in 1977 by Marco Fidel Tristan Castro, the first president of Costa Rica's national insurance agency, the INS (Instituto Nacional de Seguros). The INS is an agency of the government. The new and present location opened on May 26, 2014, and the building itself is designed like a piece of jade. It contains 7,000 pieces dating to the centuries between 500 B.C. and 1500 A.D.

Entrance fees for residents is 5,000 colones but we got in for free once they looked at our cedulas (identification cards). I'm assuming this is because we are seniors.

The museum exhibits one of the most important Pre-Columbian jade collections in America that come from all the archaeological regions of Costa Rica. Five floors show the cultural and ecological scenarios where the societies that produced the jade were developed.

Las Bolas - the stone spheres of Costa Rica

 

Hall 1 is called "Threshold". In Hall 2, named "The Jade", the process of jade preparation is demonstrated and its symbolism, social use and role in shamanic ceremonies. "The Day", Hall 3, highlights activities of daily life. Hall 4, "The Night", was unfortunately not open on our visit. Hall 5 - "The Ancestral Memory" - shows the importance of archeology, showcasing Pre-Columbian body ornaments, musical instruments, utensils and so on of the indigenous and non-indigenous people of Costa Rica.

Floor in one of the halls.

Because of the "no flash" rule, it's difficult to take sharp photos without a tripod.

 

Lastly, Hall 6 - "The Visitable Collection", has shelves and shelves of objects from different materials (jade, ceramics, stone, bones, shells) that come from the three different archeological regions of this country: Grand Nicoya Region, Central Region/Caribbean and the Grand Chiriqui Region. I couldn't stop myself from briefly touching something here, even though there are signs clearing stating not to do this. My fingers touched something made by someone else so very long ago.

 

The museum collections and displays are incredible and I highly recommend a visit. There is a small cafe on the main level, where we had flavored iced coffees, rather pricy at 2,400 colones, but good. They also offer small sandwiches and pastries. 10% off everything with the museum entrance fee receipt. If you are taking photographs, no flashes please. And no bags can enter but there is a secure locker area just inside the entrance. Also, all the displays provide information in both Spanish and English.

Oh yes, across from the museum there are a couple of Ropa Americanas. All the clothes were nicely organized, lots of high end brand names for amazingly low prices.

Then it was time for lunch and we had both been wanting dim sum for quite a while. We took a taxi to Restaurante Casa China, in the Los Yoses area of San José, located at avenida 10 and calle 25. It was the typical Chinese restaurant we were used to eating at in Richmond, British Columbia, home to a gazillion authentic Asian restaurants of all types. Restaurante Casa China is a huge open room with large round tables covered in white cloths. At one end was a very large screen with a soccer game being shown. You can see into the kitchen which was humming with activity.

 

The dim sum cart was being pushed around the room and we pointed at what we wanted. Don't ask me the names of all that we ordered - they are in Spanish and Chinese on the menu. The food comes in small steamer baskets, usually three items to a basket. Everything was very good but ordering the steamed pork buns (pan relleno con lechon al vapor) was our downfall because they are huge. We couldn't even eat the third one.

Total cost was 11,800 colones and that included four ginger ales. We'll definitely be going back here when next we crave dim sum.

Tiime to head back to Atenas. We taxied to the Coca Cola bus station and caught our bus.

On the bus.

 

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Fruit Pie

It's mango season in Costa Rica and mangoes are literally falling from the trees. Where we live, it seems every property has at least one mango tree and sometimes more then one. Our mango tree is huge as are most of them around here. The scent from the ripening mangoes is quite distinctive.

Two weeks ago, it looked like the mangoes were ripening but it was still hard to pluck them off the branches with the fruit picker. Today they literally fell into the fruit picker basket. I saw that quite a few still hanging on the tree have been eaten by something so they provide food for creatures other then ourselves. Many mangoes are falling off the tree and rolling down the laneway, only to jam up the electric gate.

This surfeit of fruit richness makes one feel guilty. There are only so many mango smoothies one can drink. I give away as many as I can.

Today I made a fruit pie using two of our mangoes (they were huge) and strawberries from the street vendor in Atenas (three pints for one mil - roughly two dollars.) She very carefully selects the three best pints out of her display.

Here's my pie:

 

The recipe is from the book "Pie-ography, Where Pie Meets Biography" and the author is Jo Packham. It was actually a strawberry pie recipe but I added the mangoes.

 

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Amazing Bugs

Look at this!

 

This insect was floating in the pool the other day, still alive, and we fished it out so it could dry off. It was gone about half an hour later. It is absolutely amazing looking and we have never seen anything like it.

So I turned to my friend, Claudia, who is a protozoologist and also a fellow artist here in Atenas. She also lives part of the year in Saintes, France, and her blog posts from there are so interesting to read. As usual, she solved our insect query in short order and here is what she said:

" It's a Hemiptera, a "True Bug", belonging in the insect group called "Planthoppers". They all look a bit like plants, one way or another. This one, a Fulgora laternaria, is called peanut-headed bug or alligator bug. It's harmless, no teeth! Just a sap-sucking snorkel-mouth. What looks like big, black eyes are just dots to scare potential predators."

So thank you, Claudia, and thank you peanut-headed bug for showing us yet another fantastic creature of Costa Rica.

 

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D.o.g.'s Squeaky Toys

We are currently dog and house sitting for our neighbors. D.o.g. is a young, active border collie and very smart.

D.o.g.

She has lots of toys and they turn up all over the place. We throw them for her and they get buried in bushes, or she drops them and then forgets about them. Up until yesterday, she had been playing with quiet toys. Suddenly, she rediscovered a green squeaky ball and fell in love with it all over again - squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak ......

Eventually we had to hide it for our own sanity. She looked and looked and finally decided it was in a closet. It wasn't but we did discover a brand new squeaky chicken still in its plastic wrap. Bonanza! squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak ....

I want you to enjoy our experience along with us, so here is a video I made:

 

Fun With Dogs from Diana Miskell Turlock on Vimeo.

 

We have come up with some ways to hide these toys:

Chicken in the freezer

Chicken on the BBQ

The only location that stumped her was the freezer. She sniffed out all the other hiding places.

 

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A Busy Couple of Days

A few days ago we were taking groceries out of the back of our neighbour's SUV and left the hatchback open but didn't notice. You guessed it, the battery became dead as a doornail. Jorge, our favorite taxi driver, was called and came to the rescue but he couldn't get the battery to take a charge from his taxi. Nevertheless, struggling with the inadequate tools we had to offer, he managed to pull the battery from the SUV and take it away to a shop somewhere in Atenas. Overnight, the shop managed to recharge the battery and Jorge brought the charged battery back first thing the next morning. He also brought proper tools for quickly reinstalling the battery. Over protestations from Jorge, Lance gave him 20,000 colones, about $40. This included dealing with not only the battery problem but also ferrying me around to buy more groceries, etc.

When called upon, we are well cared for by Jorge. If you plan to spend any amount of time in Costa Rica, it is important to establish friendships with the Ticos and not to squirrel yourself away in some gated community where all expectations are like those in your homeland.

With the battery charged, I was able to drive into Atenas, take out USD from the ATM to pay our rent at Banco de Costa Rica. Then I walked to the Correos (post office) and mailed a card to my mother, walked up to the vet's place and bought a bag of kibble for the dog "D.o.g.", went to the shop where you can pay bills or add colones to a cell phone and added one mil each to Sharon & Gordon's cells (we're looking after their house and D.o.g). One mil is about $2 and covers about three months of basic cell phone service in Costa Rica.

While doing these errands in Atenas, I encountered and had to say hi and hugs to various taxi drivers other than Jorge who have been missing me since we have our neighbour's SUV for the time being. One (Rodrigo) even quizzed me on my Spanish as he is often wont to do ("what color is your house?"). Then to the Coope to buy some groceries and finally home. I even made oatmeal cookies today. Needed two swims after all that. Oh and I also did a wash so we have clean bedding again.

Walked down to our house to check on it and water my orchids. Hotdogs for dinner tonight, not much work. Thursday is Meriam's day to clean here so we try to keep out of her way and just go down to our house. She arrives around 0700 and works until about 1:00 pm or so with unbelievable effort.

It's exhausting living down here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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