Covid-19 - Coronavirus in Costa Rica

From the first case confirmed on March 6, 2020, the La Nación newspaper provides a detailed graphic account of the evolution of the Covid-19 coronavirus in Costa Rica. It is updated daily. If you want to read it in English, the Google Chrome browser works well for most but not all of the text.

This link is to the graphic account. Many pages of interesting info.

Should we panic and run back to Canada as a family member imagined we would want to do? Not likely!

Costa Rica acted quickly when the virus arrived. We are under Yellow Alert, which means the government can mobilize additional resources to prevent the spread of Covid-19. These are some of the actions the government has taken:

• Schools, beaches, bars, casinos, dance clubs, churches and parks are closed.
• Borders are closed to foreigners.
• Vehicle transit is restricted from 10pm to 5am. Fines are heavy if you ignore this.
• All businesses must close their doors at 8pm on weekends (Friday, Saturday, Sunday).
• Foreigners with residency cannot leave the country without losing their residency privileges if they do. No hardship for us - I can’t think of a better place to be during this crisis than in Costa Rica - sunshine, warm temperatures, tropical breezes.

How are we coping? Staying at home except for grocery runs. No visitors in the house. No restaurant meals or meeting up with friends. Avoiding the feria (farmers’ market). We have our gardener and housekeeper on paid leave through April. We’ll see how things stand in May. 

Many stores and banks have hours in the mornings for seniors only shopping. The grocery store we were at yesterday had a guard and an employee at the entrance, controlling when a person could go in - which was when another person came out. Checkout staff were wearing plastic face guards and gloves. One store had plastic barriers in front of the cashiers. Carts were being wiped down after use. Lots of gel stations, paper towels and spray bottles of disinfectant available. I noticed customers were keeping a respectful distance from each other.

There is no lack of fruit, vegetables and goods available in the shops. Nobody seems to be hoarding and some stores have posted notices about how many items one can purchase at one time. Many restaurants are offering takeout and delivery only. It’s one way for them to try and survive in the meantime and we are encouraged to buy local.

On the downside, this is a country that depends to a large part on tourism and it has been hit hard. Here is an article addressing this issue.

I receive daily updates on Facebook from the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social (medical system) on the virus, plus many reminders to wash those hands! (¡lava esas manos!)

We are impressed with how this small country is handling the coronavirus threat.

Remember - stay one tapir away from each other!

How To Get Things Done in Costa Rica

When we cleared out our storage locker in Delta, British Columbia, Canada a few years ago we had to return to Costa Rica with all my paintings and painting supplies. Paintings had to be removed from their stretchers so they could be rolled into mailing tubes and brought on board airplanes.

Unfortunately, I had to leave the wooden stretchers behind. Flash forward to the present - what business in Grecia can re-stretch paintings?  I posed the question in my Facebook Grecia group and soon enough had a recommendation.

This company has been in business for ages. A friend of mine whose daughter is an artist had all her paintings framed here. She drove from Atenas to Grecia just to use this business. They are fast and reasonably priced. They have stretched four of my paintings so far.

Facebook groups can be really useful resources for expats. I belong to quite a few - different towns, cooking, gardening, orchids, restaurant reviews, art, bus routes, activities/festivals and right now a lot of info is being shared regarding the coronavirus. This is how we found our fantastic mechanic and other needed services. There’s always somebody who can help. I strongly suggest joining Facebook groups if you are an expat.

Here are the paintings Marcos en Molduras stretched for me. You can see all my artwork here. All these images were from photographs taken either by me or my husband Lance.

Eyes on Costa Rica and Weather Records - February 2020

During February, visits to this blog were received from the following 21 countries:

There were no new countries and the overall total since November 2012 remains at 129 countries.

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

In February, overnight low temperatures tended to be lower than in January. Daytime highs tended to be higher. This may be because there was generally less cloud cover. 

Colder overnight lows seem to be marked by lower overnight humidities. When the humidity drops, the ability of the atmosphere to retain heat build up during the day may drop.  Papagayo Winds continued with a vengeance.

Zero days with measurable rain - this is typical for the time of year.

Tropical Laundry Woes

My poor hammock! It has been reduced to being used to dry laundry!

Why, you ask? Because of an overabundance of mandarina oranges and cocos this year. We have two mandarina trees and they are fully loaded. The branches are hanging over and weighing down one third of my laundry line, as you can see on the left of the photo below. We have given away bushels of them, our fruit crisper is loaded and still they appear. The birds enjoy the upper oranges and ground critters eat the fallen ones. I slip and slide on the ones on the ground. Normally I could hang two sheets and some other things on this line.

See the cocos on the ground to the right of the sheet? If you had been standing there when they fell, I think you’d be in intensive care right now - or worse. These are seriously heavy. We’ve been experiencing strong winds for days now and that’s why they are falling. That bunch is too heavy for us to move - I think we’ll ask Jaime our gardener to hack them apart with his machete and he can take whatever he wants. It’s not so easy to cut open a coco - the green shell is covering the familiar brown coco inside. I’ve tried.

There are at least three more of these clusters up there. I worry about our Cat when he decides to sharpen his claws on this tree. I don’t want to hang any laundry under it in case one more bunch decides to fall when I am pinning up wet clothes. That’s why I hung some things on my hammock.

 

Orchid Show, Grecia, Alajuela, Costa Rica

Yesterday (Saturday, February 29) we went to the 17th national exposition of orchids held here in our town of Grecia. The venue was Escuela Simon Bolivar (Simon Bolivar School), not too far away from our house.

I haven’t been able to find out much of the history of this school, except for this - which has been translated (the translation turns our town of Grecia into “Greece”. So ignore that!). It appears to have been built between 1940 and 1944 in the art deco manner. The hall that the orchid show was held in was very large with soaring ceilings finished with tropical woods. Quite impressive.

The different orchid displays were amazing. Orchid clubs from all over the country were represented - so many orchid species. I’ll never understand how exhibitors convince their orchids to flower right around show time! Some were scented.

Photo below - these beauties are guaria morada (guaria skinneri) - the national flower of Costa Rica. I have a couple of these orchids.

Below - this is a vanda orchid - I have three in my collection - but not with these types of flowers.





There were a couple of orchid vendors on site so of course I had to buy something and I chose this beauty - a miltoniopsis, aka pansy orchid because of the shape of the flowers. I had one in my Vancouver, B.C., collection so it was nice to replace it.

There are more then 1,400 species of orchids indigenous to Costa Rica. Orchids are fascinating - in our climate here my collection lives outdoors all year around.

Circumnavigating the Poás Volcano - Driving in Costa Rica

On a lazy Sunday morning, it was not our intention to drive around the base of the Poás Volcano (Volcán Poás in Spanish). But we ended up doing so. At the beginning of the day, our basic question to each other was "is there anything you want to do today?". We could laze around the house all day or take a drive somewhere - wherever.

With the help of Google, we discovered a place called Bajos del Toro located roughly northwest of the volcano. The area looked interesting. Google Maps indicated that it was about a 30 kilometer (19 mile), 1 hour drive from where we live (Hacienda El Paseo). The main roads were identified as routes 118 and 708.

The 1 hour drive time for the short distance involved ought to have been a warning. But, the message went right over our heads. At first, the roads were paved and fairly good. However, at one stage, road 708 deteriorated into steep switchbacks followed by rocky, bumpy sections narrowly grooved on the sides of a mountain. We slowly edged along these sections at walking speed and there was no real problem. But, had we encountered another vehicle moving in the opposite direction, then there would have been a problem. Somebody would have had to back up to a place having at least some shoulder room allowing the vehicles to pass. Who has the right of way in such circumstances? On a hill, I expect it would or should be the downhill driver.

The altitude where our doubts began was over 1800 meters (6000 feet) and the temperatures were much lower than further down. However, the road ultimately returned to pavement as we descended into Bajos del Toro.

It may be noteworthy that one commentator on the link provided above to Bajos del Toro described a "road from hell". She did not say that this was road 708, but I have little doubt that she was referring to road 708.

Bajos del Toro is an interesting place located in a river valley with waterfall landmarks and other amenities all around. We elected not to join with the many tourists who had obviously arrived from a different direction. Instead, we decided to take a break at a local restaurant (Catarata Rio Agrio).

Ceviche - a favourite. Also ordered mora bedidas (blackberry fruit drinks with milk).

It was so funny to see these dinosaurs up in the mountains.

While at the restaurant, we decided there was no way we would retrace our steps in the direction from whence we had come (from the south). But, we were using Waze (a navigational app that works on my smartphone) and the voice insisted that we go back the way we came. Ignoring those instructions, we headed north on road 708.

Northward, road 708 was paved and crossed back and forth across a small river several times. But, it was necessary to keep eyes open for the odd rough spots and potholes. We eventually emerged from the valley and were treated to some sweeping flatland vistas to the north and west. Along the way, we tested Waze two or three times for new directions but Waze kept telling us to turn around. Ultimately, road 708 terminated at an intersection with well paved east-west road 140. We decided that west was definitely wrong and turned east. Somewhere along 140, we tested Waze again and got the reply we were waiting for (keep going in the direction you are going, or words to that effect).

Frankly, at this point we had no idea where we were but once again we were trusting Waze. At a small village named San Miguel, we were guided from road 140 to road 126 heading south. Road 126 turned out to have several steep switchbacks but they were not problematic. The road was paved and generally in very good condition.

Eventually came a turn in the road where we were greeted by an impressive waterfall right on the edge of the road in front of us. We stopped along with many others who had parked on the roadside to take pictures.

Moving on a very short distance, we were surprised to happen upon La Paz Waterfall Gardens & Peace Lodge. Now we knew exactly where we were because we had been there before. But, we had seen the falls from a totally different vantage point from inside the Gardens and not from the road (see my blog entry on February 8, 2014).

The last leg:

The first time we were at La Paz, we drove from Atenas where we were living at  the time. If we were driving back to Atenas then we might have managed without Waze. But, we weren't. We were driving back to Hacienda El Paseo. So, we continued to rely on Waze without which numerous wrong turns undoubtedly would have doubled or tripled the drive time from La Paz. The directions from Waze now included roads 126, 120, 146, 118, then local. Road conditions ranged from very good to paved but narrow and marked by patches and some potholes.

When driving in Costa Rica, we have found Waze to be invaluable. But, Waze sometimes gets things wrong. I think Waze kept trying to turn us around on road 708 and part of road 140 by comparing the time in one direction with the time in the opposite direction. Problem is that this approach had no regard for the terrible conditions we encountered on part of road 708. As an aside, we were guided by Waze on one earlier occasion to a road so bad that we were compelled to turn around. A John Deere tractor might have managed, but not our Subaru Forester.

Restaurante Almendra Plant Based Cuisine

Recently we tried out a new restaurant with our friends Diane and John. It’s called Almendra Plant Based Cuisine and it’s vegan/vegetarian as the name implies. It’s near Atenas and in a really nice setting. Very good food and healthy too!

My drink - mojito - loaded with fruit.

Lance’s beer choice.

Menu items - lots of choices.

Some of the dishes we ordered - all good.

Passion fruit cheesecake - I really liked it.