Col's Creature Watch #2

After the adventure of the first week and the unwanted house invader, I am pleased to report that there are less intimidating creatures in this blog entry. After the scorpion the only other large insect we have had in the house is this multi-legged fellow:

However, as I'm sure that I read somewhere that centipedes can give you a nasty bite, we took no chances. No, we didn't squash him, we put him out in the garden where he belongs.

And while I'm on the subject of the garden, we have this strange looking spider for company on the bench there:

Despite looking like the logo for batman, she appears to be a spiny orb-weaver.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasteracantha

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasteracantha_cancriformis

Existen Dos Costa Ricas

Last night we attended the "Fiesta Navidad" of the Tai Chi Society here in Costa Rica. There was a good turnout with more than 30 people there to eat some food and sing some Christmas songs (villancicos). There were bocas for starters, turkey, mashed potatoes and salad for the main course, and various tasty cakes for pudding (including one type of cake that must have had an 80% alcohol content). The food was followed by some singing of Christmas songs, first in Spanish (which we did not participate in, if only because we didn't know the words) and then some in English (which we did sing).

Members of the Taoist Tai Chi Society here have been donating various food and essential housekeeping items to give to some local needy families for Christmas. There were also some Christmas presents bought and wrapped up for each member of the families (including a toy car which we bought for one young boy). The families were selected by one of the Society's members who works as a nurse here. Today we accompanied some members of the Society to the see the families and give them their Christmas gifts.


This gave us the opportunity to experience working with Costa Rican addresses (see an earlier blog entry). An address of 300 metres west and 200 metres north of a landmark is not enough to help you find somebody’s house, especially in a densely populated area. So what do you do? Why, you ask of course. Unlike many parts of the UK, folk here do actually know who their neighbours are. So, you can get to the general area and start asking for the family you are looking for and soon enough, you will find them.

Costa Rica is one of the most developed and richest countries in Central America, yet it was clear to see today that poverty, real poverty, still exists here and not just in the slums on the outskirts and riverbanks of San Jose. The families we visited today, all in the San Rafael/Heredia area, were living in "houses" that were smaller than most UK garages. In one case the "house" was essentially part of a ramshackle garage sectioned off, boards had just been placed on the earth to provide a floor; a mum (aged 38 but looking much older) and her two young children lived in this tiny one room space.

One thing that has been noticeable in Costa Rica is that there are often small, almost derelict houses right next to large modern houses, which are right next to shacks, which are next to a 5 bedroom house... and so on. So in many streets you can find the very poor living next door to the well-to-do, separated only by a few feet (and a large wall and barbed electric wire fence). It is something that you don't often see in the UK – both the mixture of housing and the barbed electric wire fences! – where the well-off and poor each have their own, very separate, "estates". However, unless you are homeless, as in really homeless and living on the streets, in the UK you are probably living in better conditions than the very poor here. As one of the Tai Chi members said today "existen dos Costa Ricas".

Manos Abiertas

Today, after Spanish school, we had a very tasty and very cheap lunch at a most unexpected location. We have previously visited the Monteverde Heladeria for ice-cream (as one would expect), but today we went in to get a quick sandwich. We only expected to get a small sandwich for the price, but ended up getting the equivalent of a foot long subway, a drink (fresco) AND an ice-cream cone for pudding. Total cost for 2 of these meals was 2400 colones (less than £3).

Later, we went to Manos Abiertas with some folk from the Taoist Tai Chi Society of Costa Rica. We were invited to visit along with a choir group from Heredia. Manos Abiertas is a home for profoundly disabled people which is run by nuns. Last year the Society collected toys for the home and this year the donation was something very practical – nappies for adults. The choir group sang various Christmas songs (in Spanish of course) to entertain the residents (and nuns and nurses who worked there). It was a good experience, with many of the residents showing a lot of enthusiasm for the singing.

Zoë’s Spanish Phrase of the day

Detrás del cerco ladra un perro chico que se considera grande.

This comes from Colin’s “First Spanish Reader”. We think this nicely sums up part of Costa Rican life as we have already encountered many of these in our short time here!

Yummy Yuca

We started our Spanish classes yesterday with ISSCR. This is a little school which is run out the spacious garage of Doña Ligia’s house near Pollo Cervecero in Heredia. The tutors, Wes & Rafa, previously worked at another language school in Heredia, but didn’t like the fact that at that school the business seemed more important than the students, so they set up on their own. Their teaching style is very informal and mostly conversational – the grammar points are covered as they come up in conversation. The lessons are 4 hours each day and, for these first two days at least, have flown by. We are their only students for this week and next with the exception of a German woman named Frauke who comes once a week (on Tuesday). We essentially have one-to-one tuition with Colin working mostly with Rafa, and Zoë mostly with Wes.

Wes is a keen chef, and so the conversation often turns to food and cooking. Rafa is giving Colin a lot of information about Costa Rica in general, and as such today we were all discussing fruits and vegetables that are available here. And so it turned out after class we had the urge to go to the mercado central in Heredia to buy yuca before getting the bus home.

In Scotland yucca is a popular houseplant. We are not sure if yucca and yuca are the same plant; sources on the web are very conflicted! Anyway, in Costa Rica, yuca root is eaten as a staple vegetable, much like potatoes – boiled, mashed, fried etc etc.

Wes described how to prepare the root (in Spanish, of course!). The skin is poisonous so has to be removed, which is very easy when you know how. After you’ve cut the root into chunks a couple of inches wide, cut through the skin lengthways (between the cut ends) and ease it away from the chunk of yuca in one piece. We decided to boil then mash the root with some butter and milk, and ate it with some left over pollo asado from yesterday and ensalada. Verdict: very tasty!

Please Note: This is a stock photograph (borrowed from Wikipedia!). We did not eat all this yuca!

Las Aves Locas

This morning we were awoken at 6.15 am by a loud banging sound that appeared to be coming from inside our home. This was particularly unusual, as we have been awake before 6 am every morning that we have been here so far…

After wondering what the noise was for a few seconds, we thought we ought to go investigate. So we got out of bed and put on our house shoes (having first shaken them out to remove any critters that may have made their home there in the night!) and cautiously went to investigate. Checked the upstairs – nothing. Checked downstairs – nothing. Yet still the banging went on. Loud. And in the house. At this point, we were somewhat what nervous and wondering what to do. We started back up the stairs and came eye to beady eye with the culprit. As he looked us in the eyes he made as if to try the window once again …

In the years that they lived in this house, our friends, Peter & Victoria, had never had an attempt at forced entry. And here we were, 5 days into our stay coming face to face with a BIRD trying to enter the house!! We think it was attracted to the rather beautiful stained glass window and was actually pecking at it because it thought it could get something tasty to eat. It flew off shortly afterwards, and all was silent again. Well, as silent as it ever is in Costa Rica.

Sunday is market day in San Rafael, the town closest to our home in Costa Rica. So, after we got over our rude awakening, we paid the feria a brief visit this morning to take a look. There were a lot of people out to get their fruit and veg for the week, and many of these people were trailing "granny trolleys" behind them so that they could wheel their purchases home. We only saw one that was of the traditional style that we are accustomed to - red tartan. Both the prices and quality seemed pretty good, so we plan to make this our weekly fruit and veg shop ourselves - although it is yet to be decided whether a granny trolley will be required. On this occasion we only bought a pineapple (piña), cost 300 colones (about 40p).

Please note: This the actual pineapple and not a stock photograph.

In the afternoon we went into Heredia to see a festival that was on in and around the main park in the centre of town (parque central). The festival consisted of various shows, dancing and singing, all performed by the students of Universidad Nacional (UNA). UNA has its main campus in Heredia city, and also has several other campuses around the country. Students from all campuses had come to take part. Here are some of the highlights of what we saw…

Baile Folclórico: Así es Nicoya, Campus Nicoya

We saw a very similar performance when we were here last time, in March this year, though we don’t know if they were the same people. Our understanding is that in this dance the men and women take it in turns to hurl insults at each other … we are not entirely sure why. However, there was always much appreciative whistling from the crowd after each one was thrown! (If anyone can translate the one in the video for us, we would be most appreciative).

This little group, from Campus Pérez Zeledón put on a section of the Christmas story for us. Somewhat of a challenge for our Spanish, and even more so for our ears during the parts where they sang carols. Angel Gabriel couldn’t sing for toffee, but he did put everything he had into it….

More traditional dancing, this time from the Liberia Campus. We were told they had been up since 3 am in order to get there to dance for us.

And finally, we simply couldn’t leave out the group UNÁnime. We probably shouldn’t say too much about this because some things are beyond explanation.

Rice & Beans

We headed into Heredia after Tai Chi class this morning to buy a few bits that we needed, and to get something eat. We were planning to go Vishnu/Mango Verde, a vegetarian place we really like, but passed a soda on the way that took our fancy.

A soda is a small diner that serves traditional Costa Rican food (comida típica). They vary in size, starting from a kiosk with a few bar stools at the counter, through a small room in the front of house with a couple of tables up to something like the larger one we were in today – which probably had about 10 tables (as well as several bar stools).

We had the most typical of soda meals, a casado. From Wikipedia, whose writer phrased it more clearly than we could: “A Casado is a typical Costa Rican meal consisting of rice, beans, fried plantain bananas, salad, a tortilla, and an entree of choice that may include chicken, beef, pork, and others.”

Today ours had rice, beans, plantain, a couple of slices beetroot & tomato (salad!), chips and fish. Along with a natural each, the total cost for the two of us was 3800 colones (just under £5 at todays miserable exchange rate of 771.5 CRC to a GBP).

Zoë’s Spanish Phrase of the Day:
Acabo de ver un hombre que iba por la calle en uniciclo.

Suggested usage: When you are enjoying a quiet casado and out of the corner of your eye you see a man on a unicycle amongst all the traffic on the road. Of course, your husband doesn’t believe you. But I did see a man on unicycle going down the street. Honest.

Please note that I am not sure of the grammar for this phrase, so if I am wrong, please correct me!

Power Walking

Today we decided to go to Mall Paseo de Los Flores as Colin wanted to get a surge protector with battery backup for our precious computers and the delightful Rana, as we believe the power here can be temperamental, and we knew that we would be able to get a good one there. Plus, we like malls.

To save us a little money, and because it was a nice morning, warm but with light drizzle here and there to cool us down, we decided to walk. After plotting the path on Google Earth, it turns out that this is a distance of about 2.67 miles (4.3km). It is nice to have the time to be able to walk somewhere as a form of transport. The surge protector (sistema de alimentación ininterrumpida) was no problem to purchase even with Colin’s language difficulties at the checkout.

While at the mall we enjoyed a couple of naturales. These are drinks made either with water or milk, fruit, ice and a little sugar (if necessary) all blended together. Much yummier than the ever present Coca Cola. We also noticed a little stall, which was not there on our last trip to this country, catering to the Costa Rican love of rice pudding (arroz con leche) by serving it in a positive myriad of variations. What appealed to us, however, was the name of the stall: Rice ‘n’ Smile. If we ever try it, we’ll be sure to update you.

We caught the bus back, partly because of the purchases we were carrying (which in addition to the sistema de alimentación ininterrumpida included two almohadas and a sartén) and partly because the sun was out now making it a lot hotter and putting us at greater risk of sunburn. We took two buses actually: the Ruta 400 to Heredia which cost 295 colones, and then the Ruta 434 to San Rafael which cost 190 colones. The cost of the two buses together equates to about £0.45 each. Is it possible to go anywhere on the bus in the UK for 45p?

Col’s Creature Watch #1

Up until this evening I thought my first creature watch was going to be quite tame. I had up until then seen what appeared to be the same sort of spider that we get in Scotland, and the same sort of grey squirrel that we get in Scotland – so nothing to write home about (quite literally). Then I observed this monster…


Ok, perhaps monster is a bit of an exaggeration, but we definitely don’t get those in Scotland. I then spent the next half hour or so trying to decide how best to get rid of it. If you are a lover of all animals, you may wish to stop reading now, be warned a scorpion was hurt in the making of this blog. My first move was to change into a shoe with a thicker sole, perfect for stamping duty. Unfortunately while I was putting on these weapons of mass destruction, the scorpion had decided to crawl right next to a wall. So instead I opted for the pointy end of a broom and squashed it with that. The other end of the broom was then utilised to sweep away the squashed remains.

Please note that I do not intend to squash all entries in my creature watch, but scorpions in the house will not be tolerated.

Who ate 0.7 of the pies?

One disappointment with the microwave is the large statement on the box “0.7 Pies”. I guess they never need to cook a whole pie in Costa Rica.*


*0.7 Pies seemingly translates into 0.7 cubic feet. Suddenly the thought of 0.7 Pies being microwaved doesn’t seem so bad.

Dings that make you hmmm

From next week we are going to be attending Spanish lessons for 4 hours a day, 5 days a week for 2 weeks. So today we went into Heredia to scout the location of the school so that we don’t get lost on our first day. Addresses here are not like addresses in Scotland. That would be too easy. The clue is in the Spanish word for address: dirección. Addresses here are given as a set of directions e.g. 100m east of the football field, white house with blue trim. This is great, as long as you know where the football field is. And as long as you know that 100m doesn’t actually mean 100m (it actually means one block, which could be any distance at all, really). And as long as there is only one white house with blue trim in the vicinity…

There was also disappointment today when we discovered the microwave that we bought yesterday did not work. We bought the cheapest one in the shop (seeing as we are only going to need it for three months), so it is an old school turn the knob to set the time type. Unfortunately all it did when you turned the knob was go “ding”. Cue a return trip to the shop and a swap undertaken. Now we have a microwave that heats stuff up as it’s meant to (and still goes “ding” when finished).

And so to...

Zoë’s Spanish Phrase of the Day
Compramos este ayer pero no funciona. No hace nada.

Saludos de Costa Rica

Well, we made it. And it’s raining! Still, at least the rain here is warm and not that icy cold, sideways rain we get in Aberdeen.

We arrived here late last night after a rather uneventful journey. Here are some highlights:

• It was snowing when we left Aberdeen – the plane had to be de-iced, which meant we left about an hour late. We think this was Aberdeen bidding us farewell and reminding us what we will be missing during the next three months!


• We were pleasantly surprised at Heathrow not to have to remove our laptops from our bags for the security check. At both Aberdeen & Newark we had to take them out of the bags, and Colin also had his bag searched both times because he didn’t remove Rana (our network drive). The security guy at Newark asked Colin if he had a flux capacitor in his bag. Great Scott!


• We didn’t have much time in Heathrow & Newark due to our flights arriving an hour late each time, a theme which continued to our arrival in San Jose. We did have some time at Newark though to people watch and play our airport waiting game: “Tell me why [insert description of person waiting in lounge] is going to Costa Rica.” Not exactly a catchy title, but fun and laughter-filled nevertheless…

Today we have been settling into our home – we’ll write more about where we are living at a later date. We went for a walk through town to pick up some essentials, and then our friend, Peter, kindly drove us into Heredia where we purchased a kettle (hervidor), microwave (horno microondas) and double electric rings (hornilla eléctrica doble). So we now have basic cooking facilities which is, naturally, very useful. Peter also lent us an umbrella, which we hope won’t be quite so useful.

Zoë’s Spanish Phrase of the Day:
Este es un avión, no es un tambor.

Situation for use: When the guy sitting next to you from Newark to San Jose listens to his iPod loudly and insists on tapping out the rhythms on the window and tray table (just in case you couldn’t already hear it issuing from his earphones). No, I didn’t say it … but I wanted to!