Independence Day

We are spending these first few nights in Costa Rica at a hotel that is nestled inside a bamboo forest and beside a coffee plantation in the central highlands. Vista del Valle is a set of casitas spread over several acres with an extraordinary view of the valley of the Rio Colorado. We are enjoying our casita, the great lemonades served up at the restaurant, the swimming pool and the hammock on the porch of our casita.

A cool leaf bug discovered by the kids!

Yesterday, the 14th, I (Jerry) spent the afternoon car shopping with our friend Macho. I had never before shopped for something whose price begins in the millions, but with the Colon at about 590 per US$1, used cars were anywhere from about C3,000,000 to C13,000,000. In three hours, Macho and I honed in on a 2000 Mitsubishi Montero, with 91,000 miles on it. We have not made a final decision but expect to do so tomorrow, the 16th.

A couple interesting things. Though it was impossible for us to rent an automatic transmission car at Hertz—all are manual—the vast majority of used cars for sale are automatic. This is because they all were imported used from the States and we Americans of course have a preference for automatic, originally because it was easier to drink a Big Gulp with an automatic and now of course because it is much harder to text while working a stick shift.

Secondly, Costa Rican used car salesmen are experts about North American climate. Therefore, none would ever sell a car from Minnesota or New Jersey because there is too much snow in these places and the salt on the roads corrodes the engines. Nor would they sell one from Florida because there is salt in the air from the ocean that corrodes the engines. They would however sell one from San Diego (the salt air there must be different) or from North Carolina because, and I quote, “it does not snow more than three times there each year.” Forget weather channel for your next forecast, just call a Tica car salesman.

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Baker and Riley and I today went on a nice horseback ride through the coffee plantations near our hotel. Among other things we saw beautiful “Rainbow” Eucalyptus trees. The bark of these trees is paper thin and multi-colored—pink, orange, green, purple, red, grey. Really quite remarkable and aptly named.

We passed many, many ferocious but tiny dogs along the way. Their owners lived in modest houses along a sometimes paved, sometimes dirt road. Enrique, our guide, explained when I asked that the folks in these houses either worked in San Jose or Alajuela in factories; or worked construction; or perhaps had a small coffee or tomato farm of their own. Enrique pointed out a single-story building fronted with about 10 doors—it looked like a small, run down motel. This, he said, was a home for migrant workers from Nicaragua and Panama. These workers came during the cosecha in November, December, and January to pick the coffee. How remarkable that in this relatively poor country there are even poorer folks who come here to work the fields, just as many Mexicans and Guatemalans come north to work the fields of California’s central valley. While there is such a thing as absolute poverty—which appears in the forms of chronic malnutrition, lack of primary education, lack of basic healthcare, lack of shelter—Costa Rica (at least at my first observation) is not there.

As for the horses they were great. Mine, Mago, was a real plodder but Carmencita, ridden by Riley, and Pinto¸ridden by Baker were raring to go, even if we only were able to run them once or twice during our ride.

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Today (15th) is Costa Rica’s Dia de Independencia. Wish I could tell you a lot about the independence of Costa Rica, but all I know is that it occurred in the mid 1800s. Last night, we ate at a small but popular café in Grecia called Delicias. As we sat there, discussing the menu, our voices were drowned out by the sirens of a police car moving ever so slowly through the crowded street outside the restaurant. Turns out, the police officer was the front edge of an Independence day parade. We watched it go by—the highlight was a host of school children carrying lanterns that they had made—and then walked to the central plaza where we bought churros and watched a carnival-style ferris wheel go round and round. It wasn’t the tame kind, but rather the kind that goes quite fast and in which the carts can tumble backwards and forwards on an axle. It ran on a big diesel engine and, at one point, the operator was unable to unlock some riders from their compartment. That – and my weak stomach—helped us decide to not ride.