Costa Rica: Puerto Viejo and San José 02/03-02/11/2018

Highlight of the week, Cahuita National Park

Saturday February 3rd

Today we are leaving Bocas Del Toro. We tried to sleep in but were awoken by what seemed like the entire hotel filled by one family who shouted from room to room at each other. Their voices echoed over all three floors. We wanted to microwave some plantains we had and on first try, I left immediately. The whole family was busy microwaving enough hot dogs for the entire hotel. Panamanians love their hot dogs. This a perfectly acceptable meat option for any meal. They are served without a bun, like you would serve a side of breakfast sausage. I sent Jeff awhile later and they were still busy with the microwave, but let Jeff use it briefly. There were nice tables with a view from the top floor kitchen but since the huge family was monopolizing it, we ate in our room, microwaves ripe plantains, chia pudding and half of our coconut that we saved from Cayo Zapatilla.

Microwave plantains, chia pudding and coconut

Part of the noisy family group gathered outside the hotel in the morning waiting to begin the days activities. One lady couldn't believe that Jeff was really taking their photo! Haha!

By 10:30 we were on a boat back to the mainland. Shuttle vans wait just outside the boat company offices ready to whisk tourists away to the border for $10 per person. We don’t usually take the easy way out, but our will was weak and we agreed to the shuttle. We could have walked half a mile to the public bus stop and taken a bus to the next town up, then changed buses and gone to the border for a lot less money. Sometimes it’s nice to take the easy way, especially when it’s hot out.

A view of the shantys near Almirante

We had an easy time at the border. We waited in line a few minutes on the Panamanian side to get our exit stamp, then walked across a narrow one lane bridge across the Rio Sixaola. The river makes the boundary between Panama and Costa Rica. Sometimes there are cars and large trucks on the bridge, but luckily there were none when we crossed. On the other side we waited a few minutes to get stamped into Costa Rica. Sometimes when entering a country they ask for proof of onward travel, meaning proof that you won’t be in their country forever. We have been making fake flight reservations just in case they ask for proof. People who aren’t aware of this requirement are sometimes forced to waste money buying a long distance bus ticket at the border, but we were not asked for anything. It was a really easy border crossing.

Walking across the bridge to Costa Rica

Sixaola River, dividing Panama and Costa Rica

There is no ATM at the border but we were able to pay for a bus ticket with USD. Panama uses the USD. We will miss not having to think about how much something costs. It’s easy to overspend when you can’t easily calculate the currency conversion in your head. We will now be using Costa Rican colones at a rate of 570 colones per $1.

We took the bus from the border to the nearest destination, a surfing town called Puerto Viejo de Talamanca. I have always wanted to visit this beach, but never spent much time on the Caribbean side of Costa Rica in previous trips. The Pacific side of Costa Rica is more developed and more commonly visited.

We are staying in Pagalu Hostel. We really like it. All of the dorm rooms are spacious and have only 4 beds each. Each bed has a fan and it’s own electrical outlet. There is a large locker for each person, big enough for a huge backpack. The lockers also have a towel rack and two shelves. There are also hooks on the beds and lockers. They give you a towel for free which is not something most hostels do. Usually you have to pay to rent one, or if you’re lucky they will take a deposit and give it back when you return the towel. The beds are sturdy and don’t shake like crazy when I climb up the ladder, and there is also room to sit up in the lower bunk. We often have some of these things at hostels, but never all of them. All of these little things add up to make a very nice experience. These little things really make a difference when you’re traveling for months at a time. We are in the two story main building. It’s all open air except the bedrooms.  Downstairs is a common living and dining area and a really well stocked kitchen. There are plentiful bathrooms and showers and they also have free filtered water. The only downside is that because it’s open air, when the smokers go “outside” to smoke it doesn’t really do any good and just blows in through the whole house.

Very thoughtfully designed dorm

We were hungry when we arrived at really looking forward to a Costa Rican meal, so we went looking for a soda as soon as we put our stuff down. Soda is the word used to refer to a local restaurant. It seems every country has a different word for this type of eatery, in Panama the word was Fonda. Perhaps the closest translation for soda would be diner. There were many to choose from. We chose Soda Mirna on the main road. We didn’t know anything about it, and didn’t expect much but were very pleasantly surprised. We got a traditional lunch plate that is known as Casado. Casado means married. It is said that it has this name either due to the marriage of rice and beans or because it’s the married mans lunch. Once a man is married this is what he will eat every day for the rest of his life! Casado plates usually come with rice and beans, sweet plantains, salad and veggies. You also get a choice of meat on your Casado plate, but they had a vegetarian option so we chose that. We got a mango smoothie to go with it. We haven’t had mango since we left Colombia, as it was apparently out of season in Panama! We’ve missed it. Our lunches consisted of rice and beans, a really nice salad and perfectly cooked veggies, and not just carrots and chayote like in Panama, we got broccoli and cauliflower!!

The first Casado of many, and one of the best!

The main road is lined with tour companies, souvenir shops and gringo restaurants. We haven’t bought any souvenirs the whole trip, but these shops had lots of temping t-shirts, tank tops, shorts and dresses displayed! When you wear the same thing every day the idea of new clothes is very appealing, I even tried some on, but in the end resisted. There are really cute shirts with sloths on bicycles screen printed on to them!

It was a little drizzly but we didn’t mind walking around in it. We found some veggie empanadas for sale in a street side display box and got one of those and a sweet one called plantain tart. We continued our trip through food heaven with some tropical fruit gelato. Finally like we do in even new town, we stopped into the grocery store to check it out. There wasn’t anything really exciting, but I did find a neat plastic balloon like tube of beans! One day I will purchase a balloon full of beans! They also had sweet potatoes, which we didn’t see regularly in Panama, so we got some of those, some green plantains and a few other things. They also had really nice looking ñame (yam) and malanga (taro). I wanted those too, but resisted.

Plantain tart and veggie empanada

A giant balloon full of beans!

These are the biggest pineapples I've ever seen, but for some reason they don't look that big in the photo. I am wearing my pajamas and they are a bit messy from months of cooking without an apron. That's one thing I wish I'd brought with me!

Our groceries seemed really expensive for what we got and I felt really depressed about it until I looked at the receipt and found that they accidentally charged us for 25 plantains!! Haha! It was like $8 worth of plantains. I went back and got a refund and felt happy again. We weren’t very hungry for dinner after the abundant lunch we ate, so we just had microwaved sweet potatoes and bananas for dinner.


Sunday February 4th

I found a lot of free food in the kitchen and refrigerator this morning, half a bag of brown rice, half of a red cabbage, half of a tomato, a piece of fresh ginger, a head of garlic, a lime, half a package of refried beans, a red onion and a white onion. These items greatly enhanced our meals for the day! For breakfast we had plantain mash with curried veggies, garbanzo beans and refried beans. We drank this with a chan seed drink. I bought the chan seeds in the grocery store last night. You soak them in water and they coagulate like chia seeds and impart an interesting flavor to the water.

Mmm gelled chan seeds! Jeff LOVES them, not! Haha!

Forced to breathe smoke while doing dishes!

Today we visited Cahuita National Park. It’s a short bus ride from town to get there, but we somehow missed the 8:30 AM bus and had to wait for the next hour. Or it’s possible there wasn’t an earlier bus because it’s Sunday. We’ll never know. While we waited we walked to a roadside fruit stand where I bought some baby bananas and a fruit called caimito, which is related to mangosteen.

A lot of people already swimming at 9 in the morning!

A delicious caimito.  I don't think Jeff ever enjoys the exotic new fruits as much as I do!

When we got off the bus at the bus terminal in the town of a Cahuita, there was a lady waiting with a display case of plantain tarts. I couldn’t resist buying another because the one we had yesterday was red inside and didn’t taste like plantains. I wanted to try it again and find out if it really was plantain. I asked why it was red and the lady said red vegetable (in Spanish), so I don’t know if that means it’s colored with beets or red food coloring. It looked like beets, and it still didn’t taste banana like, but was really good. Plantain tarts are a Caribbean specialty, so we won’t find them again once we leave here. It will be a long time before we are on the Caribbean again and I’m sure wherever that is there won’t be any plantain tarts!

From the bus terminal in town, it was a short walk to the national park. There is no entrance fee, just a donation. You are pretty much forced to give a donation. It’s a really popular park, so we had to wait in line to give our donation and get an entrance ticket. They should just charge an entrance fee. We saw a large family in front of us only give $2.

There is only one trail through the park that follows the coast out to a point of land. You can do it as a through hike, exiting the park further down the highway, where you can get a bus back to Puerto Viejo. This is what we did. The park was crawling with people and animals. Luckily most of the people we concentrated on the first couple of beaches. It’s nice that we can always count of a majority of people to be lazy and not make the effort to walk further distances or do anything “too strenuous.”

The trail is mostly in shade and in soft sand or dirt, so we were able to walk barefoot the whole way. The total distance is about 10 km and we spent about 5 hours completing the walk. The forest was beautiful as were the beaches, and we saw lots of monkeys, a sloth sleeping high up in a tree, squirrels, a family of raccoons with babies, and a naughty raccoon trying to break into backpacks. We also saw a stupid lady feeding a banana to a monkey while her companion squatted nearby with a ginormous camera taking portraits. I can’t see why you’d want photos incriminating yourself like that, what an idiot! I’d be embarrassed to show anyone. Apparently monkeys don’t even like bananas that much, and any food from humans can make them sick, because our food carries germs that they don’t find in their natural diet. Of course feeding them ruins their natural behavior as well.

We stopped on one of the beaches on the way for a swim and later we took a break to eat our lunch. I packed us a garbanzo beans and veggie salad and baked potatoes. We found that the beaches, just like all the beaches we’ve been seeing recently, are a bit eroded from recent tropical storms.

When we reached the parking lot at the other end, we thought we were going to have to walk a few kilometers on a boring road out to the highway, but there was a really nice boardwalk trail through swampland. It seemed newly constructed and really impressed us. It had to have been a miserable job building it, there was water beneath it the entire 2 km!

A sign inside the national park that says "nature doesn't know what to do with trash, you do!"

First squirrel show in months! We really missed squirrels!

It's hard to see, but there is a sloth in this photo at the top, just to the right of the center. It is also a neat tree, I don't know what they are called, but they are common along the coast.

This is a sign showing what all of the bad tourists do!

Beautiful tannin filled river mixing with the ocean water.

Sleepy monkeys.

Capuchin monkey climbing between the palm trees.

They climb up the palm fronds like they are ladders.

Don't feed the monkeys sign, I guess that one lady can't read!

Monkeys come very close thanks to bad tourists.

An old pier near Punta Cahuita.

A naughty racoon that kept attacking unattended backpacks.

Nice soft walking trail.

Eroded beach due to storms.

A fine view

Many trees covered in vines.

Hermit crabs roaming the forests.

trail map.

Around the point near where we had lunch.

An injured blue morpho butterfly. I wonder how long it can live like this.They are a dazzling sight in the forest.

Beach side trail.

Microwave baked potatoes with mustard and chickpea salad with free refrigerator vegetables!

Very well built boardwalk through the swamp.

One of my favorite tropical flowers, a heliconia.

We had to wait 30 minutes on the side of the highway for a bus to come. Our timing worked out well. There were other people that waited for more than 2 hours. I guess there is normally another bus earlier, but since it’s Sunday there wasn’t one. This meant the bus was really full and we had to be crammed in standing.

We learned of a rafting company that will pick up here in town, feed us breakfast, take us rafting, feed us lunch, then drop us off in San Jose, the capital city and our next destination, all for $99. This sounded like a great way to make a travel day fun, so when we got back to town we went to their office to sign up. Puerto Viejo’s public beaches were very crowded with local families enjoying the day off. It was fun to walk around a take in the festive atmosphere.

We visited a health food store and were able to buy locally made kombucha and a white chocolate bar that was colored orange from turmeric. You can find all of the hip gringo (white people) health foods in Puerto Viejo! After our snacks we went back to our hostel to pass a little time before we ate at a popular local soda called Miss Lidia’s. The casados weren’t as exciting as the ones we had at lunch the day before but there was a vegetarian options and the plate consisted of the standard rice, beans, plantains, small salad and veggies.

Beautiful tree by the bus stop

A classic example of the butt cheek shorts we see regularly, these are a double whammy, as short as underwear, AND up the butt!

Local kombucha and chocolate.

Wasn't expecting this color! I didn't know it was white chocolate.

You can find displays like this all over town. These baked goods are being sold right out of some lady's house.

Vegetarian plate

Monday February 5th

We could have had another activity filled day if we wanted to, there are lots of days tours offered here, bikes are also available for rent and the coast line to the West of here is also popular to explore. Since we continue to find damaged beaches from the tropical storms that have hit the area, we decided we wouldn’t bother going out of our way to visit any other beaches. We feel really satisfied with our experience at Cahuita yesterday and don’t need to see another beach, so we decided to hang around town and enjoy the free public beach. It was our goal to be beach bums and work on our tans that we’ve been trying to work on for months. We of course didn’t succeed, haha! We just aren’t the kind of people who are content laying around on the beach all day and roasting in the sun!

We walked to the fruit stand on the highway to buy a jackfruit. I saw jackfruits and breadfruits there yesterday and couldn’t stop thinking about them! Sometimes we get sections of jackfruit at the health food store in Anchorage, and it’s a real special treat, it’s such a delicious fruit, so I was very excited to get a fresh local one! I’ve also always wanted to try a breadfruit, but sadly the fruit man didn’t have any today. Breadfruit and jackfruit are related, but the breadfruit is starchy and is prepared and eaten like potatoes. I will be on the lookout for one in the future! We see the trees all the time.

I bought the smallest jackfruit the guy had, which weighed 13 pounds! We got it for $5. It would cost a whole lot more in the US! I have also seen jackfruits in the US at Asian markets. Unfortunately it wasn’t as ripe and delicious as I would have liked, but it was quite the adventure getting it open and extracting the fruits. I have never had a whole jackfruit to dissect! Most people in the US are familiar with the unripe and canned green jackfruit in brine. It’s popular for making a vegan version of pulled pork or other pulled meats for things like sandwiches, tacos and nachos. We eat green jackfruit regularly. It’s easy to find, and it’s becoming so popular that even Trader Joe’s sells it now. The jackfruit took up a lot of our morning. It ended up being our breakfast. We ate all of the fruit and were very full. There is also stringy fibrous stuff that surrounds the fruit and that is what can be eaten like a vegetable or turned into a meat substitute and there are big seeds that can be boiled and eaten like potatoes, so we saved those for later.

A look inside the jackfruit.

Around noon we ventured back out for lunch, trying a different local restaurant, Soda Shekina. There was no vegetarian Casado on the menu, but the lady who helped us had no probably making us a veggie meal with rice, beans, plantains, salad and veggies. These meals out have been costing us about $15 per meal, so about the same as in Panama but consistently better food. It’s also nice that no one looks at us like we are crazy when we ask for a vegetarian option. Sometimes we find that the Casado plates aren’t quite filling enough, so we went in search of a second lunch at a Colombian arepa restaurant, where we order delicious veggie topped arepas.

Another casado

A truck full of plantains near the beach. Let me in there!

A shipwrecked sail boat on the Puerto Viejo public beach

Colombian arepas, there are arepas under all those veggies.

The Colombian restaurant parallels the beach, but there is a nice stretch of forest that separates the forest from the hotels and restaurants. We found a nice trail here that we didn’t know existed. We took a nice barefoot walk for about an hour. We ended up walking the entire length of the Puerto Viejo water front, ending at one of the public beaches where a lot of kids were learning to surf. The waves were really strange and seemed to move in slow motion, perfect for learning on. Jeff went for a swim but I stayed on the beach. It was pretty entertaining watching the tiny surfers, some of them were pretty good!

I made us dinner in our hostel, a coconut curry with veggies, the jackfruit strings and the seeds. It came out surprisingly good. I never know what I’ll get when I invent meals, but this experiment went well. The jackfruit pulp added a nice sweetness, and the seeds kind of reminded us of chestnuts. They are quite large, about the size of big grapes.

After dinner, I used the hostel computer to work on captioning photos and getting another blog posted. After that we got packed up and ready for our early morning departure tomorrow.

Forest trail parallel to the shore.

A huge breadfruit tree full of fruits, if only I could reach them!

At low tide the area by the sail boat becomes a natural swimming pool thanks to the surrounding rocks.

Many nice swings like this along the water.

Coconuts, durians and jackfruits, but no breadfruits!! I should have bought a durian, that's the first time I've ever seen them for sale!

Another shipwreck along the coast, a barge, with a tree growing on it next to where the beginner surfers practice.

Tuesday February 6th

We were picked up bright at early for our rafting adventure and drove two hours before reaching their basecamp. We ate a traditional style buffet breakfast there, consisting of gallo pinto (rice and beans mixed), tropical fruits, granola, toast with guava jelly, tea and juice. Many other buses had come from different areas of the country making for a total of 6 rafts full of people. We stored our bags there and set out in buses again to the starting point of our rafting trip.

Gallo pinto (rice and beans), toast with guava and pineapple jelly and fruit with granola. My breakfast dream come true!

We covered about 20 miles of river and 18 crazy rapids. Many of the rapids were so intense it was a struggle to stay in the raft! The river is called Pacuare and is famous for its world class rapids.  The scenery was also beautiful, we were surrounded by the steep forested green walls of the river gorge. We saw a few toucans and sloths on the way. We rafted about 3 hours total. Two hours in we stopped for lunch. I doubt anyone was really hungry yet, but we all ate anyway. The guides produced a burrito buffet from the containers that each of them were carrying in their raft. The buffet contained tortillas, refried beans, lots of veggies, pineapple and lunch meat and cheese for those that wanted it.

When we got back to the rafting headquarters, we were given the opportunity to change, then were split up onto buses again based on where in the country we were going. We rode in a full van to San José with people who had come on a day trip from their hotels. The ride took a couple of hours. We were dropped off at our hotel, Finca Escalante, just before dark.

Soon after we were checked in, I checked Happy Cow for nearby vegan options and was pleased to find a fully vegan restaurant just a few blocks away. It’s been awhile since we were in a dedicated vegan restaurant, probably not since Panama City. The food was really good, everything made from scratch. They had lots of burgers, salads, a casado plate, delicious desserts, breakfast options and even homemade kombucha! We tried a caramelized onion burger and a BLT sandwich featuring coconut bacon plus yuca fries, sweet potato fries and kombucha. There were so many other things we would have loved to try, it was food heaven! We will definitely go back!

Our route today.

A menu made in heaven!

Did you know beef burgers are extremely water intensive? Each veggie burger you choose to eat could save as much as 600 gallons of water!

Wednesday February 7th

Sometimes hostels aren’t quite what they seem. Pictures on Hostelworld can be deceiving, and sometime hostels still manage to receive good reviews in-spite of it. We are staying in a beautiful old house that used to be an ex-presidents house. It’s called Finca Escalante and is located in the hip Escalante neighborhood. It’s only been open a few months, so it doesn’t have many reviews but they are mostly good. The hostel seems to be full of Costa Rican professionals from other parts of the country that are staying in San Jose on business. The family that runs that hostel also seem to live here, so it’s hard to tell who lives here and who is a guest, and you can’t help but feel like you’re staying in a family home and you’re intruding on their personal space. These are our least favorite types of hostels.

Finca Escalante

Costa Rican Colones are kind of pretty.

Breakfast is provided by the hostel, fruit and those damn krusteaz buttermilk pancakes. I wanted to cook arepas to go with our fruit, because I’ve been carrying around arepa flour for a few weeks and want to use it. The cooking lady was lording over the kitchen and I felt awkward going in and cooking my own food, but I did it anyway. The fruit was nice, as much pineapple and bananas as you want. We ate our arepas with peanut butter and pineapple-banana jam I found for free at our hostel in Puerto Viejo.

After breakfast we used the hostel computer for researching where we will go next and making reservations. We wanted to climb Cerro Chirripó, Costa Rica’s tallest mountain, but we learned they recently implemented an online permit system and permits are booked out months in advance. We will skip that and continue on to the next place we had planned, Manuel Antonio. It was hard to get any reservations for the weekend, so we decided we’ll stay in San Jose through Saturday night and leave on Sunday.

For lunch we tried a vegetarian restaurant called Mantras. We got there before noon and only a few other customers were there. The place slowly filled up with local business people on lunch break. They come to get the healthy and affordable meal of the day for 4,000 colones ($7). We didn’t know about the meal of the day until after we ordered. Jeff ordered a veggie and rice bowl, and I ordered a kale vegan Cesar salad. They were out of some ingredients for the salad, so I got to change my order to a meal of the day. The meal of the day comes with a juice too, salad, soup and a main dish. It’s a really good deal. We’d love to eat the meal of the day every day! It’s always changing and there were a few different options. I got a plantain and quinoa patty. We also got a potent green smoothie. All of the food was good, but the meal of the day was the best.

Lunch meal of the day at Mantras vegetarian restaurant, cost $7. I wish places like this existed in the US.

After lunch we went to a nearby movie theater that I found using the google maps search function. It’s a small theater with just a few screens and it seems like it may have been a historic place that was restored. The entrance hall is very fancy, and the theater we were in had a balcony and old fashioned curtains over the screen. They are very selective about the movies they play, choosing the ones that are award winning and well reviewed. We watched The Shape of Water. We probably wouldn’t normally have bothered to see this movie, but the options were limited. It was pretty strange. When you watch a movie or read a book with a crazy science fiction story line, you can’t help but wonder how the author thought it up! It was about a fish creature that looks human who is captured by the US and is being experimented on. A mute cleaning lady befriends it and falls in love with it.

Cine Magaly

After the movie we lounged in the park taking earth with our bare feet in our fancy neighborhood with all the young people. It’s always nice to see the parks in Latin America getting so much use. After the park we walked around the neighborhood and marveled at the abundance of hip restaurants. There are so many. Being in this neighborhood feels like being back at home in some hip city. You can usually tell you are in Latin America by the type of architecture, single story cement or cinder block constructions, usually brightly painted and usually all sharing walls. Here it is different.  The buildings are separate and modern looking.

Jeff taking earth in Parque Francia

We went into a place called Apotecario, because they advertise fermented food and drinks. Jeff got a house brewed beer, and I got one of their house brewed kombuchas. They had a lot of interesting flavors. I ordered one with chlorophyll, but they were out, so I got a berry rose flavor instead. We didn’t order food, but they made everything from scratch, all of their breads and condiments. They have a beet hummus plate that looks good. For dinner we went across the street to a smoothie counter called Buenazo and ordered a large açaí bowl to share. My legs have been sore all day due the the efforts exerted to keep myself in the raft yesterday!

Delicious local kombucha

Nice back garden at Apotecario

An acai bowl, there's acai smoothie under all those toppings

Thursday February 8th

We went on a “free” walking tour today. We had to walk about a mile and a half from our hostel to the downtown area where the tour starts. Our neighborhood is called Escalante. It’s a fancy place. It hardly feels like Latin American here. During our walk though we reentered Latin America and found heavy traffic, tons of people, typical restaurants, lots of cheap merchandise for sale, and the typical concrete construction with each building attached to the one next to it and the metal garage doors that close over all the store fronts. The tour started in front of the national theater, the most well known building in San Jose, because of its historical value and opulent design and decor. The theater was built in the late 1890s entirely from coffee tax money. It’s still an operating theater, and amazingly, it’s only been renovated once, in the 90s. We were the only ones that showed up at 9 AM for the walking tour.

Our guide was a tiny little lady, probably about our age, but it was hard to tell because she wore transition lens glasses, and we couldn’t see her eyes. She didn’t speak the best English, and gave a pretty boring tour of the military and presidential history of Costa Rica and also told us about all the statues and monuments along the way. One common theme throughout the tour was that Costa Rica wanted to be like Europe, so they were always busy at work building fancy things like the national theater, a railroad, a fancy hotel, etc. Apparently, San Jose was the 3rd city in the world to have electric lighting. That sounded pretty amazing to me! In the 40s there was a civil war that ended in an agreement to get rid of the army. Costa Rica has been army free ever since. We visited a number of parks and plazas on the tour. The parks and the trees are what we enjoy most.

Jeff with John Lennon in San Jose. Was supposed to be a symbol of peace. Someone stole his glasses.

Jeff with an original native stone sphere. These were found all over Costa Rica and no one really knows how they were made or why. They are perfect spheres and came in all sizes. The Spanish blew a lot of them up though, thinking there might be treasure inside.

The Costa Rican history museum looks like a castle.

Government buildings and coconuts for sale (for drinking).

Graffiti wall outside the government buildings, an attempt to prevent political tagging/graffiti

Jeff and the guide

Sculpture in Parque Nacional. Rotating art works are on display in this park.

Metal school.

Daniel Oduber statute, he is credited with the preservation of Costa Rican national parks. There are cork trees behind him that were used to seal bottles of rum that were once produced nearby.

Avenida Central, pedestrian only area.

Central post office, the ornate yellowish building

The first McDonald's in Central America, still in it's original location since the 70s.

National bank and some statues that are meant to represent the common people.

The tour went for 3 hours. We were done at noon, and quite hungry from all the walking. Luckily we were just a few blocks from the Central Market. I love seeing traditional markets, mostly for the produce, but they always have cheap prepared food too. This market takes up one full city block. Inside you can find all sorts of things for sale, souvineers, clothing, housewares, produce, cheese, meat and they even had premade dough for tamales and tortillas. There were a surprising number of restaurants. We decided to split our meals up between two locations. The first place we chose was just a counter. We were attracted to it by these gigantic tortilla looking things that are as big as dinner plates. We got one of those, which ended up being just like an arepa de chocolo!! Arepas de chocolo were our favorite arepa in Colombia! From this counter we also ordered a meal, basically the only option they have. Rice and beans (gallo pinto style) with tortillas and stewed potatoes. Both meals were incredibly delicious and only cost 1,000 colones or less than $2 each! That is by far the cheapest food we have had in Costa Rica and they were served on banana leaves!

Central Market

Chorreada and tortilla with cheese.

A delicous meal for less than $2

After that meal, we were still a little hungry and curious about other options, so we kept exploring. We decided on a place that kind of resembled a super small diner with actual walls within the market, and booths inside. All of the booths were full, and the meal of the day was meatless, so it seemed like a good choice! Luckily they had a tiny second floor too, so we went upstairs and found plenty of seats. For 2,600 pesos ($4.50) each, we got plates of rice, beans, plantains, “picadillo” and salad. I was expecting the picadillo to be a stewed potato dish or some kind of other vegetable, because it usually is, but it was French fries, and the salad was pasta salad! We didn’t get as many veggies as we would have liked, but the price was right and it was fun to eat in the market. It’s amazing how much cheaper it was than a meal out in the fancy neighborhood would cost.

You never know what you will get when you order the meal of the day!

Restaurant inside the market.

To finish off our eating spree at the market we went to try “sorbet,” at an ice cream counter that’s as old as the market, something like 100 years. They only serve one flavor. I didn’t know what the flavor was, but I knew we had to try it. I read about the market and ice cream place in the internet and everyone was very mysterious about disclosing the flavor of the ice cream. “Sorbeto,” sure sounds vegan friendly. I didn’t ask. The ice cream was yellow is color and kind of icy. It reminded me of what mango sorbet should look like. They serve it is small glass goblets plain or in parfaits with other toppings. We got the smallest one. It was probably about a 3/4 cup size and not really cheap, at $2.50. I overheard someone else saying it was vanilla flavor with cinnamon. It was incredibly sweet, and reminded me of eggnog! It was quite strange. I have no idea what it was made of. It was soft and icy, kind of like melting sorbet would be.

Ice cream place inside of the market.

These McDonald's dessert stations are popular in Latin America. There is only dessert here, nothing else.

After all of the food we were feeling sleepy, but had to walk all the way back to our hostel. We had packed up and put our bags in storage in the morning so we could move to a new hostel today. Although the house was nice and neat to see, it felt like we were intruders in a family home. It also seemed to be full of some sort of Costa Rican workers group, so it was hard to tell who lived there and who was a guest since everyone was speaking Spanish and acting like they were at home. Some people like that kind of accommodation arrangement, but we don’t, so we moved to a more traditional hostel full of international backpackers. We are now at Hostel Urbano in the Los Yoses neighborhood. It’s less than half a mile from the other hostel.

This hostel has a really nice backyard with hammocks and a view of the surrounding mountains. We enjoyed the hammocks for awhile and did some internet research before eventually venturing out to the grocery store. There is a big fancy chain store just down the street. They had an interesting collection of expensive imported gringo products, among them Ben and Jerry’s vegan ice cream, and Luna and Larry’s vegan ice cream! It was nice to see those things, but they were priced at close to $10 per pint. In the end we didn’t buy anything because I didn’t really feel like cooking or preparing anything, and everything seemed rather expensive. I figured we could go out to eat for cheaper.

We ended up going out to eat at the nearest “soda.” It is called Soda Yogui, and completely resembled a US diner. There was a counter to eat from, the menu posted on large signs above the kitchen, amazing prices, lots of griddles and grills visible, and it’s open 24 hours! The guy who took our order was super friendly. Even though it wasn’t on the menu, he put together a vegetarian plate for us. We had rice, beans, salad and a nearby portion of ripe plantains. We also got a refresco de chan. Chan is a seed like gels like chia does, but it’s not chia. They soak it in liquid to make this drink. The seeds impart a minty flavor to the liquid, and Yoguis uses a surprise bubblegum flavored liquid, so it was red! It was very strange but delicious. We loved our food too! And the price, $8, including the tip. Also on the menu was French fries, whole ripe plantains, empanadas, Black bean soup, gallo pinto and other typical foods. We will likely be back!

Back at the hostel, we decided to take advantage of the computers available for use and do our taxes. May sent me photos of our W2s, and we were able to file totally free online through TurboTax. It’s a nice feeling to have that out of the way. Our taxes are pretty easy, it only took an hour.

Street musicians.

National Theater and Central Plaza.

National theater and central plaza.

Diner food at Yogui's and a chan refreshment.

Yogui's Diner we love you!

Friday February 9th

We had a very pleasant lazy day today. We had two meals out, we took walks, explored a few parks and the mall and I worked on blogging.

The new hostel has breakfast just like the last, fruit and pancakes. Krusteaz is making a fortune in the Latin American hostel market! Unlike the last hostel, the fruit here is not unlimited, you get one little ramekin of fruit, and by the time we decided to eat, they were all gone. You are also only allotted two pancakes. The breakfast ladies know how many people are staying and make exactly the right amount, so someone ate too much! We decided to have some of the coffee, since it was made in the traditional way, with hot water poured over a cotton bag full of grounds. I couldn’t cook anything else because the cooker ladies were taking up the whole kitchen, so we skipped breakfast and decided to go out for an late breakfast/early lunch, then again for a late lunch/early dinner.

beautiful view from the eating area at Yoses Hostel Urbano

Typical method for preparing coffee.

Pretty nice dorm rooms

A good stand alone bathroom. Sometimes they are big rooms with lots of stalls for toilets and showers.

Our first meal took place at La Tortillaria. This is a place our walking tour guide told us about. They serve the food on top of a giant hand made tortilla! Sounds like a dream! I looked it up on google maps, started walking directions, and away we went! Since google maps now work offline I can load directions and the phone will buzz at me in my pocket when it’s time to make a turn. The walk was about 20 minutes on a pleasant residential road. There was another location in the busy downtown area, but this one, in Barrio Luján, seemed nicer. The food was everything we dreamed and more! They made us a special vegetarian Casado plate, substituting stewed potatoes for the meat. It came with gallo pinto, salad, local cheese and ripe plantains that were cooked to perfection. We tried two (new to us) drinks, a chocolate corn drink called pinolillo and a rice based drink called resbaladera. Both drinks were really good, and came in fun mini pitchers. The presentation of the food was so pretty and contributed to the feeling of joy we felt eating this meal! The price was really good too, $20 for both meals, the drinks and a tip.

La Tortilleria

Menu with lovely photos

Beautiful plates of food and fun drink containers!

Nice table by the window.

We were so full after eating that we decided to find a park to rest in and take earth. I located the nearest green square on google maps, which happened to be Parque Italia. It was a small neighborhood park surrounded on all sides by the walls of houses and a school. There were some nice trees, a Christopher Columbus statue and a small playground. While we were lounging the school let out for recess and lots of kids came into the park to play. It was fun to lay in the grass and watch. When we left all of the kids were excited to wave us off and yell “bye!” (:

Recess at Parque Italia

We spent the middle of the day in our hostel and I used the hostel computer to prepare a new blog post. We really like this hostel. It’s called Yoses Hostel Urbano. There are two Urbano Hostels, but this one is in the Yoses neighborhood. The hostel is in a cool old house with a nice backyard and nice views. There’s also a really nice kitchen, it’s a shame there are too many good restaurants and I probably won’t use the kitchen. They have a toaster oven and a crock pot!! We are paying $10/night for dorm beds. The dorms in Costa Rica have been cheaper than Panama, but the food is more expensive. We don’t mind the food costing more, it tastes better and is more exciting and colorful!

I think people often wonder how we can afford to travel for months at a time. Not only do we travel frugally but we live frugally in our every day lives. We don’t have expenses like a mortgage, no rent, no car payments, just cell phones and car insurance. We hardly ever go out to eat at home, and when we do, our food is cheap. Vegetarian options tend to be the cheapest foods at restaurants. We also don’t accumulate much in the way material possessions. Our only big expense is buying groceries. When we travel we generally eat in cheap local restaurants and buy cheap local produce to cook with. We don’t buy alcohol or go to bars. We don’t buy souvenirs. We sleep in dorm rooms most of the time. We walk everywhere instead of taking taxis. We take public buses, instead of expensive private gringo shuttles, when we need to travel a long distance. And we rarely take tours. We try to figure out the cheapest way to see what we want to see. This is how we afford our lifestyle, by being content with less. We don’t set a budget, but we tend to average about $30 per person per day, which is less that we spend when we work at a ski resort for the winter and pay rent.

For dinner we went out walking again in the same direction we went for breakfast. I chose Restaurante Shakti for us. It’s a locally run place, that specializes in even healthier version of the already healthy traditional food. Their meals tend to be more colorful with fruits and veggies and are very vegetarian friendly. We ordered the meal of the day, a fantastic value, at less than $7, and includes, soup, salad, fruit drink and main dish. Half the plate was filled with salad and veggies, the main dish was a refried bean and ripe plantain burrito and it came with a blended veggie soup and passion fruit juice. Fruit juices usually come with set meals and are usually made by blending fresh fruit and water with sugar. They are called refrescos naturales. They are so common that apparently when Costa Ricans go on vacation to the US they are appalled that restaurants only serve alcohol and soda! The tropical fruit drinks are undeniably delicious and refreshing. We had another delicious meal and left feeling delirious with joy!

A delicious meal of the day at Restaurante Shakti.

We finished eating by 4:30 and hurried off towards the San Pedro mall to try to catch a 5 pm movie, Jumanji. We made it in time, but the young man at the ticket counter kindly told us it was dubbed over in Spanish. Glad we avoided that! There were no other movies coming up soon, so we decided to skip the movies entirely and went to explore the food court. The food court is two levels and had lots of fast food chain restaurants as well as a number of local cafeterias. We wondered if we would see any cafeterias, they were so common in Panama. We took a look at the food, and it all looked delicious, lots of veggies, salads, plantains and rice and beans, all of the makings for a perfect meal! The mall itself is 3 stories tall and has a mix of fancy brand name stores and lower budget local places.

We took a rest in the food court and I took a look at google maps and found that outside the mall there is a Taco Bell, and a park a few blocks away. I wanted to investigate the Taco Bell, because I saw an advertisement for a gallo pinto Crunchwrap when we were on our walking tour yesterday. Jeff didn’t see it and I almost wondered if I’d imagined it. In my younger years, Taco Bell was my favorite fast food. I got interested in health in middle school after a portion of one semester of my science class was dedicated to nutrition. At that time I quit soda and chips and started to avoid fast food. We never ate that much fast food in our house anyway, we didn’t go out a whole lot period, but if I had to have fast food I would have most certainly chosen Taco Bell. I never cared much for fast food burgers, and as I kid, I didn’t even like the fries, I always gave them to May! I was a picky kid! My favorite thing to eat at Taco Bell were the crunch wraps, so when I saw the gallo pinto one, I got excited!! The Taco Bell outside the mall had a drive through called the Auto Bell! I’ve seen Auto Mac at McDonald’s, but never seen Auto Bell, neat! Spanish translations of things we are used to seeing at home are fun and often hilarious! They also had a huge billboard showcasing all of the gallo pinto filled breakfast options! It was a dream come true! Even though it’s not the healthiest place we could choose to eat, I can say with relative certainty we will be back!

We returned to our neighborhood and visited Parque Los Yoses. We really like parks. This one was on a hill, with a brick switch back path running through it. It also had nice trees and pretty lamp posts and I could hear squirrel calls. We returned to our hostel just as it was getting dark, and have remained here reading and researching.

Inside Mall San Pedro

So excited to see this huge billboard!

Drive through is called the Auto Bell!

Parque Los Yoses. We like parks.

Saturday February 10th

While we waited around for our portion of fruit to be ready as we woke up early we sat in the backyard and watched the abundant squirrels. Squirrels aren’t as common down here as they are in the US. In our three months of travels we have only seen a few squirrels, so to see the trees full of scurrying squirrels was very exciting. We love squirrels!  There were probably at least 6-7 of them, and if we had to guess we’d say they were mostly males chasing a female. We actually watched a squirrel mount another when they were closest to us and begin mating rapidly! Neither of us had ever witnessed that before, it was shocking and funny.

There ended up being no fruit at all, only pancakes. That’s ok, we were saving our appetite. We had plans to go to the farmers market. It’s only on Saturdays, so I am glad we happen to be here for it. We’ve been lucky all week with really nice clear, sunny and warm days. Today is a little cool and cloudy and possibly rainy though. The farmers market is called Féria Verde de Aranjuez. It’s less than a mile away walking.

There were probably a dozen produce vendors. I had hoped to spot some unique items, and we did see a few, but not many. I got red bananas, which I’ve been looking for, and also a banana that’s a mix between a banana and a plantain. The mixed banana is called a macho banana, they are short and fat. We also saw a few breadfruits and an enormous jackfruit. I would have loved to buy them both, but we are leaving tomorrow. I also got some produce for making salad at our hostel. I got a head of lettuce, a 4 legged carrot, a tiny onion, a head of broccoli, an avocado and a tomato for less than $2! We also bought some hand made whole grain sourdough bread and vegan cashew cream cheese. There was a whole booth dedicated to vegan nut cheeses! There were also chocolate stands, honey, cleaning products, sauces, coffee, water filters, jewelry, kombucha, prepared foods and all sorts of other hippie things!

Most of the food sellers had vegan options. We chose Colombian food, and ended up with a vegan stuffed arepa, a gigantic patacon and a sweet anise arepa. The Colombians do patacones differently, instead of making smaller sliced ones, they smash the plantain whole, so it comes out as big as a platter, and they top it with yummy things. Our patacon had refried beans, salsa and guacamole. It reminded us of a tostada, only better! The arepa had the same fillings and reminded us of Mexican food. It was so good. The anise arepas tasted like a fresh donut and was addictively good! We rarely eat sweet things, especially pasty type sweet things, so we hadn’t had anything like that in a long time.

We were pretty full after the initial meal, but we wanted to try more food stalls! There was one seller dedicated entirely to kombucha. We bought a delicious anise hibiscus flavored kombucha from them. Then we got another refreshment from a lady that makes drinks out of lemon, ginger and turmeric. I don’t know how it was made, maybe watered down juice. It was good. Our last food stop was for traditional food. We were hoping to get another choreada. It was on the menu, but I guess the right type of corn wasn’t in season, so we got a plate of gallo pinto, plantains and picadillo, a warm stew like potato salad. We were really full after that and walked back to the hostel. It rained on us on the walk back a little, but we didn’t get soaked. On the way I found a jar of baby food on the sidewalk with someone’s trash that had been ripped open and spread about. Don’t know who would throw away an up-opened jar of food! I took it home with us.

Feria Verde de Aranjuez (green fair)

Vegan cashew cheeses for sale.

Whole grain sourdough breads.

Bread fruits!! But I can't have one, we are leaving tomorrow.

Macho bananas on the left and regular bananas on the right.

Colombian food stall.

Patacon, anise arepa and stuffed arepa.

Anise arepa is like a donut, but even better!

Gallo pinto, plantains, homemade tortilla and picadillo (root veggie hash).

Free baby food. It was a good flavor! I'll never find plantain flavor in the US.

We spent about $35 at the market. It felt like we were just throwing out bills in rapid succession! And Jeff doesn’t like that! But it will cover all of our meals for the day, and we had some really good food and kombucha, and I love looking at all the hippie things and farm fresh produce!

We stayed in the rest of the day. Reading, blogging and planning. We ate our salad and bread and cashew cheese, along with some free additions from the hostel. It was a delicious meal.

There are some characters in our hostel. A few people seem like they live there or are staying long term. One guy is named Carl and he sleeps in the bed next to ours. He’s a naturopathic doctor from San Diego. We don’t know what exactly he’s doing here or for how long, but he says he’s working. He spends most of his day on the computer watching YouTube videos and looking at Facebook. He’s a tall and ultra skinny black guy. He looks like an Ethiopian Olympic runner!

There is another lady in the hostel named Mary. She’s somewhere in the age range of 50-60 we think and we are convinced that she is truly crazy. During our time here we have watched her force her self on lone travelers who were reading or eating and minding their own business. She invites herself to sit with them, right next to them, then starts talking about all sorts of crazy things. We heard her tell one girl that she was tortured and something about being in a mental institution and everyone’s out to get her. She’s looking to relocate to a Costa Rica or Argentina because Canada’s going communist (according to her), and she doesn’t speak any Spanish. She just loves to talk and can’t resist saying something every time that she comes and goes from the hostel or when leaving or entering a room. We’ve employed the buddy system and have been avoiding her. She got us when we were making salad though! Jeff left his book out on the table where it could be seen, and she used it as a conversation starter. It’s a book called The Makers of the American Century, and is a history book about prominent figures in American history. She used it as an opportunity to tell us the US is going down the tubes like Canana and is also moving towards communism. We didn’t say anything, and eventually she went away. To be safe we spent most of the rest of the evening in our dorm room. Luckily she is not in our room.

View of the hostel from the backyard.