Days 13 through 16 in Costa Rica

Days 13 through 16 in Costa Rica

"Remember, living takes longer here.  Time is spent finding things, fixing things, cutting red tape and avoiding long lines.  But this pace allows more time for reading, observing, listening to music and just being.  In Costa Rica, we are more human beings than human doings.  Pura Vida!  Pure Life!"  This is a quote from one of our books on living in Costa Rica.  We have definitely embraced this slower pace of life.  We have really enjoyed spending time reading and exercising.  We spend a lot of time on our porch watching the clouds come down from the mountains, birds flying overhead and hummingbirds flitting around the garden.  We enjoy spending time on our porch and visiting with the neighbors.  Our life here is very simple, we eat a lot of fresh fruit and cook all our meals from scratch with two pans on a hot plate.  We only have two plates, two bowls, four place settings of silverware, two cups and two glasses so we have to wash our dishes as soon as we finish eating.  You don't want to wait anyway or the ants will come marching in to clean up the scraps.

On Christmas Eve, we sat outside on our porch listening to Christmas music and lit our tiny Christmas candle as the sun set.  We both commented on how much more we enjoyed Christmas without all the Christmas hype and commercials in the US.  At 8 pm we headed out to Sarchi to have Christmas Eve dinner with a Tico (Costa Rican) family that are friends of Richards.   I took a salad that I had made from avocados, hearts of palm, tomatoes, lime juice and cilantro.   On the way, we looked at the Christmas lights on many of the homes.  The brother of the homeowners, lived in the US and he and his children spoke English.  No one else spoke any English.  The family had a beautifully decorated Christmas tree in an area just inside the entryway.  We visited and ate chips and dip until dinner was served at 10 pm.  It reminded us of family dinners at home with everyone finding a spot wherever they could to sit and eat. We had chicken, pork and salad.  The meat was very good.  They said it had been marinated in Lizano Sauce, a Costa Rican favorite.  After a long time, the first dessert was served.  This was some kind of custard with mixed fruit.  It was very tasty.  I was looking forward to the next dessert, but Richard decided that it was time to go.  All 7 of us squeezed in Richard's little car for the ride home. 

On Christmas day, we made some phone calls back home to visit with family.  I made Wendy's Pineapple Crunch in the afternoon. I made it with fresh pineapple and used pineapple jam from a pouch instead of the sugar, flour and pineapple juice mix.  I borrowed Richard's oven to bake it in and it turned out great! It was nice to have a taste of home on Christmas. 

The next day, we were visiting with our neighbor Michael from Puerto Rico about using the buses here.  He and his girlfriend Victoria from Venezuela  have been using the buses a lot to tour the country.  Victoria loves to cook and he brought us out some arroz con dulche (sweet rice) to try.  It was wonderful.  Later in the day, he brought us some of her Lasagne which was out of this world.  We sent them some Pineapple Crunch to try.  Later Victoria brought back the plate with some chocolate - masa cake on it and a request for the pineapple recipe.  I wrote out the original recipe and then added my Costa Rican changes - so now Wendy's famous recipe will be heading to Venezuela.  I think we definitely came out the better in our neighborhood food exchange. 

Yesterday, we were planning to get up first thing and start searching the internet and making calls about a place to stay, so of course the internet and phone system was down.  When the internet was restored, we found a place that sounds wonderful and got it booked.  It is on a mountain overlooking the Orisi Valley.  One of our guide books called it the "Shangri-La" of Costa Rica.  I guess we'll get to see for ourselves.  We will be staying in a cabin on a farm run by some retirees from Georgia.  If you want to check it out they have pictures at www.vrbo.com/420142.   

Elias and Maria are planning a cook-out for all the neighbors sometime in the next couple of days, so we will head into the Feria (farmers market) and Maxi Pali (grocery store) to get some food we can make for the party.  I think I will make a salad and more Pineapple Crunch.  

I think we spend half our day watching Candela play.

I guess I better be careful what I wish for.  Henry the neighbor from Poland came over this evening with part of a bunch of bananas and part of a bunch of 'gineros' (not sure of the spelling).  The gineros are sweeter than the bananas.  I have been trying to give them away to all the neighbors.  I think we will be having smoothies for supper.