I’d forgotten to buy salt on that first day coming up from
the airport so we’d been eating salt-free meals like we’re cardiac patients.
Fortunately, I’d purchased lemon-seasoned chicken so by stir-frying it with
rice and veggies, we got by. But we really wanted salt.
“What day is today?” Paul asked after supper last night. It
is quite easy to lose track of time when you have no particular place to be at
any specific time.
“Thursday. Tomorrow the farmers’ market is opened in town.”
We decided to take our first bus ride to Grecia the next
morning, find an ATM, and do some grocery shopping. I’d read several articles
about the farmers’ market and we recalled nosing around it when we were here in
June. We hoped to get as much of our food there as possible. Everything we’d
researched, as well as advice from expats living here, was that avoiding
“American”-type grocery stores was a key to living cheaply in Costa Rica.
The bus arrives at the top of our road every hour on the
hour with maybe a few fewer stops on weekends. I readied my nylon shopping bag
and stuffed my rain jacket and our one umbrella in my backpack. Having borrowed
about 600 colones ($1.20) from our landlady Jenny before she left for Canada,
we figured we’d have just enough for the bus before we withdrew more money from
the ATM in town. “Living on the edge,” Paul calls it. But it’s actually pretty
comfortable. Or it will be once we get salt.
As we locked the door and headed up the hill, a young woman
carrying a sack stopped us. “Tamales,” she said shyly, holding out two freshly
made packets.
“Quanto questo?” We were getting very good at asking how
much something cost.
“Siete ceintos por dos,” she replied. That’s $1.40 U.S.
“Solo tengo colones por la autobus,” Paul said. “Later, when
we come back.”
“Dos hores?”
“Tres.”
She smiled and put the tamales back in the sack.
Shortly after we arrived at the bus stop, we were joined by
two women from the neighborhood. There were “Buenos” all around while we
waited. “Solo dos dias in Costa Rica,” we told the ladies. They smiled warmly.
Everyone in Costa Rica, either genetically or by some government decree, smiles
warmly.
Only a few other passengers were on the bus when we boarded.
Paul handed the bus driver some colones and got change back. The fare into
town, we discovered, is 85 cents. A lot better deal than paying more than $5.00
a gallon for gas. And much more colorful.
As the bus wound its way down the mountain, it filled to
capacity. Each time an older person boarded, a younger person quickly offered
their seat. I whispered to Paul, “Maybe you should offer your seat,” as an
elderly woman shuffled down the aisle.
“I’m old too,” said Paul. Sometimes I need reminding that
I’m married to a 68-year-old retired guy. I guess that’s a good thing. Needing
to be reminded, that is.
Seeing our road from the bus is very different than glancing
quickly from a car window. At each bus stop I peered out to see what kinds of
outdoor furniture people had – much of it Sarchi-made (Sarchi is a nearby town
famous for its furniture factories); I admired the profusion of blooms in front
gardens; I watched women sweep porches and men plant fruit trees. Uniformed
children hiked up or down the hill on the way to school, heavy with backpacks
or dragging wheeled book bags behind them.
On the seat across from us, a young pregnant mother dandled
a bright-faced baby on her knee. “Isn’t he cute,” Paul whispered.
“She,” I whispered back, “she.”
“How do you know it’s a girl?” he asked.
“Well, for starters she’s got gold earrings, pink Mary
Janes, lace socks and flowered pants.”
“Oh,” he said, “I was focused on the short hair – no long
banana curls.” The baby looked from Paul to me, wide-brown eyes serious,
probably wondering what jibberish we were spouting in our strange tongue.
Only one man, a few seats ahead of us, looked to be Gringo,
not Tico. I tried to catch snatches of conversation going on around us. I’m
very good at picking up “tengo,” which means “I have,” but I never get what the
speaker actually has. Oh well. More
Pimsler Spanish lessons coming up.
After about 20 minutes, the bus pulled up—conveniently –
right alongside the Grecia farmers’ market. Booth after booth of fruits,
vegetables, seafood, cheeses and meats beckoned. But first an ATM. I’d
remembered seeing one somewhere near the church, so we headed in that
direction. One of the reasons we love Grecia is that it feels like the kind of
towns both of us remember from the 1950s – towns in which you could buy
anything you needed, from appliances to shoes, codfish cakes or cough syrup.
WHICH BANK?
At the first bank we came upon, there was a long double line
at the outside ATM. Then I recalled that the 3rd day of the month
was Costa Rican Social Security day, and yesterday was October 3. The second
bank had a wall of ATMs, but it seemed like you needed some kind of key to
access them. I’d remembered reading that once one became a legal resident and
were able to officially open a bank account, you were given a key – and there
was a slot that looked like it took a key.
“We need to find a Scotia Bank instead of one of these state
banks,” I said to Paul. “I’m pretty sure I remember that there’s one a few
blocks away from the church. Having the large church and park as a guidepost is
very helpful and every town in Costa Rica has both.
We walked a few more blocks and were getting ready to cross
the street when a car seemed to try to sideswipe us. But the driver looked
familiar. “Richard!” I laughed. It was our landlord from our June visit. He’d
seen us leave the bank and had followed us. Richard jumped out of the car and
gave us hugs. We explained our situation and he said we must be mistaken; he
always takes his guests to that bank. And it doesn’t charge a conversion fee
either.
“Get in,” he said and drove us back to the bank. He
introduced us to his most recent guest, a handsome black man who said he was
considering moving to Costa Rica. “Well, when Richard comes for dinner, he’ll
have to bring you too,” I said. Richard offered to wait for us, but we
explained that we had shopping to do and planned to take the bus back for
practice anyway.
This bank was also crowded. We went inside, which meant one
person at a time going through an airlock kind of security system. Once inside,
a guard asked to check my bag, but all he really looked at was my umbrella and
rain jacket. I guess I didn’t look very suspicious. I showed him my debit card
and asked if I could get money. He called over another bank employee who
escorted us past several lines of people to a teller, where she confirmed that,
yes, indeed, I could get colones from the ATM. She then escorted us back to the
bank of ATMs where I put my card in the slot with no problem this time. We
“muchas gracias”-ed her and got our colones.
SHOPPING IN DOWNTOWN GRECIA
After picking up a few staples and cleaning supplies at the
corner grocery, we headed to the farmers’ market. People swarmed every booth
but no one seemed out-of-sorts or in any kind of hurry. And there were those
warm smiles again.
I stopped at a produce booth. “Ajo?” I asked. The young
clerk handed me a sleeve of very fresh looking garlic and took about 15 cents
from my handful of coins. As I rounded the corner, I saw huge pineapples
dangling from hooks. Got to get one of those. Same clerk took a 100 colones
coin from my hand and brought back change. I think the last time I purchased a
pineapple at the Sprouts in Phoenix it was $2.99 – and it was a Costa Rican
pineapple.
At the next booth I pointed to what appeared to be a whole
chicken, but it turned out it was only the breast – it was about as large as a
whole chicken you’d get in the states. Paul found the actual whole chicken –
which was really large – and we
purchased it for about $3.00. At the next booth, a kilo of hamburger (2.2 lbs.)
because it was recognizable in the meat cooler. We really need to practice the
names of cuts of meat or we’ll be stuck eating chicken and hamburger forever.
The seafood looked fresh so we’ll definitely pick some up next Friday.
By the time we got to the cheese vendor, our bag was
strained to capacity. I asked for parmesan and the vendor reached past all his
fresh cheese and held up a tiny bottle of grated cheese. “No, no,” I said.
“Block?” he asked. Or at least I think that’s what he asked.
“Si, si,” I said. Would I really be getting actual parmesan from a block? One
of the things I’d picked up on from various expats was that there were basically
two kinds of cheese available in Costa Rica: mild and really mild. I peeked
over the counter as he was cutting my “media kilo.” It did not look at all like
parmesan. But it did look fresh and local and, what the heck? Who needs hard
cheese anyway? I’ll wait until I get goats so I can make my own.
At the pet booth we passed cages of sweet bunnies (pets or
dinner?) and chirping birds to buy some dog food. The dry food was displayed in
plastic kilo bags. We only had room for one kilo, which wouldn’t last very
long, especially now that we have a (sort of) third dog (more on that in
another blog).
When we finished shopping, we’d purchased a week’s worth of
meat, cheese, vegetables, fruit and dog food for $35. Not bad. We’re getting
more comfortable with using colones and the vendors are quite accommodating. If
you look like you don’t understand (apparently that’s a relatively common look
on my face), they use a calculator to convert colones to dollars and show you
the amount. But that only had to happen a few times. I was pleased that we
could communicate enough in our 1st semester Spanish to get what we
actually wanted and not come home with an entire pig’s head by mistake.
Although I think I could manage to roast up a mighty fine pig’s head if necessary.
We had to buy another shopping bag to accommodate all of our
provisions. Both my nylon bag and the new gigante bag were filled to the brim.
We found the bus stop to go home with no problem and the bus was sitting there
waiting for us. No driver in sight so we just climbed in and sat down among the
other passengers. It was 11 a.m. We had boarded the bus to come into town at 9
a.m. Not bad considering all we’d accomplished.
At 11 a.m. on the dot, the bus driver emerged and walked up
and down the aisle collecting fares. Paul had exact change this time. I was a
little bit concerned that we might not be quite sure of a landmark near our
stop, but then I saw one of our neighbors who’d boarded the 9 o’clock bus with
us, so I knew she’d pull the cord at the right time. Once again, I tried to
pick up different snatches of conversation and this time I learned that the
guys sitting behind us were going to “comer algo” (eat something) soon. Good
for them.
Sure enough, our neighbor pulled the cord for our stop, but so
did Paul, who recognized the saddle-maker’s sign near our road. Leaving the
bus, we “bueno”-ed our neighbor, introducing ourselves. She’s Sonia and she
lives down a rutted trail to the east of our house. We’ll have to explore it
the next time we walk the dogs.
TAMALE LADY
Sure enough, at 12 noon, three hours after we’d told the
tamale lady “tres horas” she showed up and I purchased two tamales wrapped in
banana leaves from her. We had them with salad for lunch. They were delicioso
with some of the ubiquitous Costa Rican salsa (which is nothing like Mexican
salsa – it comes in a bottle and is tangy/sweet – I think they use it on just
about everything).
RELAXING INTO THE COSTA RICA VIBE
The week before we moved here (actually, just about a week
ago), I was so stressed about what seemed our unsurmountable moving problems
that I said (to anyone who would listen) that my “vida” had lost its “pura.” After
our bus ride into town, I feel like it’s come back to stay.
