Costa Rica trip report posted October 2006

The rain poured over the valley of SAN JOSE COSTA RICA on the evening of the 10th of October. The clouds covered the valley like a blanket ready to snuff out the light every which way. The people on the streets all broke out their umbrellas and it was truly a spectacle. People walking along any cover they could get along the streets while big buses and taxis, and cars made their way through the congested streets. Big holes and ungraded gutters added to the confusion and one had to be very vigilant not to step over these booby traps while not stepping over uncollected garbage. Taxi cab and diesel bus windshield wipers worked vigorously as they tried to suppress the fog hampering their windshields. Heater defoggers were on full blast. The loteria ticket vendors unflolded their boxes to protect their interest, and the fruit and street peddlers disappeared. We finally made our way to the MERCADO CENTRAL where people were eating their daily fill on "Casado" meals along with empanadas, tamales. I scored a bundle of Costa Rican cigars, but not cheap as I would have expected. They sold Habanos and other Rican brands, all at unattractive prices but that was the only place I saw them. Having made our way back, we had just finished getting a haircut in this street corner where we hit paydirt on efficient barbers. I got a good cut from an old man with white hair and mustache that was wearing a white doctors looking apron, cutting my hair to the utmost professionalism expected from most Latin American barbers. He had that typical Costa Rican/Spanish accent. He had been living in San Jose all of his life and had worked as a barber for many years. Was telling me how he used to like to light up his pipe and watch the soccer matches in the stadiums. I was particularily interested in the wiring that was unhidden, and visible running from electrical boxes and running up through the roof on the outer walls of this old concrete building probably built at the turn of the 20th century. I followed the wires and saw that they headed out to the main rainy streets of SAN JOSE. I thought to myself, "What Joe wired up this place, when, and is the guy even alive today?" I even took pictures of these electrical hook ups at the amazement of the people in the barber shop, thinking I must be a foreigner out of his mind. But the 29Palms isn't out of his mind and he just likes the details and adventure of a simple downtown barber shop. Walking along the streets ready to take the bus back to ALAJUELA, I then notice this window on the street corner of these GIANT EMPANADAS just jumping at me through the glass window. I look at the wife and say, "We is going in here and get away from this damned rain". No arguement there as we sit in this nice restaurant and order 4 empanadas. Upon getting these monsters, I notice that they weigh a ton a piece and if I chucked it in the crowded streets, it would probably tear the head off of a hapless passerby. The noises on the streets earlier in the day were typical of the noises I remembered back in the PANAMA. "BILLETES BILLETE de CHANCE..." "Frutas frutas, chile chile," All in loud noise. This one loud lady you could hear from inside the restaurant. I figured she was the only one you could hear because with her voice, she must have ran out the other competitors in the area, they got out of dodge to sell their tickets in greener pasteurs. After all, San Jose is a pretty big joint now. Getting on the bus was another amusement. One kid was talking loud on his cell phone to his buddy and the whole bus was laughing at the soap opera of details this kid was saying. "Me estab buscando, si preguntan por mi, dile que me murio"! Hey, MAI, que lo que staba pasando MAI". MAI tends to be a big word in TICO LINGO something like we say "HEY MAN". "PURA VIDA". These Ticos are speaking a different lingo gangland style. Then a man gets on the bus, an older man about in his mid 50's maybe in his 60's with a loud and sincere voice, soliciting contributors because he is down on his luck and is an "Extranjero" that needs financial assistance. He goes down the bus as change rattles and finds its way into the poor man's hands. Another time I get on a bus and this kid hands me a note. It says something to the effect that his family has run into some financial situation and needed our "CALBO RACION". Yes, life in the San Jose, Costa Rica bus transportation system is guaranteed to give you some interesting entertainment and insight of just how people live from day to day in a land of the "RICH COAST", where the coffees grow unmolested in the higher elevations, in the valley where the fruits grow rampant and where "SODA BOTTLES" get displayed in front of mom and pop stores , where the ticket vendors, backpackers, barbers, prostitutes, taxi drivers, merchants, men of God, musical entertainers and airline trash all congragate to make this place one very very very interesting local.