Here are the two fruits opened. The granadilla (orange-like one) has a very hard outer skin. You have to first poke it with the end of the knife before you can cut it open. Once you're through the outer skin it is easier to cut. The mamon (red-spiky one) can easily be broken in two with your fingers. The spikes are soft and not prickly. This is like what you would see on "Fear Factor" (which happens to still be on here). Now which one do you want to eat?

Two new fruits

Granadilla or mamon? Which would you rather eat? We've tried both of them and we liked one.

El cajo esta aqui

The box is here. It finally arrived late Friday afternoon, with everything intact. It was just in time, too, because Nancy was missing out enjoying “quilt week” with the women in her family. Lickety-split she set up her sewing machine, pulled out one of her many “ufo” quilt projects and logged into Skype to share the experience with them electronically. Today I was informed that what I had thought was the “stretching room” (i.e. where I go before I run to use the mat on the floor) is now to be referred to as the quilting room. Mind you, it is not the sewing room. That would be the area at the base of our stairs that looks out at Nancy’s favorite tree.

On our walk this morning, a bicyclist yelled “perro gringo” (Yankee dog) as he sped past. Aside from being the only hint of rude behavior we have encountered in Costa Rica, and aside from being insulted by a man with shaved legs wearing spandex, it seemed ironic for him to evoke such an epithet in front of the Bridgestone / Firestone plant, which is next to the Coca Cola distributor and around the corner from the Phillip Morris office and down the street from the Intel plant.

For church, we have attended Escazu Christian Fellowship for the past three Sundays. The service is at 5 pm, but even so, “good morning” slips out. It has been a long time since we have been the new people in a congregation, but this relatively small congregation serves the English speaking community. Since many English speakers are here as part of a work assignment, there is always someone new in attendance. Our experience has reinforced in us the need for church members to welcome visitors and those people they do not know personally.

We hope you are enjoying the blog – we enjoy reading your comments and emails, too. Let us know if you have a subject you would like us to cover.

Nublado y llover

And now, the weather report…
Even though we are north of the equator, the Tico's refer to this as winter. To us, it’s the rainy season, which started in April and ends in December (or else).
We had to make a lot of tough choices on what to bring with us, and what to send in “the box” (…and NO, it is not here yet). The one essential item that Nancy packed to carry with us, above non-essentials like our Spanish phrases book or our Rosetta Stone CD’s or an extra pair of shoes, was a rain gauge. And the first thing she did when we moved in was to put it in the back yard.
Every morning I (Nancy) go out the back door to see how much "llover" we received the day before. In the first 21 days, we've had 7.5 inches of rain. The most we've had in one day is 1 inch. We've had 6 days with no rain and 4 days have had an inch. The rest are split between 1/2 inch rainfalls and .1 - .2 inches of rain. We've heard rumors that October is the climax of the rainy season and when the rain is constant and hard. Jim's boss even suggested to me that October would be a good time for me to visit my family in the States.
The weather can change in an instant. It can be pouring in one place and perfectly dry a mile away. On the whole it is "nublado" everyday. But even the clouds come and go. When we look across the valley towards Escazu, it seems like it is usually cloudy. The clouds get trapped in by the southern mountain. My guess is that they have had more than 7 inches of rain in the last 3 weeks, while I got to see a rainbow over Escazu.
The temperatures are quite constant. The highs are between 75 and 80 and the lows are around 65. Everyday. We only have air conditioning in our bedroom but we haven't used it yet. The humidity is noticeable but not stifling (unless you’re hiking up a mountain). (Or maybe that is just my 51 year old female body).
Nancy used her new found Spanish skills to hire some workers to mow our grass. She even managed to get them to cut the price they were going to charge…inadvertently. They’re supposed to be back in two weeks. Most of the time we see people mowing with string trimmers, but our experts used a regular push mower. (I know this must seem very mundane to North Americans in early summer, but we like to marvel at the fact that Nancy accomplished something tangible with her Spanish.)

Father's Day Blog

Father’s Day in Costa Rica started with a walk this morning passed the local cemetery where they were holding a Father’s Day service. Respect for the dead seemed a bit at odds with the use of the above ground crypts as something to lean against.

This afternoon our neighbors held a Father's Day barbeque (the first time we've seen a cookout) and watching a futbol game on TV. At least the cheers and jeers didn't sound like they were watching golf.

We now have functioning internet, cell phones, and cable TV. All we need now is our box with our belongings, and we will be all set. It has been 3 weeks to the day since we arrived. In some respects it seems like much longer but in others the time has flown by.

Yesterday our adventure plan was to head to Baurilo Carrillo National Park. The maps and internet suggested that there were a number of interesting things to do there, including an aerial tram through the rain forest. As soon as we started driving, our intrepid GPS companion kept interjecting that there was a traffic jam ahead. “He” repeatedly recalculated the route, which would have sent us around three sides of a rectangle and taken 4 hours, instead of the direct one hour route. So Nancy politely shut “him” up, and we followed the map, only to find ourselves at the end of a seemingly endless line of trucks parked on our side of the two lane highway. I guess there was a traffic jam. Our truculent GPS friend then refused to speak to us, but not deterred, we headed for a different park entrance. Reluctantly, he offered up that we would encounter an unpaved road ahead. Right again. After innumerable switchbacks following a slow moving smelly diesel truck up the mountain, the road turned to little more than a bumpy washed out cart path. Nancy, being of the delicate sort and tiring of the rough ascent and fumes, was about to pitch me out of the driver’s seat, along with her breakfast, when we encountered a local farmer out walking his two dogs and cow. The rambunctious cow decided it was “game on” and began to out run the RAV4 (which at this point was in low gear and 4WD). We were both amused and impressed by the cow, but it may explain why Costa Rican “carne de vaca” is a bit tougher than we’re used to.
The park ranger directed us to a wide spot in the road to leave the car near the entrance. Our brief "Spanglish" conversation seemed to elicit his pity after we proudly explained that we lived in Belen, so he charged us the Tico entry fee of 2000 Colones ($4) instead of the tourist rate of $16. He showed us where to hike, and we headed off with great expectations.

As you can see from the pictures, the forest is incredibly dense, so much so that it is apparent that only animals that travel by air, tree or on their bellies survive here.
After about an hour of hiking uphill along a soggy path in the lush thicket, we came to a sign promising that Barva Lago was just 200 meters ahead. After another half hour’s climb, the Nancy decided that the distance must have been 200 “Phil-o-meters” (the ever expanding metric distance of a hike – units for measuring a Troop 570 Phil hike).

We now have a better appreciation of why they call it a rain forest. As we returned to the car, the continual mist of the clouds coalesced into a heavy down pour for the last 200 "Phil-o-meters", so we drove back down the “creek” in our wet clothes, regretting that once again, we forgot to take the scenic pictures of the valley below on the way up when it was clear.

Things That Go Bump In The Night

San Antonio de Belen is the small town just south of our house. It is full of the noise of commerce – but at strange times. We constantly hear traffic noise coming from the cars and trucks on their way from Heredia to Panasonic and beyond.

At 3 am Sunday morning, both Jim and I were awakened by booming sounds, Mariachi music and loud cheers. We lay in bed trying to figure out what in the world we were hearing. We pondered whether that many people would have been watching the World Cup in the wee hours of the morning, thinking perhaps that the US (or EU as we are called here) had defeated Britain (and then definitely hoping that they weren't cheering because US had lost). We finally realized that it was fireworks and we could have had a fantastic view from our balcony. The aerial bombs continued through the day on Sunday and culminated in a fireworks display Sunday night. Jim found out on Monday that the church was celebrating the birth of San Antonio de Belen (Belen = Bethlehem).

Last week (as alluded to in an earlier blog) we were caught in a sea of people clogging the streets of town as we tried to make our way to the grocery store. On the way back, we had to follow a detour because of the Ox Cart parade. We can’t wait to see what the little town of Bethlehem has in store for us this weekend!

Apparently two of the oxen are our neighbors, since one day last week I heard some guys yelling outside the back of our house. I looked out to see two men trying to herd two huge oxen up the driveway next door. They’ve been there ever since.

No internet, no cable and no cards
We’ve been here for two weeks and we are in desperate need of our box. The smartest purchase we made before coming here was a laptop computer. At least we have been able to continue the Rosetta Stone program and assorted other non-internet programs. But not having internet has been a challenge. I do feel totally disconnected without it. We also haven’t gotten the cable hooked up yet. The sales lady thought we’d have it by Friday or Saturday but it hasn’t arrived yet. We ascribe it to Tico timing, and Jim prays for patience. I can tell that Jim is definitely suffering from DVD withdrawal since he couldn’t keep his eyes off of the Ballywood video while we ate dinner at the Tandoori Palace. We packed the cribbage board and cards in the shipment box. With it dark by 6:15 every night and our early waking time, we’ve had to be creative in keeping busy and awake during the evenings. Besides reading and Spanish, we play Yahtzee against each other on our hand held Yahtzee game I brought for the airplane. I make scorecards on scratch paper and we take turns on the game. We really know how to have a great time!

The box also has our scissors and tape. I chose not to buy any here because I know I have some on the way. We’ve had the little plastic price tag holders on our trivets for 2 weeks. We could break the tag off with our hands but not the plastic loops. Jim finally mentioned that we do have nail clippers and that worked just fine to finally cut off those loops. We also needed to tape a paper with our work order number on it in the front window for the internet guys. We don’t have tape but post-it notes left here by the previous tenants are doing the job.

We ventured through the crowded city of Alajuela to Volcan Poas Parque National on Saturday morning. The ranger at the gate warned us (as we paid our $23 in non-resident admittance and parking fees) that the view comes and goes and we might not see anything. Fortunately, as the picture shows, we were able to see the caldera quite clearly. We have a video of the roiling sulfuric acid in the lake washing up on the rocks on the bank while a local woman says “I been here many times before and this is the first time I seen this water moving”. We figured if it was going to blow, we might as well stay for the show, because there’s no way to beat a fast retreat from a volcanic explosion. We hiked around through an unbelievably dense cloud forest to a lake formed by a side vent. By the time we hiked back to the main caldera, the whole thing was lost in the clouds. As we left, it started to pour. So all in all, perfect timing and a great trip.

The teaser from our last blog mentioned the guard, the stove and the oxcart parade. The guard at the gate to our condo complex during the day is very friendly, but speaks no English. So when the cable lady showed up the other day, the guard commented to the cable lady that “Oh, no – I am going to have to call ‘her’ (meaning that new American woman who can’t speak the language) before I can let you in”. Well, obviously she made it in but there’s been no sign of the installer yet – then again, they’re probably backed up with requests because the World Cup has started, and Ticos are nuts for futbol.