Friday is Feria Day!

It is Friday and Friday means Feria!

What is the Feria?

Feria is Spanish for Fair, but in this case it stands for the market or farmers market,

It is on Fridays where all the farmers, produce people, bakers, cheese makers, fish mongers and butchers come and sell their goods. AT a very reasonable price I might add.

If you are someone who loves fresh fruits and vegitables, then this is the place for you.

What Makes Atenas Different?

Atenas, the city where we live,  was named the most friendliest climate in all the world by National Geographic. We literally live in perpetual springtime 365 days of the year.

Because it is perpetual spring, we have a LOT of fruits and veggitables that grow year around, where in the U.S. they only grow during the spring time.

We have papaya, pineapple, mango, passion fruit and many sorts of citrus. Interestingly enough, we do not have the comon yellow lemon down here. For some reason, it does not grow here.

Here I am checking out some Star Fruit - yea, it grows here.

One of the neat things about feria day is that you get to see friends. Today we ran into John & Pat. In fact we pulled up the same time they did. We caught up on how each other are doing checked some things out together, then we got to business of shopping for that coming week's food.

 

Here we have apple bananas, yep, they have a apple taste. I personally think they have more of a berry taste. No matter what, they are great tasting. Once you have tried a tree ripened banana, you will never eat a store ripened again.

 El Toledo Coffee - I have to say some of the best coffee in the world. I just opened a bag of light roast and the flavors are out of this world. I never knew coffee could be this good. IF you come down for a visit, we will take you to El Toledo. You will fall in love with the coffee as well.

 These long brown things are Yucca. You eat them like you would potatoes. The are really good and in most restaurants, when you think you have potatoes, you are actually eating yucca.

Yes, the watermelon is that red. In fact a deep ruby red and they are really sweet to.

This is the stall where I buy my mangos. They have a pretty good selection. The key is to buy some fully ripe, some not so ripe and then some that need time to mature. This way you can have mango everyday like Tracye and I do for our breakfast fruit salad. 

Yep, one of the advantages of living where it is always springtime. Incredible fruit and veggies.

 

Visited the El Toledo Coffee Farm

We had some mutal friends that were visiting John Price and Gary Kah and they had the time and wanted to come up and visit with Tracye and I.

Over the weekend we showed them around Atenas and took them out to lunch at the Guanecaste Cafe.

While they were here, we mentioned the incredible coffee tour up at El Toledo. So they jumped on it and made plans to go visit and asked me to come along as well.

Teresa & Terry our wonderful friends from the states

It was a blast to go up to El Toledo again. See when we were doing our recon, our friends took us there and it was an incredible time. This is a place that everytime you go, you learn something new.

Gabriel is third generation coffee farmer on their families farm.

 

Gabriel really takes the time to educate the visitors about what it takes to grow organic coffee. The family are still learning daily little tips and tricks to grow a better healthier coffee bean. But not only that, to allow nature to really be part of the process.

 

Here Gabriel is talking about how they extract the bean with using less water and doing it in a more environmentaly friendly way. because they see their farm as an investment in the future, they are taking the time to care about the farm's health as well as their own health as well.

 

Gabriel's Wife is telling the visitors about the differnt roast types as well as educating us about the different flavors each roast will give. This was amazing to taste side by side the different roasts that the El Toledo Coffee Farm has. The lighter roast has more of a citrus flavor where the dark roast has a more earthy flavor. 

Here she is using a typical Costa Rican "Sock" to make coffee. They put coffee in the sock an pour hot water over the grounds and catch it in the pitcher.

 

Pedro The Rooster being photogenic.

I highly recomend coming to El Toledo. 

Check out their facebook at 

https://www.facebook.com/toledocoffeetour 

The Costa Rican Medical

Well we made it our first three days in our new home. We are loving Costa Rica.

It started Monday.

Tracye started to develop gas cramps. They were not bad at first but they were persistent.

Hmmmm... weird.

I gave her gas medicine and that did not work very much. I then gave her Alka Selzer.

That seemed to work for a bit and the bloaty feeling went away.

But then it came back again.

We tried different things though out the day. Some would help, some wouldn't.

The next day we were out shopping at Price Club, which is owned by Costco.

Let me say  this, it is just like shopping in the states. Pretty much the same layout, same stuff. Prices tend to be about the same on some stuff, some items more expensive and some stuff cheaper. Again, a typical Costco experience.

Like back home, there is a pharmacy in the store, except here it is called "Farmacia" (far-mah-see-ya).

So Tracye went and got some gas pills from there. She took a couple and it seemed to subside.

But it didn't last long.

Around 9:30 PM, Tracye started throwing up and getting bad stomach cramps.

About every 20 minutes to an hour she started throwing up and the stomach cramps were getting worse. She was in horrible pain.

We honestly thought that she caught some typical jungle bug because we are new to the country. You know, not used to the water or used to the food, that sort of thing. It is pretty common for "newbies" in country to go through this and this is what we really thought was going on.

Come morning time I loaded her up in the car and we went to the local doctor. Here in Atenas all the expats go to a doctor named "Dr Candy."

Yes, that is her real name and she is a great doctor too.

Tracye is in bad pain by now and Dr Candy is telling Tracye to calm down. She understands she is in pain, but she needs here to relax so that she can conduct a proper exam.

Dr Candy is poking her, asking if it hurts here or hurts there and if it does how bad on a scale from 1-10.

She is gently pushing on here and then she gets to the area where the appendix is located. She pushes down and Tracye kind of jerks. But then she releases quickly and Tracye really reacts.

Oh no.... I think to myself. This is not a good thing. See, I had my appendix out when I was in second grade and I got the huge ol' incision to show for it.

Dr Candy says " I think it is the appendix, but we can't be sure without an ultrasound and blood test. I need to send you to the hospital."

Dread.

This can not be happening, we are only in the country 6 days now.

She goes off and then comes back. She has written a referral and she is sending us off to CIMA, a hospital in Escazu. (Es-cah-zoo)

Now the positive.

CIMA is a brand new hospital and one of the most technically advanced hospitals in Costa Rica if not the world. Everyone speaks English and from what I understand, they are associated with the Houston Hospital system as well as  getting doctor interns from Baylor University.

We have heard a lot of positive things about CIMA from some of the other Americans living here and they all love it.

A Little About Costa Rican Medical

For those of you who do not know, Costa Rica is a neutral country like Switzerland. They got rid of their standing army back in the late 1930's early 1940's. They took that money and invested it into education and medical.

Today Costa Rica has a 96% literacy rate and some of the best medical in the world. They are on par and in a lot of cases even better than medical treatment in America.

It is also 2/3s cheaper.

What would have cost approximately $33,000.00 in the US, only cost $9500.00. We did not have the $$$ to do this and we thank God immensely for some friends down here who helped us get it paid. We need to pay them back ASAP for this, but we are very grateful that they were able

Now, you need to have cash or credit card or travelers insurance.

Here doctors and nurses salaries are capped. They make good money, but not on the same par as with doctors in America. The reason they do this is that they want people who are "called" to be doctors and nurses, not people just in it for the money.

If one goes into the medical profession, the state will pay for the schooling and I believe that the student pays it back by serving the country of Costa Rica. So you have to have a love for medicine and want to serve to be part of the medical field.

Remember when we were kids and one wanted to be a doctor or a nurse? Back then it was a prestigious job and one people looked up to. What happened to that ideal?

That is how the medical field is viewed down here. People are involved because they love it and it is their calling.

It makes a difference and it was noticed in how Tracye was treated and cared for.

Over all we were very impressed with the medical down here. We have heard from others as well they like it also.

Costa Rica is gaining in popularity in the "medical tourism" industry because their medical is so affordable and the technology is cutting edge.

We are going to be meeting with some insurance people in the near future so that if something like this happens, we are covered.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me.

Finally, with our move and all our expenses we were not expecting this operation. If you would like to help with some of the cost, it would be hugely appreciated. We want to pay back our friends as quickly as possible and working hard to do so.

To help, please use the following URL ... http://tinyurl.com/Donate-to-Prophezine

Thank for being there and helping us.

We Moved In - Our First Weekend in Our New Home

Tracye at our friends house relaxing

We have finally gotten our keys to our house and our car and we are now officially living in our rental home here in Costa Rica.

We have enjoyed getting to know Costa Rica and her little nuances she has to offer.

Friday

We went to the feria (the local farmers market) and picked up some food and then got some essentials at Coopatenas, the local grocery store.

We took all that back to our friends house and then went and picked up the keys to our house and car. Talk about being excited.

We unloaded the cars and have suitcases all over the living room but we got our internet up and running. That should show you our priorities there... grin.

I have been working on some news to send out and I am having a dickens of a time with the Prophezine website. It just does not want to play right. So after a lot of frustration I give up. It is time to shut down and take a shower. What we do not know is that the water company is doing work on the pipes and they turn the water off around 7 - 8 PM at night.

No showers tonight Maynard.

You have got to be kidding. Both of us were looking forward to a nice shower.

Now, they did turn the water back on at 4:30 AM because I had to get up and turn off the running shower after it grumbled and growned then starting running.

Went back to bed and caught more zzzz's.

Saturday

I got up around 7:30 in the morning and started making coffee. Got the water boiled and poured it into my french press.

To my dismay, my french press was damaged in the last leg of the trip. OH NOO... No Coffee.

Thank goodness Tracye had the foresight to get a coffee sock. She likes making coffee in the sock vs the french press.

Whew... a bad day due to no coffee has been averted. Thank you Tracye.

We had a great cup of coffee and I cut up some fresh fruit that we bought at the feria for breakfast.

We sat here in our wonderful kitchen answering emails and listening to the new sounds. There are parrots outside making noise along with other birds. I go to put my bowl in the sink and that is when I notice we have a sugar ant invasion.

These are those microscopic ants that invade by the millions. We were able to catch the invasion at around a couple hundred thousand.

Yes they were all over and would not go away.

That is till I reverted back to my high school chem and biology classes.

See, ants are blind and they are acidic creatures. How they get around is by following the trails of acid laid by the scouts.

So how do you get rid of sugar ants?

You use "AXION... EL VERDADERO ARRANCAGRASA - or in English "The Real Grease Stripper." (Note - to get the full effect, this needs to be said in your best Spanish radio announcer voice and it helps if you speak into an empty metal garbage can... try it, it works.)

Folks, this is some of the best dish washing soap on the planet. What is great is that it even works in cold water. Which is what most kitchen sinks have here in Costa Rica, luke warm coldish water. Hot water is not very common in most kitchens except for US American homes who have installed a hot water heater.

See some of the main ingredients in this soap is magnesium and sodium. For those of you who took chemistry in school, you know these as "base metals" and react harshly to "acids."

Want to get rid of ants which are acidic in nature? Use something that kills the acid, which is AXION!

We have not had the ants return yet and it has been two days.

Saturday afternoon was pretty uneventful.

Well not quite.

We went for an early dinner at the worlds best pizza parlor, Ristorante Pizzeria Alida.

Folks, I am a huge pizza snob. I used to help manage a pizza parlor in the SF bay area that constantly won best pizza in all of the San Fransisco Bay Area. For those of you who may be wondering, the place was called Fargo's Pizza and it was located in Mountain View, CA.

Well, Alida's pizza is to die for. They make everything from scratch. Alida tosses the dough and gets it so paper thin that you can almost see through it.

She then lays down just a little of their sauce and then piles the ingredients on. My mouth is watering just thinking of it.

This is the best pizza I have had in a very long time. PROMISE - if you come down for a visit, we will take you to Alida's. You will love it too.

Sunday

We got the chance to go to church here in Atenas. Once a month they have an English / Spanish sermon and it was nice meeting a lot of the expats.

It was neat being in church here. Many of the songs we knew already, but were in Spanish. So you could sing along in English if you know all the words.

What is great is that you see the love of the Lord and you know that you are brothers and sisters in the Lord. Even though there are language barriers, the holy spirit is there and the body is one.

So we sat and we enjoyed our first church service here in Costa Rica and then later went out to Don YaYo's for some lunch.

Tracye had the taco plate and I had the typical blue plate special AKA Casado which means "married" in Spanish. This is a typical dish that every restaurant has. It usually has some sort of pork or chicken, with rice, beans, salad, fried plantains, a potato hash, and maybe another spoonful of something.

It is called Casado because the wives in the morning would fix a meal that would last their men during a hard days work. Every restaurant has their own spin on the meal and Don Yayo's is famous for their Chicharona's. Chicharona is fried pork belly with a little fat. The same area that bacon is made from, but with more meat. It was pretty good. Again, forgot to take pictures of the food. We need to do that so that folks can see what they are missing.

We then came home and have been hanging out on the interent. I was chatting with PZ Insider Kaye and her husband. They are the first PZ Folks to come down and visit us. Looks like they will be moving down as well.
It is now 4:40 Sunday afternoon.

Our first weekend in our new home has been a blessing. There is a lot we still have to learn, but we take the road bumps on at a time and even though they might be a hassle, it is nice knowing that we are where the Lord has led us. We are living a simple life. The moment we stepped off the plane and got in the van with our driver Alex, we felt what we have been calling the "foreboding feeling" just melt away.

Pura Vida! - To the good life.

Day 1 - We Have Landed - Look At All The Food

First of all I have to appologize for not posting. It seems that these past few weeks have been going at warp speed. Packing up what we want to take, packing the shipping container, packing our bags, cleaning the house, just doing everthing needed to move.

It all culminated to yesterday with us getting to the airport at 7:30 AM and arriving in Costa Rica around 8:00 PM Mountain time.

As you may have guessed it was dark when we arrived and really could not see what Costa Rica looked like.

Now of course I knew what it looked like, but right now they are having their season change.

In the United States we have fall, winter, spring and summer. Here in Costa Rica they have wet season and dry season.

April is the tail end of dry season and starts to move into wet season. So as I sit here I am listening to the thunder off in the distance, I also hear music from some of the local festivals that are taking place as well as all the parrots and other birds sounding off.

the one thing that was really neet to see is all the fruit that is coming into season.

Just here in our friends yard where we are staying till our rental is ready, I see sweet lemon, mango, banana, and get this.. cashew nuts.

 Bananas ripening on the tree

 This is a Cashew Apple. The little dark green thing under the apple is the cashew nut. The apple is edible and they make juice from it, but the nut is surounded by a husk that is very poisonous.

Here what Wikipedia has to say about the cashew...

The seed is surrounded by a double shell containing an allergenic phenolic resin, anacardic acid, a potent skin irritant chemically related to the better-known allergenic oil urushiol which is also a toxin found in the related poison ivy. Properly roasting cashews destroys the toxin, but it must be done outdoors as the smoke (not unlike that from burning poison ivy) contains urushiol droplets which can cause severe, sometimes life-threatening, reactions by irritating the lungs. People who are allergic to cashew urushiols may also react to mango or pistachio which are also in the Anacardiaceae family. Some people are allergic to cashew nuts, but cashews are a less frequent allergen than nuts or peanuts.

 Mango Fruit

  Sweet Lemon Tree
The fruit is has a sweet taste, thus the name. Folks do not eat the fruit, but use it more juicing. Add it with pineapple and other fruits and it makes a great refreshing drink. 

It has been a good first day. We have been relaxing and just taking things slow. There is a light rain right now and one hears the thunder in the distance.

Oh, something else, the smells. The smell here has a slight sweet honey like aroma. They are also getting ready to harvest the sugar cane, so you smell the smoke form that as well on the air. It does not smell like burning leaves or anything like that. It has almost a cinnamon and woodsy smell. It is a pleasant smell and adds to the relaxing effect we are feeling today. 

It is good to finally be here. Even the dogs are glad as you can see with our Jack Russell "Mikey" is sitting in the chair and was watching me type this blog and he has fallen asleep. 

 Mikey has fallen asleep at the sound of the rain on the rooftops. 

My view as I write this blog and looking out at the mountains.
It is raining now and the thunder is sounding. It smells good.

So this has been our first day in Costa Rica.

I will be writing more on what happened between now and when we left the US. 

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask. I will try to answer them here. You would not believe how many people are looking into the expat life.

Pura Vida!