Chocolate factory

 

There’s a cemetery just down the road from our apartment that we walked by every day, it’s full of above ground graves. Like all places, we needed to wash our hands to enter. I suppose it’s good that Costa Rica is taking public health so seriously, even if it’s much too late for the people we were going to see. They also wanted to inspect our bag afterward. We did not steal any bones. 

Toucan Rescue Ranch is an amazing nonprofit outside of town that works to rehabilitate animals like toucans, parrots and sloths. They also house a pack of rowdy monkeys, very reminiscent of these guys. The tour guide hates the monkeys and the monkeys hate him. One guy on the tour got a little close and could have lost his phone or hat. The monkeys made faces and showed us their butts over and over again. I now hate them too.

The National Museum of Costa Rica filled in some history for us. It’s housed in a former military site, but since they disbanded their military in 1948, it now has a butterfly pavilion and a nocturnal animal exhibit where the jail once was. 

From there, we made chocolates. The Tapir Chocolate Factory hosts small groups to learn how to make chocolate. The history of cacao is fascinating, who knew chocolate comes from a fruit!? Our hosts took us from fruit to finished bar over two hours, walking us step by step through the process. They were patient with our mistakes, which came often, and we each walked out with four personalized bars.

We’ve figured out that Uber is not nearly as illicit as we were led to believe, which is good because we needed to cover more ground. We also needed to get rescued in a torrential downpour. Things ended where they started, with the same Uber driver taking us back to the airport. Like a slightly smoother drug deal, he made us take off our masks and pretend like we’re friends when he dropped us off. This wasn’t hard, he’s our friend in Costa Rica that we’ve known the longest.

Good thing we washed our hands for this crowd

What a jerk

Sloths

Parrot

A museum like a fort

Fruit or an alien heart

Chocolate bars, not monkey poo

Where the streets have no name and the pools have no heat

 

There aren’t any addresses in Costa Rica, everything is in reference to landmarks or other buildings. Things seemed a bit off the last few days, but it didn’t really set in until we were booking our COVID tests to return home. The testing site is on Rohrmoser street just down from Scotiabank. It doesn’t show up on Google maps, but their website says it definitely exists and they’ll send the full address after you schedule and pay. As promised, the email says it’s 150 meters west of Scotiabank on Rohrmoser. At least the street has a name, not all of them do. We saw a long line outside the Post Office, apparently you go there to get mail in a land of no addresses. 

We went to the Jade Museum yesterday, which I would put among the top museums in the world. It was surprisingly wonderful. Key fact: people have been drawing and carving funny faces since at least 1000 BC. 

Today we went to the Children’s Museum. The building used to be a prison, and from the looks of it, former inmates live on the streets all around it. We knew this was not going to be a zip lining resort trip, but the walk in felt borderline unsafe - to the Children’s Museum of all places. 

Since we survived the perp walk, we celebrated with a trip to the pool at the apartment. It’s a really lovely pool if you’re a penguin in Antarctica. 

Fight or flight response?

I know right where to find the guys who walked out these doors

Monkeys look like they want bananas

Kids look like they fall from balconies

Mirrors are fun

Danger zone

It’s been over two years since we’ve traveled internationally as a family, sidelined by the coronavirus. We used to be good at this, but it was quite clear today we’re out of practice. Watching Rick Steves watch Rick Steves episodes on Zoom during lockdown was not as helpful as I thought it would be.

We left for San Jose, Costa Rica last night. This was the replacement trip for what should have been an amazing adventure in Peru in 2020. Since the kids are all older now, we only gave a general list of how to pack and left it to them. Since we didn’t monitor this at all, it was a bit disconcerting when Dinah’s bag was pulled by TSA - we had absolutely no idea what she might have put in there. We were relieved, and the agent was amused, by the mound of stuffed animals that poured out for closer inspection and explosive testing. Dinah clearly followed this pro-tip from her brother on how to pack.

The flight through the night was mostly uneventful. Very little happened, including sleep. But in our grogginess, we thought we had things dialed-in at the airport. Rather than rent a car, we heard the Uber is fast, easy, and now the way to get around in Costa Rica. The airport is clearly not set up for ridesharing apps, but we thought this must be because it’s new. The swarm of police eyeing us while we turned away taxis and stared at our phone made us think maybe something else is going on. Then the taxi driver who yelled “Uber is illegal” in broken English really gave it away. We had heard this, but didn’t quite realize it was that illegal. Meeting our driver ended up looking more like a rookie drug deal from Breaking Bad when he too realized they were on to us. 

From there, naps and walking around San Jose made for a decent first day. The Museum of Costa Rican Art is near our apartment. Formerly the old airport, it now houses a small but wonderful collection. The walk to lunch included a treacherous pedestrian bridge - even with no railings and rebar threatening to impale us, somehow this seemed less dangerous than walk-in across the street.

We’ve been working on our Spanish, but the Spanish comes at you fast here. Our lawbreaking Uber driver, when he wasn’t dangerously blurring the lanes and driving too fast and close, pointed out that we should say we speak “poquito español” rather than “pequeño.” But ours feels right, we speak small Spanish.

Don’t slip

Used to be an elevator for those afraid they might slip

Nothing to say here, I just like this

Art that implies it might rain here

Fluffy flower

The view from our apartment