Turrialba Costa Rica
July 30 & 31
Another bus-another town-this time from
San Jose to Turrialba about two hours away. We were going to visit a
schoolfriend of my daughter and enjoy chatting with a Kiwi again.
Turrialba-pop 80,000- is a small town situated at the bottom of an
active volcano and surrounded by mountains-it is close to the
headwaters of Rio Reventazon and as such is popular with rafters and
kayakers. It's other claims to fame are the Rawleighs baseball
factory,manufacturing the balls used in the USA Superbowl -it is also
the home of the International Coffee Bean Bank, holding every type of
coffee bean in the world, and at the nearby Monumento Nacional
Arqueologico Guayabo, the largest and most important archaeological
site in Costa Rica, there is a 2000 year old aqueduct which still
functions today. It is a very busy bustling place with lots of
traffic and very noisy-cars and vans driving around with speaker
systems on their roof blaring out classified ads, cars tooting their
horns to tell the cars in front to hurry up and car sirens going off.
When we walked around the streets we could smell and taste the
exhaust pollution-apparently cars are required to have an annual
emissions test but car owners cheat-they put hydraulic fluid in their
tank just before testing and that clears the exhaust long enough to
pass! Our hotel was right next to a local market and we could buy any
fresh fruit or vegetable we wanted-all sorts-some unknown. There were
bunches of small round orange and red things-about the size of a ping
pong ball. They come from a palm tree and when they are cooked and
peeled the orange flesh is a dry starchy texture tasting like
pumpkin. The locals eat them as a snack or use them to make soup. The
town is full of bakeries selling lots of sweet breads, cakes and
pastries-Costs Ricans have a sweet tooth and the bakery is obviously
a popular stop as evidenced by many women in town who are of a
generous size-enhanced by their choice of tight jeans and tops-no
body image issues here!
We were invited to dinner at Jane's
place-she cooked a fabulous Thai chicken curry and rice and we had a
lovely evening catching up and chatting with her and her husband
Fraser. I hadn't seen her since she was at high school in NZ-at least
20 years ago!! Now she has a lovely little boy-Archie, and another
babe on the way. It was great to be able to ask them about life in
Costs Rica as they have lived here for some time. We went out to
lunch with them the next day-to a local restaurant-one of their
regular haunts. We had a Cosada-rice and beans-slightly different in
style to what we had been eating-with egg, chips, salad and Mexicana
style shredded beef. Little Archie-who speaks English and Spanish at
2 years of age, loves rice and beans-a true Costa Rican boy! There is
another little boy the same age living at the hotel and he and Archie
are playmates. If you have a child born in Costa Rica you can become
a permanent resident and now there is growing problem with people
crossing the border from Nicaragua and having children which then
gives them the right to live in Costa Rica-a much more affluent and
developed country where health care is free. There is some form of
social security such as an old age pension but no unemployment
benefit.
It has been a lovely restful break
here-a chance to catch up with Jane and family and also to catch up
with THE BLOG-a monster of our own making! It has also been a chance
to see a bit of the real Costa Rica-people going about their daily
lives as this place is not really on the tourist trail apart from the
water activities. On our last night there was a function at the hotel
for the young Canadian girl who had been there on work experience for
2 months-she was due to go back home and so this was an opportunity
to wish her farewell. Patricia the owner very kindly invited us to
share in the lovely meal of Carribean style rice and beans and
chicken followed up with delicious home baked cakes-what a bonus! We
also polished off the last of the vodka and orange we had so it was a
good night. Funnily enough a woman and her daughter had arrived
earlier in the day, and I thought she looked familiar. On chatting to
her it transpired that Sandra had been in the same ziplining group in
Monteverde the previous week-we had a few laughs about that day as we
compared stories of the Tarzan Swing. She was also planning to go to
Cahuita on the Southern Carribean Coast the next day as were we so no
doubt our paths will cross again.
