Easter in Costa Rica

April 19, 2006

Easter in Costa Rica was a very different experience for us this year for a few reasons. Living in a different country brings about new experiences as does having our little girl mature.

The Easter Bunny does not exist in Costa Rica. For us this wasn’t an issue as Callista has now grown beyond that. However, she had been secretly hoping for a chocolate bunny as we’ve always gotten one for our kids. There were none to be found in our neck of the woods. Nor were we able to find plastic eggs to hide. With critters in the yard hiding real eggs was not an option. We searched in several cities to no avail. We ended up buying Styrofoam balls and painting them different colors. The eggs we buy here are brown so boiling and coloring seemed futile. We are beginning to let go of some of our former traditions.

Bill took us out to breakfast early Easter morning. We ate omelets, salchichon (sausage) and tortillas at a little soda off the highway (autopista) for $5.00, can’t beat that for Easter breakfast. After breakfast we took a drive thru San Ramon hoping to catch a Pascua procession. We were too early but did catch a glimpse of one of the floats. Bill and Callista were lucky enough to be in town on Palm Sunday and witnessed the procession of people carrying palm leaves and replica of Jesus being carried thru town.

We invited our Canadian friends and their three small children over for dinner and an egg hunt. Instead of the traditional ham we ate poste de cerdo, or pork roast. It’s one of our favorite dinners here and our friends had not tried it as yet. We didn’t look for a ham prior to Easter as we’d already decided on pork roast. I’m sure we could have found one as pork is delicious and readily available here. Beef is a whole other story. Skinny cows do NOT taste nor cook the same as USDA beef. If you want good beef in Costa Rica we can recommend a couple of good restaurants. Everyone enjoyed dinner and the egg hunt.

Easter is, as I’m sure we’ll find most holidays are, different in Costa Rica. While Callista was a little disappointed in not getting a basket of goodies she did learn that she get’s an additional holiday here, Dia de los Nino’s . Children here do not get ‘gifts’ for Easter but DO get gifts for the day of the children! Mark your calendars, September 9th. I for one intend on milking the Mother’s day holiday this year as Costa Rica celebrates this in August (I believe) instead of May. For this year only I intend to celebrate twice. After all, Mom’s everywhere deserve gratitude for more than just one day a year!

We hope everyone and their families had a peaceful and blessed holiday weekend.

Pura Vida,
Jennifer, Bill, Callista and Bear

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