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Published: March 20th 2010
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As the crow flies, San Jose, Costa Rica is 4842 kilometers from San Jose, California. San Jose, C.R lies at 9 degrees north of the equator. San Jose, CA is N37 degrees. (Waikiki is N21 degrees.)
San Jose, C.R. was founded in 1737 more than 200 years after Columbus came ashore in Central America. San Jose, CA was founded just forty years later in 1777.
San Jose, Costa Rica seems very different from San Jose, California. One third of Costa Rica’s population lives within this metropolitan region. The population of San Jose itself is less than 350 thousand whereas San Jose, CA is just under one million. However, here you can see the people. There are hundreds of people milling about especially on Avenida (Avenue) Central and Calle (Street) Cero (Zero) which have been converted to pedestrian use only. We, in San Jose, CA, can’t muster this kind of crowd even for Cinco do Mayo or free 4th of July fireworks.
Another big difference between the two cities is that while we have taller buildings they have many more downtown shops. Except for Payless Shoe Source and a few of the usual American fast food chains, including two
Taco Bells, all of the businesses seemed to be small independent retail and food outlets. Eat-in and to-go Mom and Pop fried chicken places seem to be the most common. Additionally, there are many vendors selling all kinds of stuff - mostly lottery tickets, CDs, socks and produce - on the street.
You all may question my seeming obsession with Taco Bells. In most of Central America, Mexican food is basically non existent except at Taco Bell but most other “ethnic” food, i.e. Italian, pizza, Thai, Chinese and even Japanese are generally available. Here in Central America, even grocery stores seem to have a greater selection of Asian items than they do of Mexican foods. Some Costa Rican restaurants do offer tacos but they are rolled fried tortillas containing a skimpy amount of meat similar to Mexican taquitos. Many take out places also sell Chino (Spanish word for Chinese) tacos which look like egg rolls. Churros here are stuffed with apple and other fillings.
Costa Ricans seem to be taller than other Latin Americans. The population here seems younger as we ask ourselves “where are the other old people”. Everybody dresses casually. Jeans are the norm.
Costa
Ricans refer to themselves as Ticos. A frequent expression is “pura vida” which is often expressed and has several meanings. The phrase is also found on many camisetas (t-shirts). Please click on the following for a full Wikipedia explanation of the phrase. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_Costa_Rica
Costa Ricans drive more aggressively than other Central Americans and seemingly with no regard for pedestrians.
San Jose has a large expatriate community so we had no trouble finding a place to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. There were no other women when we entered Papi’s Irish Pub on Calle 7 but we visited with about a half dozen guys who have made San Jose their home, including Patrick a very handsome white haired gentleman from Ireland, who now owns a restaurant here and David from Sparks, Nevada who has a large home from which he rents rooms at very reasonable rates. Two other American expatriates own local hotels so we now have three business cards for places to winter in San Jose. Additionally, we chatted with several Americans who are here on vacation.
Many U.S Tech companies have operations in the area. While down on the south coast, we visited with Chuck who was
Who'da thunk we'd find green St. Paddy's Day beer in Costa Rica.
We also tried a shot of the local liquor Guaro made from sugar cane. Guaro is comparable to White Lightening. Our shot was tinted green for the occasion. nearing the end of a four year assignment here with Hewlett Packard. Our landlady told us that Intel employs 3000 people locally.
As I reported in my previous blog, Costa Rica has a 97% literacy rate. There are four English language schools in the San Jose area and many more bilingual schools. One of our park neighbors is spending one year here while his son, a high school sophomore, attends one of the international English only language schools.
Other neighbors include a German couple from Munich who have been traveling the world in a huge custom built RV and a Swiss couple doing the same in a tiny Toyota. Both have been on the road for about five years. The Germans have spent quite a bit of time in the U.S. and Canada. They love the U.S. The Swiss couple was friendly but kept to themselves. We didn’t find out much about them.
Our next door neighbors, Giorgio and Cindy are a cute young couple in their early forties. Giorgio is Sicilian. He had worked as a general contractor in Los Angles for the past ten years. They have a fantastic RV which Giorgio built himself by
Papi’s pub was sold out of Corn Beef and Cabbage but still had these cute necklaces.
After we’d stuffed ourselves on chichurones (a popular Costa Rican fried pork snack) we learned that a few other neighborhood pubs were still offering Irish dinners. converting a 1983 Chevrolet step van. It has all of the comforts of home including a washing machine and a 300 gallon fresh water tank which is unheard of in the RV industry. Although the van has three sky lights it appears to be windowless consequently it attracts no attention from border agents and Federales. You can see their rig and follow their travels on the beautiful website they created. http://gcdreams.shutterfly.com. Giorgio and Cindy quit working two years ago and hit the road. They have traveled north to Prudhoe Bay and as far south as the Darien Gap. Next year they plan to do South America.
We visited the Doka Estate coffee plantation. Enroute, we passed miles of coffee plants. The plantation tour was fascinating and our guide, Adriana was a lot of fun. She explained how the region’s volcanic soil and climate are suitable for coffee plant growth. We followed the process from seed planting to roasting. It takes twelve weeks for seeds to sprout. Coffee plants are nurtured for one year before they are planted in the fields. In the fourth year plants begin to produce beans. Coffee plants live for one hundred years but production falls
off after twenty-five years.
We missed harvesting season by a few weeks as coffee harvest occurs between November and February. Coffee beans must be hand picked as they do not all ripen at the same time. Adriana said that Doka’s pickers were all Nicaraguans because Costa Ricans do not like the work. Pickers are paid two dollars per basket and fast ones can make up to fifty dollars a day. Employees are provided a home, water, electricity and all the coffee they can drink.
Seventy percent of Doka’s coffee beans are exported to the United States where they are roasted and sold. We’ve read elsewhere that much of their product is bought by Starbucks, Peet’s and Seattle’s Best. Twenty percent of their beans are sold to Europe and the remaining ten percent are roasted and sold on site.
On one of our trips into San Jose, we visited the Museo de Oro Precolombino (the pre-Columbian gold museum) which houses a collection of 1000 pieces of pre-Columbian gold dating from 500 to 1500 AD. Most artifacts were found in tombs. Of course, the Spaniards who came ashore here were like the early Europeans who visited North America. They
robbed the Indians with unfair trade practices by trading cheap beads for pure gold. The museum also displays life size figures demonstrating how the pieces were worn, dioramas of pre-Columbian life and a description of burial rituals. We are not normally museum people but even the museum itself was interesting. The more valuable exhibits were three stories below street level behind vaulted steel doors which are at least a foot thick. The museums banisters are huge lacquered slabs of exotic woods.
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