Public transport, here we come

---

Geo: 9.98333, -84.1167

This morning we need to return the rental car, but first we're going to drive through Heredia and see a little bit of the town. The streets (Calles) and avenues (Avenidas) are laid out in a grid pattern which makes it a little easier to navigate. For example, we know that the main plaza is at Calle 0/Avenida 0. But many of the calles and avenidas aren't marked so it is still a challenge.

We didn't stop anywhere in town, but we did stop for gasoline as we drove back to the Budget car rental place. We check in the car with 4 minutes to spare. We are thinking of taking Budget's free shuttle back to the airport to get a taxi, when a taxi pulls up to drop someone off. Great! We jump in and are soon back to our new home. Okay, time to check out the area... we decide to walk to the nearby grocery stores to see what is available.

Obviously we don't need any groceries since we went shopping yesterday. Our first stop is Fresh Market at the end of our winding street. It is a kind of Whole Foods, Central American style. Small and muy (very) pricey. We walk down the sidewalk of the major road through town to the Max/Menos. This is a much larger store with underground parking and a flat escalator (escalator with no stairs). Most definitely designed for gringos. This is a big, well-stocked American style store. We pass on the $5 bag of Lays potato chips. We rate stores based on how much 1) coffee and 2) beer costs. These are two items that come in standard sizes and are commonly found. Plus, we really need to know how much these things are! Further down the hill we find Super Mercado. I'm a little more hopeful that here we'll find a Tico market. Nope. This area caters to ex-pats and high income Ticos.

You can live in Costa Rica without giving up your American foods, shampoos, etc., but you'll pay premium prices...and, in my mind, why would you? What is the point of living abroad if you continue to live the same life? I envision speaking Spanish as much as possible, buying my foods from street vendors or farmer's markets and immersing myself as deeply into this new culture as I can. Though, truth by told, I may insist on a secodora (clothes dryer)!

We walk back the way we came and hike back up the hill, whew, its hot! Past our street we look for the nearest bus stop. We find it and a bus pulls up. We look at each other, Jeff says "Why not?" We don't know how much the fare is so I hold out 700 colones in change (about $1.25). The driver makes change and after we get to seats we count the change, subtract it from 700 and divide by two. Bus fare is about 52 cents US each. The buses run everywhere and often.

When we boarded I asked the driver, "Central Plaza"? "Si". We aren't sure where our stop is but when the bus stops and everyone gets off, we follow. The walk to the plaza isn't far. Along the way we notice a few areas that have 5-6 stairs down to under the street. There is a HUGE market under here. This is what we've been looking for. As we enter the market, Jeff points out that the "aisle" we are on is black concrete. We don't want to get lost down here and the black concrete is our yellow brick road. We wander the market taking it all in -> this is so cool! Full of locals buying vegies, fruits, meats, and conducted in Spanish.

Leaving the market, we make our way to the Central Plaza. We had read that ex-pats hang out in the plaza, sitting on the benches chatting, but apparently not right now. In my pocket, I have postcards that we've written but we need to find the post office to get stamps and to mail them. We know the post office is supposed to be right off the plaza and guess it is the imposing building across the street. Yes! Success...well, kind of. There are all these mailboxes, you know, the kind people rent. Then there are 3 windows and two long lines. Most of the people are holding passports and other official looking stuff, but some are not. We're befuddled and the lines are really long. Maybe we're in the wrong place. We leave to go wander around a bit.

Passing by a small school supply shop I glance in and see postcards. Perfect! We need some more postcards and maybe they sell stamps. It is a tiny store. We choose a nice variety of cards and after paying (they were 30 cents each US) indicate to the elderly shopkeeper that we would like stamps. She points across the plaza to that very same building. Sigh.

Drumming up our resolve, we go baćk to the post office to find that the lines are much shorter now. The two lines have merged into one. I ask the nicely dressed man in front of us if he speaks English and he does a little. I ask him how to say stamps in Spanish. He tells me and I immediately forget. Then he gets out of line and goes around a back way to the front of the counters. When he comes back he tells us that we want the first service window. That is for straight postal business. The second window is for stuff like picking up the license plate for your car and the third, where the passport holding people were going is to set up a special type of mail service.

Finally it is our turn. The nice man in front of us was in our line. He has finished his business at the window and motions us forward. I think we've been adopted which is okay because he knows the word for stamps.
Holy crap! Postcard stamps to the US are $1.25 each! I buy 10 for the ones in my pocket and 10 for the postcards we just bought. The nice man turns out to be a local lawyer. We thank him and go our separate ways.


Wonder of wonders, we find our way back to where the bus dropped us off without getting lost and are soon back home.

Dinner is beans and rice with tortillas. Fresh pineapple for dessert.
Costa Rica doesn't do daylight savings time. The length of days and nights vary little throughout the year. The sun comes up around 5:30am and sets around 5:30pm. This has been a little hard to get used to; guess we're going to have to adjust our internal clocks.

The rain has begun...it rains really hard here with lots of thunder and lightening. Time for bed.

---

Comments

[Tom]

It's good the locals are friendly, but I think you'll be relying on e-mail for correspondence if stamps cost that much!

[John, the brother,]

It is hot and rainy in October. The length of the day doesn't vary much. Is that also true of the weather? Is there a dry, or a cool, season?