The past couple days

Have been a bit of reverse culture shock – coming back into larger centers feels a bit more like home, but with customs, traditions and food just a bit different from both home and Cahuita. La Fortuna is pretty touristy. It was a farming town, population under 100 when the volcano erupted the first time about 40 years ago. Now it is tourist central with a population approaching 3000, and over 90 % of the local industry centered on tourism. Prices and menus reflect this. So do the noises and lights. Choosing 3 days here was a tactical error – at our age, there are enough cool things to do for maybe 1-2 days, but we’ve spent a lot of the extra time lounging about and resting so it was probably the right thing to do.

New things I’ve (re)discovered…

Just because you’ve seen a picture of something and can interpret it’s name, does not mean you’ve got it right. For example, if you order a hamburger here, as in most of Costa Rica, it comes with ham and burger on the bun. If you order a cheeseburger, it comes with cheese and burger – no ham of course. Chicken fajitas are chicken strips, and pizza sauce does not have garlic in it, which is another reason for me to spend more time in this country.

Shorts are for tourists. Ticos wear long pants and consider shorts just a little disrespectful, unless you’re at the beach. However, like most places, you can break the rules with money – the guy in shorts might end up paying a bit more for his lunch or his souvenir.

The mountains mean coffee – fresh wonderful coffee both hot and in iced drinks. I’ve spent the last 2 years trying to reduce my caffeine addiction, the last 2 months building it back, and the last 2 days putting it over the top. Oh well, I can start again next week.



In a couple hours we get on the bus for the last leg of the journey to a hotel near the airport. Tomorrow we fly and arrive home quite late, to be picked up by our son at the airport.
YOU DID REMEMBER WEDNESDAY IS THE DAY, RIGHT SON?

Going back over our notes and pictures, I realize there are a huge number of stories that never made it into the blog. Perhaps we’ll keep this up for awhile – they won’t be in chronological order, but the reading will still be fun – what do you think?