I had planned to take a couple of days to go “somewhere” in Costa Rica between San Jose and Jacó, where I am now. The idea of visiting a cocoa plantation had gotten stuck in my mind, and I’d sent off inquiries to various spots that offered tours and/or accomodations, mostly along the Caribbean coast… Read More Four Meals, a Goodbye to San Jose
The days are starting to blur, and I’m falling a bit behind – here it is Thursday and I’m just posting about Sunday – however, some of that will get caught up – I can already see, Monday and Wednesday were pretty much do-nothing days, for different reasons, so they’ll end up a combined food-only… Read More A Little Art, A Little Heart
Vivi, my new local chef friend, suggested we meet up again on Saturday morning for a look at one of the city’s newer markets, the Feria Verde de Aranjuez, an organic food market that’s held every, well, Saturday morning. It’s held on the grounds of a local sports park in the zone of Aranjuez. Originally… Read More Organics and the Red Moon Pizza
As best I can tell, Costa Rica’s only real industries are tourism, coffee and cocoa. The first is clearly the dominant one, and everywhere I turn here there’s something being offered that’s designed to involve some sort of tour or activity, preferably that I will part with dollars for. In fact, they make it as… Read More Of Coffee, Falling Water, and the Volcano That Wasn’t
One, of course, must start out a new adventure fortified, and with local fare – so my first morning brought with it a traditional tico breakfast of gallo pinto (rice and black beans) with scrambled eggs, options to add – various sauces, ranging from a simple ranchero (not spicy, like the Mexican version, just a… Read More Markets, Monuments & Beer
Arrival safe and sound in San Jose, Costa Rica, where I’ll be putting out these missives for the next couple of weeks. Almost no sleep, and arrival early afternoon, so I was dead tired – there’s not going to be a whole lot to report on for the first day – I pretty much got… Read More St. Joe’s at First Glance
I’ve kind of said what there is to say about the trip to Iguazu Falls in the last two posts. The Argentine side, given that we were staying in Puerto Iguazu, was a much quicker trip to get to, we didn’t have to start out quite as early – though there was still an hour… Read More Into the Falls
So it was off the next morning bright and early to the Brazilian side of the Iguazu Falls. The question for me was whether my DNI would get me across the border without a visa. According to the Brazilian embassy, Americans are required to have visas even if they have a Mercosur residency DNI. According… Read More Falling in Brazil