Samantha Gets Stuck into Costa Rica Culture

Having felt cocooned by travelling no further than house to work and work to house, I took the opportunity of last weekend to get to know more of Costa Rica. Putting in extra hours in the office the day before, I ran out in sunglasses as the clock struck one on Friday – much to the dismay of my colleagues. Destination: Guanacaste!

My adopted family had been invited to a birthday party. Taking an off road route with no street light in sight, we embarked upon what I can safely call the Jungle of Nicoya. The family welcomed us with crispy chicharron (”pork crackling”) and we found the birthday boy, the father, quite fondly attached to both sombrero and rum. Pouring out cuba libres at 3:1, rum:coke, we giggled the night away in rural Costa Rica.

And so began a glorious weekend of doing absolutely nothing. Managing to cheekily borrow a boogie board on the beach, I whizzed through the power of the waves in Playa Carrillo. Sandy and worn out, sunset was spent curled up on a duvet cover in the house’s front garden, overlooking both palm trees and seashore. Chick-literature in one hand, refreshment in the other, Living in Costa Rica was feeling rather peachy.

Back in San José on a gloomy Monday morning, the fashion decision was bulky boots over daisy flip-flops, with everybody coming down with niggling coughs and colds. I, however, chose to stay healthy in the lungs and plump for woozy in the head. Having hoped to ease a headache by popping a high dose codeine pill (30mg for the medically savvy), I ended up, on an empty stomach, befuddled for the next six hours. Oops! Nurofen it now is for any other maladies.

Alas, recovery was swift and I was in top-tip form to go Halloween fancy dress shopping. (That is a British reference to “costume”, by the way, and not any type of pink and fluffy horror show.) Juggling between the hats of a witch and a wizard, I settled, in the end, for a trident and some devil horns. This spurred on a comment by a so-called friend that they suited me really rather nicely. I shall not ask why.

Happy Halloween …!

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Find out more from Samantha next Friday about
ex-patriot life in Costa Rica: “Life in TicoLand”!

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Filed under: Living, Travel on October 31st, 2008