Archive for the 'costa rica' Category

There are no lemons in Costa Rica: How to find an adequate replacement

Posted: July 1, 2008 at 7:22 pm
Tags: latin america, food, lemons, leslie beard, pura vida, travel, tico, tica, costa rica

I read about this epidemic before I moved here, but it did not dawn on me until recently how very much I would miss the sour yellow bundle of citrus joy we call a lemon.

When I say there are no lemons here, I am not being Leslie-dramatica, like I can tend to be about small silly things. I’m serious - there are no lemons here. I’ve looked… everywhere…. all types of markets. Little hidden markets up in the hills. Big huge wal-mart type markets I had no business shopping at in the first place. Medium sized markets. No lemons, no where. Not real lemons anyway.

So, ok… there are these yellow “things” that like to hang out by the limes in grocery stores and markets, but do not be fooled, Americans. THEY ARE NOT LEMONS. Oh sure, they sort of look like lemons, with their yellow color, nevertheless color is the last thing you should be looking for when treasure hunting for your lemon counterpart.

Let’s talk briefly about those yellow “things” first. They are freaks of nature. Appearance of our favorite sour delight, yet when opened, expose a not-so-lovely sweet, yet tangy center, almost like an orange, but not. Blech, I’m getting light headed just thinking about them. I’m not exaggerating when I say that the smell (or much worse, taste) of these vile fruits gives me insta-headache. They are food/meal ruiners! For God’s sake, keep them away from your children.

What to do if you are in Costa Rica and crave that lemon taste. Find a lime that is *shaped* like a lemon. You know the shape I’m talking about:

The round body with little nubs sticking out of the sides. Except, you will be looking for a green version:

No matter how tempting, how natural it feels to select the yellow version DON’T DO IT.

Trust me, the green versions with the lemon shape taste pretty much like a lemon. Then again, it’s been so long since I’ve had a proper lemon I may have forgotten what it tastes like.

I am unsure if this anti-real-lemon sentiment goes for all of Central America or just Costa Rica. I am going to Panama this weekend and as unusual as it may sound, one of my goals is to track down an actual lemon. Wish me luck!

Much love,
Leslie Lynn B.

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Live a Little

Posted: June 26, 2008 at 12:15 pm
Tags: costa rica

On the 7th of July marks the day when Sean and Leslie must leave Costa Rica for 72 hours as part of our non-residency. It’s hard to believe that it has been 3 months already. Wow.

We’ve decided to getaway to Panama for a few days. It will save us a heap of money, not to mention time, to make a quick trip down south to Panama, rather than trek it back to the US.

There are a couple of options on how to get us down there. We can take a plane at a rate of $130 per person, round trip. Or we can pay $12 per person and go on a 6 hour bus ride. We’re opting for the bus, at least for the first portion. We may decide to do the flight for the return home. We’ll see.

Anyway, we’ve known for a while that we would be tripping down to Panama for the 72 hour thing, we just didn’t really know where in Panama we’d be going to. All we knew is we’d be getting on a bus from San Jose to Limon, and then another bus from Limon to the border.

Today our housekeeper, Mayela, came over to help me with some much needed house management. She had her work cut out for her today, lemme tell ya. I’ve been in full-on work-a-holic mode for the past two weeks. There’s been little effort on my part, and on Sean’s to keep anything in this house in order. Thankfully, she graciously has adjusted her schedule to come over twice a week for us.

I asked her if she would be willing to feed the kitties for us while we’re gone, and to also keep an eye on things (Costa Rica is known for vacant house theft, unfortunately). She said yes, of course and inquired as to where we’d be going. I told her Panama. She then came up with the brilliant suggested that we look into Bocas del Toro.

Sean and I started doing some research online and came across photo after photo of beautiful beaches, such as:

And reading things, such as:

“It’s hard to leave Bocas del Toro. It’s a terribly relaxing place, and at the same time it exudes a funky, romantic charm that has something untamed about it. The place is filled with colorful characters nursing drinks in dilapidated wooden bars or running rustic hotels on remote beaches. It’s the kind of Caribbean hideaway one expects to find only in old Bogart films.

And it’s just gorgeous.” - Quote taken from Moon.com

The two things combined, great photos/great reviews, were enough to convince us… we’re going to Bocas del Toro!

I’ve been browsing around and I’d really love to stay in a bungalow like this:

I’m going to have to check on how pricey they are, though. With the savings on the transportation ($12) maybe we can splurge a little on our living quarters while we’re there.

I have to say, even before we arrived in Costa Rica, I fantasized about visiting Panama. I don’t know why, I’ve just always been drawn to it. I dream of going to Panama City one day, seeing the Panama Canal, getting Sean a really nice suit, and soaking in the culture. Have you ever seen the public buses they take around Panama?

I love it…graffiti on wheels.

From what I’ve read, there aren’t a lot of Panamanians that live in Bocas del Toro, so it will be more of a touristy type of getaway for us. I’ll have to soak in my cultural experience from the bus rides I suppose. Nevertheless, Sean and I need a relaxing romantic extended weekend together and Bocas del Toro sounds perfect for that. We’ve both been working our arses off lately with our business and are in dire need of some downtime. A few days on the beach will totally energize us.

Not to mention the fact that it’s become very apparent that the house we live in is a bit too cold for our comfort levels. Our lease is up in September and it’s likely we’ll be moving to one of Costa Rica’s beaches.

Sean and I both love warm weather. Even hot weather suits us just fine. It keeps up content. Throw some cold on us and we become instant cranky pants. We’re both fiery Aries and need the heat.

Night after night of being cold in our Mountain a-frame has made us punchy and put us in a state where we long for the beach. It’s like when you’re really hungry and you dream about all types of tasty foods you don’t currently have. Well, we’ve been sitting around our cold house at night dreaming about hot weather, which mostly consisted of…. beaches!

Also, I’ve been heavily debating getting a tan recently. If you’ve seen me in person anytime over the past 12 years, then you know I am a pale little white girl. At age 18 I decided as a preventative measure to avoid getting super freckly, I would simply stop tanning. Also, I think creamy white skin can look pretty wonderful. However, living in paradise… I want to look like I am LIVING in it… not living among it, staying inside all day long.

I think this trip to Panama is going to practically force me to work on my tan. So, I welcome the possibility of my future brown skin… khaki… whatever color I turn out, I welcome it.

I’ll be sure to take my camera and take photos/video.

I have two more blogs coming and a video soon, explaining our journey into our newly aquired Raw food diet, quitting smoking, steak tartar, and other interesting topics. Well, interesting to me.

Much love,
Lezlie

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Spiders.

Posted: May 21, 2008 at 4:56 pm
Tags: sean omlor, spiders, spider, latin america, leslie beard, a-frame, travel, tico, tica, pura vida, costa rica

Since moving to Costa Rica, we’ve had to deal more heavily with spiders than even our stint in California forced us to. Literally, every single time I go to use my bathtub/shower, I first have to get a cup, catch the rather large 8-legged creature running around the drain, put him outside, and then resume running the water for my bath.

Apparently my bathroom is a spider’s paradise, since I find them lurking about in there every single day. If they aren’t running around in the tub, then they’re scaling the wall above my mirror and sink.

When we first arrived, one was living behind the toilet. Can you imagine? Every time you sit down to take a tinkle, fearing that the hairy miniature monster is going to come crawling up your leg or worse… on your butt! We allowed the guy to reside behind the toilet until the day he got himself in a jam and crawled INSIDE THE ACTUAL TOILET BOWL. It was quite irritating rescuing him from the bowl, without getting him wet, and without getting bitten. He struggled and jumped, but in the end, we captured him and put him outside.

Since that day, we’ve retrieved from our bathroom and released back into the wild, no less than ten spiders… probably more, but who’s counting at this point?

Two nights ago, I walked to my computer, sat down, and started to type. I saw my smallest cat jump up at something on the curtain. When I turned around to look, I saw the biggest spider I’ve ever seen in my life, and it was only two feet away from me. I’m not kidding, it was BIGGER than this:

I woke Sean up and we haphazardly caught it and put it outside. I thought to myself,”Well, ok, at least that is probably the biggest we’ll ever have to deal with.”

So, today, while our housekeeper is over, she brings our attention to a spider that is even BIGGER than the giant we’d come across two nights ago. He’s not inside, though. He’s sitting still on our back porch making his way into our kitchen. She gets the broom and shoos him into the bushes. Then she says,”He’s a baby.”

A BABY?!?

I couldn’t snap a photo, due to my camera battery being over at Stephane’s house. I’ve Google image searched myself to death looking for an adequate example of what he was like. The closest thing I have found is this:

The only difference is he was dark grey, almost black. She then told us that this type of spider has a horrible bite, but not deadly. When he’s full grown, he’ll be covered in grey hair. I asked if it was a tarantula, and she said no.

Maybe it was the same one from two nights previous, and he just grew. So yeah, I’m basically waiting for this type of scenario to occur:

Am I going to have to dress up in something like this, in order to scare them off:

Or maybe that would just encourage them?

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Burger Shit

Posted: May 6, 2008 at 6:10 pm
Tags: Lubnan, san jose, acupuncture, Dr. Kim, graffiti, lebanese restaurant, burger king, tico, travel, tica, pura vida, burger, costa rica

Our driver today, Guillermo, picked us up promptly at 11am. We took off for the banco, to pick up some Colones, and then headed to our acupuncturist.

The session today was bueno. Dr. Kim placed several strategic needles here and there and a few momentos later, I felt as though he had given me a muscle relaxer. Ahhhhhh…..although, he did comentar about how “stressed out” I still am. Well, I feel 20 times better than last week.

Dr. Kim told us that it took him 2 years to adopt the Costa Rican way of life and it did him a world of good. He calls it the “Country Mañana” which means, the country of tomorrow… where things are generally put off… until mañana (tomorrow). Low stress, no hurry, etc., etc.

After the session, Guillermo was outside waiting and we coaxed him into having lunch with us at an amazing Lebanese restaurant named Lubnan. The link I am providing doesn’t give very much information, other than location.

We had hummus along with tabule and fattoush for appetizers. The main courses consisted of a “special” which had chicken, lamb, and beef kabobs, a raw meat plate, and two shawarma sandwiches. They served the “special” with some type of butter/garlic dipping sauce that is divine! I got a coffee and Guillermo had some type of mixed drink that looked interesting, but I’m unsure of what it was.

We’ll be going back there for sure, and next time I’ll take my camera.

On the ride back home I saw the most amazing piece of graffiti Costa Rica has blessed me with as of yet. In a busy intersection of town, across the street from the Mall San Pedro, sitting on the corner is a Burger King. On the concrete wall in front of this Burger King, right where pedestrians walk past, someone has crudely spray painted “Burger Shit” to act as the side-walk sign for the fast food restaurant.

I will try to take a photo of it in the near futuro.

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Our neighborhood’s newest alarm clock

Posted: May 6, 2008 at 4:27 pm
Tags: noisy neighbors, dog, barking, costa rica

Cranky pants (me) woke up this morning, bright and early, to the sound of our neighborhood’s newest alarm clock. A really loud dog who was barking nonstop while it’s owners/care-givers talked amongst themselves. I endured around two hours of hearing the canine yelp, and it was as if he were standing right outside my bedroom door. There were few, if any, breaks in his quest to rise the nearby folks. I laid in bed praying for him to go hoarse, be distracted, or simply find a new hobby.

Unable to take it anymore, I opened my window and in a fit of sleepy rage I yelled,”Stop your barking.” To which no response occurred. I waited a few more seconds and followed with,”Shut your dog up!”

For a non-English speaking country I have to admit, my message managed to cross the language barrier. There was not another peep heard from him the rest of the morning.

Even if I hadn’t been sleeping, I can’t see how this situation would not have annoyed anyone in the hearing vicinity.

Dogs are obedient creatures when domesticated. It’s in your best interest to teach them to only bark during:

1. Emergencies

That’s it.

When they bark at:

1. Children playing
2. Cars
3. Bugs
4. Grass
5. Air

DISCIPLINE THEM and teach them barking should be used for emergencies only, such as fires, thieves in the night, children stuck in wells, and the occasional stray cat approaching your flower garden.

Yes, I’m aware that this is easier said than done, but it was your choice to get the damn dog.

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We did it…

Posted: May 4, 2008 at 5:56 am
Tags: family, driving, sean omlor, friends, mississippi, vBlog, farewell, meridian, leslie beard, stephane hemon, tica, tico, travel, pura vida, a-frame, greta, ghita, costa rica

We arrived in Costa Rica April 9th. Here is a quick video of summary of what we’ve been up to…

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