We are creatures of habit. Some of us do the same things every day, even if we are moving from place to place. We search for the familiar, even if the sign is in a different language or the smells are different. We seek out what comforts us. Knowing that we are close to family and friends when we are away comforts us. We can still be adventurous, but we need to connect that part of us with the world we know.
Take food for example. I am quite satisfied not to be in a culture where eating glutinous monkey brains is the norm (or where there are toilets that flush, instead of a hole in the ground). The guidebooks say that the Costa Rican food is bland. Yes, the typical food is comprised of rice and beans and more rice and more beans and maybe some meat and lots of fruit, but I find it to be wonderful. When you have walked 10km, maybe jerk chicken or curry isn’t what you need – you want stick to your ribs food. I like to eat whatever the locals eat wherever I go. It’s comfort food.
Yesterday, my friend Rachelle and I went to a local soda (the typical Tico food restaurant, owned by a family, kind of like a gathering place). I love a casado, which involves picking a meat, usually chicken or fish for me, and ordering it grilled or fried. It costs about US$7. For this staggering amount, you get the following – white rice, black beans, some sort of salad, some sort of other vegetable or salad, sometimes cheese mixed with potatoes, sometimes just fried cheese, sometimes an egg, definitely sweet fried plantain and the meat. The plate is full, and after you eat it, you are very full. There is little spiciness, subtle if any, and yet, you can mix any of the parts together and it creates a wonderful flavour.
It simple food and it tastes so good. It’s like homemade cookies, or that stew on a winter’s day. It’s what the soda makes the best. It’s made by the family with pride and with love. You can see it when they serve it to you. The place I went with Rachelle has been around for over 30 years. It’s like Cheers, or gathering in the kitchen during a party. The energy is comforting. I could just feel the years of family and camaraderie in the place. People were talking, table to table, some sort of webcast talk show was going on in the back – laptops and loud voices and energy. It was like home.
I have eaten a wonderful steak, grilled sea bass, stewed mango salad, Belgian waffles (at the beach), pizza, Caribbean jerk chicken, tilapia, good Chinese food, really bad Chinese food, incredible Filopino food, more pineapple than in my lifetime, papaya to die for, guanaba filled pastries, an amazing cream cheese loaf, wonderful bacon and dozens of eggs. They sell tuna with jalapenos here. Wow. They like this flavour of salt and lemon. It’s on peanuts and potato chips and my new obsession – pork rinds – not like in Canada – just puffy tasty things that go very well with beer. Oh, and bananas – which are about US$0.50 per kilo. Runs about 6-7 cents a banana.
I eat with people who I meet and once we are done the meal, the first thing we talk about is our next meal, where we are going for it, what it will be…amazing. Food brings everyone together. It creates a warmth between us. I love food.
I have drank the local firewater, Jack Daniels, great rum, many beer, diet Coke, and this thing they grow here on a hill almost around the corner from where I am now called coffee.
I love coffee. It's a habit for me to drink coffee. I drink even more coffee than in Canada. Why? Because it is just so good here. It tastes different, nutty, smoother, just a splash of milk – café con leche. I can’t wait to wake up in the morning. So I can have coffee.
I have lost weight, not much, but some. No car and you walk. Walk and you burn off enough calories that you can eat more. I like this. I have eaten few packaged things and I feel great. No aches, no pains, no sickness.
But I digress form my new philosophy of being habitual. I am learning something very important. I am still me. I can go anywhere, and in a very short time, I will have new habits that comfort me in this strange place. They sustain me and enrich my life. They seem to revolve around food.
I must brag about something. I met someone who kicks my butt at Scrabble, and that is amazing in itself, but I finally won one game and had two seven letter words in a row and my score was 432. That’s a record for me. Feel free to applaud at your convenience.
The photos I am posting today are mostly taken on a trip with a wonderful couple I met, Christina and Paul. We went to Poas Volcano and a tourist trap called La Paz Waterfalls. The waterfall was amazing, and they had a zoo. Snakes and frogs and jungle cats and monkeys and birds and tons of butterflies. I understand that these animals were there because there are idiots in this world who try to have them as pets or are trafficking in exotic animals. They were all confiscated and cannot return to the wild. I don’t like to see them caged, but they would die if they were released. So we, the tourists, get to see them safely. A great place for photos. Not the best place for seeing things as they are in nature. But for my inner child, holy crap!
Off to another place this weekend, after house sitting for friends. Friends I have just met, and somehow feel I have known for years. Isn’t life fun?
Pura Vida.
Coati
Goood morning!
ReplyDeleteAwesome pic's and thoroughly enjoying your blog. Your writing is so detailed I feel like I’m right there (I wish – today particularly!).
your photos are outstanding Steve! working on my homework! xo
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