Costa Rica 2021

Hello All! I’m in Samara, Costa Rica for the next couple of weeks, so I thought I’d do a few updates. This trip won’t be quite as interesting as some of my others because Covid limits what I can do. Bill also could’t come this time, so you only get updates from me.

I rented a small apartment from a Canadian/American woman who has lived in Costa Rica for the last eight years. It’s a lovely apartment on the second floor and I have my own balcony in addition to a small kitchen. A couple of years ago, a hive of African killer bees moved into the wall of this apartment. African killer bees are extremely aggressive and very dangerous, and they made a giant hive in the wall. The fire department sprayed them with Raid and the wall had to be completely torn out to prevent ants and other creatures from moving in to eat the honey. As a result of all of this, I’m staying in a lovely newly renovated apartment!

My landlady explained that she discovered the bees because she was in the apartment with a man. He ran out of the shower naked with a swarm of bees trailing him. They had come in through the bathroom window. It’s an interesting story, but more information than I needed. Once the bees sting you, they put a pheromone on you that can’t be washed off so the bees continue to attack for days. It was two days before the fire department could come remove the bees so my landlady and her friend were trapped inside by a swarm of angry bees.

The Samara fire department is severely underfunded so all they had were padded suits, Raid, and a step ladder to deal with the problem. The stepladder wasn’t tall enough, so they put it on top of a rickety table. That still wasn’t tall enough, so they put cinderblocks on the table and the ladder on top of that. I told this story to Bill, and he thinks they need to hold a pancake breakfast.

My landlady worked in Mexico for a while and has lived in Costa Rica for 8 years. She speaks the worst Spanish I have ever heard. I think she understands Spanish a little better than she speaks, but her spoken Spanish is spectacularly bad. She has a young Costa Rican guy working for her so I’m listening to a conversation right now. There’s a lot of English mixed in with some of the worst-pronounced Spanish imaginable. She’s definitely a unique individual. Very nice and with an interesting life, but unique.

I started Spanish lessons today. I’m only doing an hour a day plus homework. The lady who usually sells lunch at the school in the truck of her car isn’t doing lunch right now, so I found a food truck near the school that’s inexpensive and has delicious food. I got a falafel salad and a drink made of orange juice, pineapple juice and coconut milk. I’m planning to be a regular there for the next two weeks. There’s also a fruit stand down the street from me with fantastic mangos and watermelons. My landlady has chickens so I have fresh eggs and fruit for breakfast.

I went for a run yesterday morning. It was a really pretty area with wild growing lantanas. Costa Rica needs some bike paths though because I had to keep jumping into the weeds to avoid getting run over by tour busses. There are some serious hills here so it was a good workout! I saw an entire Costa Rican family on a small motorcycle. I managed to rub a blister on my heel yesterday so this morning, I found some edging stones in the yard and used them in place of weights. I did a pretty good weightlifting session on the balcony with the rocks I found in the yard. My family gave me an enormous amount of delicious food over Christmas and now I need to work some of it off. I’m not sorry I ate it though.

People here don’t seem too worried about Covid. It’s unclear whether there are any cases in Samara, but this is high tourist season and there are surprising numbers of people here from all over the world. I’ve heard American English, British English, German, and French and some of the Spanish speakers also seem to be tourists. People wear masks in stores, but yesterday there were volleyball and soccer games going on the beach and the restaurants seem pretty busy. Three people just rode by on unicycles.

I’m headed to the beach to swim in a little while. There was a coati in the yard this morning so I’ll post a picture below. I have video too, but I don’t know if that will post successfully. I hope all of you are doing well and had happy holidays!