We venture out

Having gotten to bed at 8:30 last night, Jill and I were up with the sun today. Our goal is to make the most of daylight hours. By 6AM we were drinking coffee in the lounge chairs on the upper deck working on this morning’s update.

Today we had three missions:

1. Make the drive to Spanish school and introduce ourselves in advance of tomorrow’s inaugural lesson.
2. Find the PriceSmart in Alajuela, the nearest sizable town and lay in some necessities.
3. Get my mobile hotspot sorted.

Finding Spanish school was a little bit of a challenge because the directions involved finding “the dirt road on the left just before the big blue water tank”. We found the big blue water tank, but not the road. On closer inspection there was a utility crew working on a power line just before the big blue water tank and their truck was parked so as to block the dirt road. Once we figured that out we had to squeeze by the utility truck and then we were golden. We met Juan Diego, the very nice man who runs the school. Juan Diego did his best to reassure us as Jill and I admitted that we were a little nervous about learning Spanish. In a very nice way he said something to the effect of “I promise you can learn Spanish.” Diego then proceeded to tell us two VERY important things:

1. “The biggest issue with spouses learning a language together is that they can get competitive and not in a healthy way. Please do not let that happen.” Good thing I’m not the least bit competitive…
2. “If you ask someone in Costa Rica for directions to a destination, they would rather make something up than tell you they don’t know. Always ask multiple people for directions until you hear the same directions from two different people.”

We will have two teachers: Anna on Mondays and Wednesdays and Maria on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We meet Anna tomorrow at 8AM for our first session.

From Spanish school we were off to PriceSmart. It was about a 45 minute drive and I think we did quite well. Waze is invaluable here. Once in the PriceSmart parking lot we immediately felt comfortable as it’s a standard Costco setup with all the signs in Spanish. We went in to the membership desk and got our shiny new membership cards then we went to the food court because we were both starving.

Once we’d scarfed down lunch we were off to do our shopping. We splurged on some cheese, which is about double what it costs in the US. We got a big box of Ritz crackers, our theory being that if we get homesick cheese on Ritz crackers will be an effective antidote. We did not buy a rotisserie chicken, but we confirmed that they cost about $6.50. We got a six pack of coconut milk, some Nature Valley granola bars, and some hazelnut creamer for Jill’s coffee. That was the sum total of the “exotic” foodstuffs we bought. We also got a sideboard dish drying rack, as there’s no dishwasher in the house. But I happen to enjoy hand washing dishes so that’s a net positive. Checkout was a bit of a minefield. I tried to be helpful and inserted my credit card. The checkout person just shook his head and pulled the card out of the reader and handed it back to me. I now know that the process goes as follows… The checker rings up all of the items and asks you how you want to pay. If it’s a card, they manually put the total into the credit card terminal and ONLY THEN do you get the green light to put in your card.

Buoyed by our success at PriceSmart we navigated to the Kolbi wireless store in Alajuela. It was like one of those jewelry stores where they buzz you in and a security guard ran a wand over both of us. Don’t construe that as the area being unsafe. It was an upscale shopping center with plenty of foot traffic. It was more like the Kolbi store was trying to be like an upscale Beverly Hills jeweler. Once we were through security we spoke to a nice lady, who basically refused to sell me a prepaid SIM card on the basis that it’s so much more expensive than a postpaid plan. I asked how much a postpaid plan costs and she told me I couldn’t get one because I’m not a Costa Rican resident. You can see where this is going. Over time I convinced her that I really could afford to spend $30 a month on a prepaid plan and she finally relented. I thought for sure I was home free, but then she printed a piece of paper and pointed me at the back room where there was a casting call of characters waiting for a single person at a desk to service their requests. I declared NO JOY and we beat a tactical retreat to the car, stunning the lady who had just spent 15 minutes giving me a coveted number for the queue. Costa Rica 2 – Todd 0.

We made it back to the hacienda without incident and I made Jill afternoon coffee. We then went upstairs to check out her work space for when she resumes seeing clients next week.

We needed a couple of items for dinner so we went into La Coope to pick them up. We asked where we could buy a hummingbird feeder and were directed to the veterinary supply store across the street. By “veterinary supply” I mean supplies for dairy farms and cattle ranches with a side of equine products. I asked the guy behind the counter for “hummingbird feeders” and he just shrugged. Jill pulled up google translate and said the Spanish word for hummingbird, which is “colibri”. Without shifting position the man behind the counter looked about 2 feet above my head where there were two hummingbird feeders hanging from coiled rope. Best I can tell those two humming bird feeders were the only non-bovine non-equine things in the entire store so we bought both of them.

Feeling like we were on a roll, I insisted that we find a local purveyor of Kolbi SIM cards. We strolled to downtown Atenas and found a store that sold them. Fifteen minutes later, wherein my passport was phoned into a higher authority and I forked over $2, I had a shiny newly-activated SIM card. I asked what I needed to do to add some prepaid funds to my account and was informed that they could only sell me the SIM card, but couldn’t charge it up for me. You can see where this is going, right? The nice lady pointed me to a corner store and instructed me to tell the man that I needed “Kolbi recargo” and to give him the 8-digit phone number for the new card. Jill and I walked over and got in line behind a couple of people buying sodas. When it was my turn I proudly announced “Kolbi recargo vente mil Colones” and slid my new phone number across to him. He asked if I wanted a receipt and I said “Si”. Sixty seconds later I handed over my 20,000 Colones (about $35) and he handed me my transaction receipt. Here’s where I messed up. When you load a prepaid SIM you really need to double-check that the funds went to the right card. We got back to the house and I popped the SIM in my hotspot and fired it up. No luck in connecting with the network. I screwed around with it for a few minutes and then got my receipt out. That’s when I discovered that the guy had mis-typed one digit of my phone number, but I didn’t have my reading glasses with me at the store and the 8 that should have been a 6 was too small for me to read. I successfully put 20,000 colones on SOMEONE ELSE’s SIM card. As they say in Costa Rica, “Con muchu gusto!” Costa Rica 3 – Todd 0. However, I do feel like tomorrow is going to be my day.

Jill’s homemade pico de gallo continues to be life-alteringly good. And happy hour soothed any lingering sting from my SIM card woes.

Dinner is complete and we are putting the wraps on another fantastic day in Costa Rica.