Costa Rica in pictures

This post is pretty simple: a lot of pictures that I took of something interesting at the time, and keep reminding me of things I wanted to mention.  For those of you who have been looking for the kid's picture-book version of this blog, this is for you.

 Yes, they are wearing hats with cow heads and horns.

I want to introduce you to the person who might be the San Jose version of Leslie, Austin's cross-dressing homeless man who was their unofficial mascot.  I have been to a good number of concerts in San Jose, which has been wonderful.  They do a very good job of using the parks on the weekends for art, music, and all sorts of other fun family-oriented activities.   Well, at every single concert -- and, when there is no concert, the weekly Saturday drum circle -- this lady in blue has been there "dancing."  I say "dancing" because it's more like bad, high-speed, tai chi in motion.  She walks around a big area waving her hands.  After a while you can see that she has about 10 moves, which she does repeatedly and to any music.  Salsa?  Jazz?  Drum circle?  Rock?  Apparently this is the most versatile dance style out there.




I found this gem on the highway.  Rather than fix the road, someone decided it would be better to just pay the money to install a permanent sign that says "bad road ahead."  Well, I have to give them credit for being honest.

"Road is in bad condition."

Here is a typical casado from a soda, or local restaurant.  all of this plus drink for $4.  It's tough to leave McDonald's for less than that.  It even comes with a ripe, fried plantain for a sweet and yummy dessert.

And no, canned spaghetti is not standard casado fare.  Fortunately.

Mozambique

One weekend I hit up Maputo with a group of colleagues. Traveling with a group of 12 reminded me why I will never travel with more than three for any longer than a weekend, but it was a great time. Highlights included someone getting clotheslined by a roped goat, eating calamari three times in as many days, and going out with some locals to what was one of their favorite places and I’m sure would be one of mine, too.

When you arrive in Maputo you must get a visa. Why you must get a full visa rather than just a stamp, I don’t know. Actually, I have a suspicion: because they are very proud of their visa system. You get fingerprinted, your picture taken, and then they print a sticky visa out and stick it in your passport. Sounds simple, but it took ~1.5 hours for the 20 people in line in front of us to get through. There were three people behind the counter using one of two cameras, and they would only do one person at a time (no parallel processing). Our Portuguese-speaker convinced them to speed things up by doing things in parallel, but we later found out why they don’t do this: they put a visa in the wrong person’s passport, and it took quite a while to back everything up and re-do it.

Mozambique was ravaged by a long and taxing civil war, and the result is a country that is very poor even by African standards.  They've been having riots as a result of increasing prices of bread recently.

Maputo (the capital) might be one of the most relaxed places I have ever been. The seaboard was lined with old cars with doors opened, and car radios provided the soundtrack for the night. I split from the group and met up with a Mozambican and a place and then we headed to Mafalala Libre. It’s nothing special at all, but I loved it. In the back a great band was playing some interesting electronic/rock mix music and the crowd was very into it. Out in front the patio was packed and the crowd spilled out onto the street. If I wanted to blend in I should have worn a Che t-shirt over jeans and flip flops, and maybe disguised my short-cut hair under a rasta-type beanie. It was a beautiful evening, a mixed crowd, and everyone was very laid back. Having been warned that a typical Friday night ended at 7am Saturday, I called it a night early because of a tiring week, but reluctantly.

Instant dreads, anyone?

The next day we took the ferry to Inhaca island off the Maputo coast. There is a stretch of beach facing Maputo that has a hotel, a couple of lodges, and a tiny town (50m of dirt road). A cruise ship had disgorged its passengers onto the island, and we arrived just as they left, leaving us alone with as much beach as we wanted. The two restaurants in town have regular menus and “cruise ship menus” with doubled prices. Since the ship was gone we ate on the beach and watched the sunset. The beach goes out so gradually that low tide means almost an extra 0.5 km of beach exposed.

The next day we hired a guy to cram 11 of us into his pickup (imagine 11 people in a Ford Ranger) and drive us to the NE corner of the island. The SW corner has the “tourist town.” People living here frequently go back and forth from Maputo, and many are only on the island to cater to tourists during the day. The rest of the island is inhabited by the “true locals” eking out a living from the land and the sea. Our drive took us through their outposts, though at a fork in the road we turned left despite the sign for the king pointing right.

We passed obviously cultivated blocks of land, but it must be difficult to grow anything in the extremely sandy soil. We also passed some locals walking back from church in full suits, some also sporting black baseball caps. I doubt the suit gets drycleaned very often (as in never).

On this drive we encountered the “goat rope.” Our driver didn’t notice until too late that there was a rope across the road; it went up over the hood and clotheslined (goatlined?) a guy in the bed of the pickup pretty badly. One end was tied to a tree, the other to a goat. The poor goat had decided the grass was greener on the other side of the road, and he got a nasty surprise when jerked back by a truck hitting his tether.

The ocean pounds the east side of the island with its full broadside. We shared the beach with a crowd of local women and kids picking mussels from rocks exposed by the low tide. Parts of the beach were craggy rock formations pockmarked by crevices, some deep enough to swallow the kids playing in them. Each was a tiny tropical aquarium featuring the standard kelp and hermit crabs along with whatever tropical fish were unlucky enough to be stranded there until the next high tide.

Back in Maputo we wandered around the city some. Maybe the air itself makes one lazy, but the whole town had that feel. We got a drink at the old train station known for its architecture and ID’d some of the art deco buildings that were once new and now look their age. It’s easy to remember street names here because they are all named for revolutions or Marxist leaders.

We went through a big market that was about half fruit/veggies/fish and half beauty supplies, which primarily means hair extensions. I’d never walked around a lot of stalls selling hair extensions in so many colors or styles. Slightly odd. As we entered the market we were pestered by a guy trying to sell us a D60 (SLR camera). I’d guess that there was another guy somewhere in the city trying to figure out where his camera went.

We got stopped by police that night at a road block. They wanted us to all show our passports, which we didn’t have on us, and they told the cab driver he would need to drive to the hotel, get our passports, and then come back and retrieve us. This plan wasn’t through on many levels, and our Portuguese-speaking colleague wheedled enough and batted her eyelashes enough to get us out of what would have been a royally inconvenient spot.

My summary: I would definitely go back. At the rate Mozambique moves, this is not a place to attempt a drive-by one-week tour.

Carnivore barometer

Just how much do South Africans like their meat? Enough to have a "spare
rib"-flavour of crisp (chip).

The miscellaneous

1) During the weekend I had brunch at a place called Nice, and it lived up to its name. On the menu: “Scrummy Crumpets.” With a name like that, I had to order it.

First, crumpets: turns out they are small, sweet pancakes. Pancakes are always a winner in my book, so we’re off to a good start.

Next, bacon: bacon makes everything better. Rules of The Bacon Game: name something that tastes worse when bacon is added. It doesn’t take long to play, because the list is very short. ( Apparently even bourbon is enhanced by bacon. HT to Nancy.)

Layer with strawberries and cream, which I would consume in mass quantities even by themselves, and you have a winner – though if you manage to come up with a bad recipe using those ingredients, I’d be amazed.

2) Over here, an “American breakfast” includes baked beans.

3) You know you’re in a low-income country when radio ads tell people to SMS to a certain number in order to receive a call back from a salesman.

4) Google Maps is slightly behind Coke’s marketing in “products that amaze me” (it even tells you which exit to take from roundabouts). However, it hasn’t fully adjusted to Joburg security, because there are frequently situations where it looks like you can get from A to B on neighborhood streets only to discover that the area is gated and closed off. Fail.

I usually think of a "0 km/h" speed bump as being... a wall.

5) I have complained on here before about the lack of straight citrus juices in SA.  If you take a look at this carton, it has a bunch of oranges on the front and says, plain as day, "Orange juice."  If you take a look at the ingredients, though, the first ingredient is "deflavoured apple or pear juice."  Deflavoured juice... in my juice?  Aren't you just left with sugar water?

6) I will again sing the praises of South African braais. Last weekend I was at a “bring and braai” (the braai version of potluck – everyone brings a meat to put on the grill). The end result is a big pile of meat of various cuts/seasonings. So good, but I’m still manning up – sometimes afterward I just want a salad. Maybe with some bacon…

Afri-Tex-Mex

What does it take to make decent texmex here? Well, it took me three grocery trips, lots of confused grocery stockers, and some tortillas flown in from the U.S. There was some improvising, but I was pretty happy with what I dubbed “Afri-Tex-Mex.”

It’s something I had wanted to do for a while, but it finally came to pass because I got a shipment of tortillas from the U.S. That’s right. A friend’s dad is a pilot who was flying to JNB, so I met him for a meal and got some tortillas from the deal.

The final meal was tacos and Spanish rice with chips and salsa – a slight downgrade from the planned enchiladas, Mexican black beans, and the rice. I got curious and tallied everything up. Final cost? ~$8/head. Not bad vs. going out, but relatively expensive for home cooking.

In my quest to put together this meal, I was buying a bag of Bandito’s chips and as I got my card out and signed the receipt the cashier looked at the chips… turned them over… looked at me… and finally asked me something like, “what are these?” I told her they were plain chips for salsa, not like that would enlighten her at all. She said in an amazed voice, “They’re expensive!” She’s right. As discussed before, chips are pricey. I also found that Bandito’s has a monopoly on all things quasi-Mexican (the only jalapenos I found are also Bandito’s, and I saw taco sauces).

I came up short when looking for black beans.  There are plenty of beans, but just no black beans either in canned or dry form. I may be able to find them at a specialty store.  I also gave up on chicken broth after several guys all staring blankly when I asked for it.

I was at a point of crisis until I found out that cilantro is coriander leaf. I didn’t realize this until I went to my third store and found someone who made the connection. Once I found that out, one of my key missing spices turned out to be ubiquitous.


At that same third grocery I finally found lime juice… in an expensive, small jar.  Lime and dill are some of my favorite seasonings, so this is disappointing.  

While shopping I was wearing a t-shirt I got in Honduras that was designed by a friend I work with at Building a Future. A guy in an elevator turns to me and says, “All the way from Mexico?” I let the Honduras/Mexico mix-up slide, and then he says: “That must have been a heckuva canoe trip.” Yes, yes it was…

News flash: low-quality picnic blanket wreaks havoc on Johannesburg outing

"When you go on Picnics it is important to use the right company and with the correct equipment. There are a variety of different professional packages offering Picnics in Johannesburg. So whether it’s a solo, family or corporate team building activity you should find something that suites you."

It's such a relief to know there are professionals willing to pack my solo lunch basket.  I'm just not sure what to think about finding something that "suites" me.

From a website listing things to do in Joburg.

I'll be home for Christmas...

After six weeks here in SA, here’s what’s on my “to eat/do/experience list” in the U.S.:
-Grapefruit by the dozens
-Pure OJ. Not cut with apple, pear, or grape juice.
-Texmex
-Sandwiches: tuna fish sandwiches with dill relish and turkey with cheese and pickles
-Timed stoplights
-Being a passenger rather than a driver and getting to stare out the window
-Not paying for parking at every single place
-Football on the couch with other fans
-People and places with whom I have a long history

And here’s what I’m looking forward to coming back to:
-My balcony view across the valley, alternating enjoying the perfect weather and watching ferocious Joburg storms
-South African braais
-Al fresco dining culture
-Driving a manual
-New stories and people

At least I can get peas and asparagus

I did my first real grocery shop today in South Africa. I had made quick runs to get a few staples, but haven’t been home enough to cook.  I had two revelations while in the grocery store:
1) I haven’t cooked for myself in ~4 months thanks to Nigeria, and I’ve just plumb forgotten what it is that I like to cook.
2) Even if I could remember what I liked and the recipes, I would need to translate volumes (cups) to weights (grams)
2) I may have to find some new staple meals anyway, because prices and selection are different.

A long time ago a friend gave me a book that still makes me laugh every time I pick it up entitled, “Help! My apartment has a kitchen!” I think I need a book entitled, “Help! I can’t remember what I want to eat!”

As for availability:
-Applesauce? You’ll find two varieties, both sweetened, in the marinade section.
-Dill relish for tuna fish sandwiches? A new concept to the Pick n Pay worker, not to mention the fact that tuna is >$1/tin. The sign over the aisle listed “pickles” as one of 6 items in the aisle, but they only had 3 varieties of pickles, all whole, and they were outnumbered by the olive types.
-Broccoli? Not in three groceries I went to. My roommate finally found some.
-Bisquick or other baking mix? Nope – and no brownie mix, either, which I love to make. Looks like I will really be going from scratch.
-I can’t get 100% whole wheat bread, though I found something that is pretty brown.
-Out of ~3 meters of milk shelf space, there is only one option for skim milk.
-Tortillas are a specialty food and are ~$2.50 for 6. Ouch. I may be having “pita fajitas.”
-There’s no such thing as 100% OJ in this country as far as I can tell. You can find 100% juice, but OJ is always diluted with apple or pear juice. (I assume that’s because of local taste, but maybe because of citrus fruit costs here.)

Even the things you can find don’t always come the way you would expect.
-Ground beef doesn’t come in chubs, only the fresh butcher packs.
-There was plenty of butter, but it’s in 500g blocks. I’m not sure how they easily measure butter for recipes.
-Yogurt is about $1 for one of those individual cups, so you buy it by the kg.
-You can’t get straight corn on the cob. You can only get it in those sealed packs where they have cut off the ends and peeled them.
-Salmon steaks? ~$14 for 4, which isn’t hideous but is indicative of the surprisingly high cost of seafood. (C’mon, guys, SA has water on three sides.)

What will I be eating more of? Meat, for sure, since it is cheap and plentiful.