How to spend a day buying groceries

Eat breakfast, shower, shave and so on. No different than at home. Walk down to the beach. Very different. Walk along beach. (see photo) So different as to be on another planet, given that you are going for groceries. Walk up off the beach to the bus stop, and crowd on with all the ticas and ticos; there is no limit to how many can get on the bus. At least no limit we ever saw. (Geoff and I gave up our seats, which were filled by a grateful mother, grandmother (?) and three children, and could have done it five times more if we had five more seats each to give up. It is now about 10:00 am.

Stay on the bus for an hour plus, or thirty kilometres; both will probably show up at the same time. More people will have crowded on, and some off by this time, and crowd is the operative word - personal space seems to be mutable here. I found that standing up is actually cooler than sitting down, given the comfortable breezes coming in through the windows, but it meant that I couldn't get a good look out the window, so there will not follow a description of the countryside on the way to Liberia.

Neither will a description of Liberia, other than to say it is as European in flavour as San Jose.

Stop at bank and change money. Regret that lower US $ means less colones. Stop and buy cups of orange juice, freshly squeezed, from a vendor. Stop in candy store and buy prizes for bingo game. Stop at Mondo Majica and buy cheap straw hats and sunglasses for them as need them. Walk to market. It is now just after 12:00. Order food at a soda. This is not a typo. (See comments to previous entry for details of food.) While Rob sits and stuffs himself, buy vegetables and fruit and realize that we will miss bus back to Coco at 1:00 pm. This is not a problem as there is another bus at 2:30 pm. Go to the dessert place and have the most sinful desert on the planet: tres leches. A national dessert. Go to Wal-Mart equivalent. Run into friends of Geoff. Stuff backpack with several hundredweight of things, strap to Rob. Actually, David also had a full, although smaller pack too. Head off to bus and board it, with uncounted others also heading in the same direction and stand - at least David and I did- all the way back to Coco. I looked down once and the was a little Tica girl, probably four, sitting almost on my feet, next to her mother, who was also standing. It is as well I had not shifted my feet for some time.

Word or two on rudeness. Jane (seated) was speaking with a woman from Wisconsin when a Tico offered her his seat. "I'm an Independant Woman,"W from W said haughtily, and continued to stand.

Bus in at 3:15. Strap back on tons of supplies, head off down beach. Stop to photograph kids, show them the result, photograph them again, show results, take another picture... you get it.
Home by 3:45.