Our family of five lived in Costa Rica from June to September. After exploring the country for the first month, we chose the coastal town of Jaco for a couple more. This dream destination offers secluded wild beaches, rainforests, waterfalls for the nature lovers; poisonous dart frogs in multiple colors, howler monkeys, sloths, for the animal lovers; and surfing, white water rafting, canopy zip lining for the adventure lovers. Here a few things we learned about staying fed and watered tico style.
Try as many new things as you can manage. We found our old favorites from Guatemala, jocotes.
1. Sodas are little mom and pop restaurants that offer great local cuisine at affordable prices. Many offer a cafeteria
style display so you can see all your options, and then point to the ones you want. Some have a small salad bar. They will give you a small plate and you can have as much as you can stack on that sucker and get to your table.
2. Casados are the traditional meals that include a meat (often chicken or fish), rice and beans, and a small salad for
five to six dollars. The fish casado, often Tilapia, cannot be beaten for the price.
3. Smoothies are popular here. Don’t be surprised if you order a beverage like a lemonade and it arrives in icee form,
even if you aren’t ordering from the smoothie section. We can only guess it stretches the actual beverage ingredients and your drink manages to stay cold throughout your entire meal.
4. Good coffee shops aren’t on every corner. Pause. Now that you’ve had a good cry, pull yourself together, there’s work to do. Don’t wait for the shakes for things to get real. Consider stocking up on the little cold coffee drinks you can buy in many grocery stores.
In desperate times you can pull one of these java-juice boxes and get the caffeine bump you need. It’s gonna be ok. Then when you do find a coffee shop you can have one of these.
5. The water is considered safe to drink, but two out of five of us still got sick. After that we stuck exclusively to
bottled water. All depends on the strength of your plumbing.
6. Wet Cakes. You’ve heard of Tres Leches, but here they do a wide variety of cakes saturated with liquid to the point
that it’s sitting in a delicious puddle. At the very least you can call the cake moist.
7. Groceries were more expensive in Jaco than in Miami. Some imports like cranberry juice, were two to three times more. Items like bananas, mangos, fresh fish taste better but aren’t cheaper.
8. Same bottles of wine we buy at home are double here, and the variety much more limited. If you’re a beer drinker you’re in better shape as there are both micro and macro brews to choose from. Mixed drinks are hit and miss, especially when adding a Happy Hour special. Sometimes we weren’t sure if they forgot to add the alcohol.
9. Tours and meals. Tours don’t always follow through on meal promises. We had some that did so with amazing meals. Yet, on three separate tours we were told the fee included breakfast, lunch or both. They didn’t follow through with any meals. Ask when you are booking if the meals are included as listed and if they are not, you should ask for a discount and pack some sandwiches. Going for six hours without food isn’t fun, especially for kids.
10. Taxes and tip are often included on the restaurant bill. Some bills only show a total and you have no clue if the tip
is included or on top. Feel free to ask for an itemized bill so you can see what the heck is going on with that total.
Enjoy your new food and drink discoveries.
Also in this series:
10 Things I Wish I Knew Before Coming to Costa Rica: Getting Around
10 Things I Wish I Knew Before Coming to Costa Rica: Having Fun
10 Things I Wish I Knew Before Coming to Costa Rica: Logistics