Today we drove about an hour an a half/ 2 hours to a city called San Isidro. San Isidro is in a very large valley, and is a decent sized town. It has a very large central cathedral and lots of busy streets. San Isidro is no where as intimidating as San Jose (the capitol) or even Alajuela. Although it is smaller than Alajuela (ala-huela) it is easier to get lost because the streets aren't a perfect grid. We hit up the internet cafe (where of course I didn't have time to get what I needed to done, because the boys finish so quickly and are ready to leave) and then walked around to buy necessities. Chas pulled out the money my parents put in his bank account, so finally I have some money in my pocket. First we went to try to find a camera charger for Ben. He had is camera in his hand at the crocodiles, and his charger was in his bag. Of course, here in Costa Rica, they sell the same camera he has, but not the charger. I wonder what the Ticos do when their battery pack runs out of power. I wandered around with Ben and Chas. I bought a wallet while I was with them. Then we all met up at a resturaunt in front of the cathedral for lunch. I got up to order a coke at the car and finally understood a Tico's very fast spanish the first time it was said, meaning I didn't have to ask to hear it again more slowly. She asked me if I wanted a cup of ice with my coke. (vaso con hielo) Here, they serve almost all soft drinks out of glass bottles. They are usually ice cold, and I never need a glass of ice. I used the payphones and a phone card to call both my parents and Tony. There are pay phones all over the place in Costa Rica, and most of them are more advanced than those in the states. Calling cards here cost about 10 bucks american for 30 minutes, pretty expensive.
Afterward, we hit up this awesome place to buy machetes. It reminded me of a tack shop out in the country in NC or TN. Here, the tack shops are in the big cities, which I don't understand at all. There were saddles hanging from the ceiling, bridles and halters on one wall, saddlebags, and various other tack hanging up. To the right, there was a vary large plastic tank thing that had (I think) molasses in it. Ticos were lined up with jugs and a sales person was filling them. Towards the back of this very narrow, cramped store you could buy rope, feed, tools fertilizer etc. All the trimmings of a normal tack and feed store, but Tico style of course. We all bought machetes, which we will need for doing trail maintenance at TFI. I bought two, a 22" and an 18." One will be a gift and one I'll keep. They come with a very nice hand tooled leather sheath. One machete with its sheath costs about $15 American. After buying our machetes, we went to this general store type place. They sells all kinds of things and its very similiar to a dollar general. Because my journal was in the bag that was stolen, I needed to buy a notebook. I bought a cool several subject notebook with a tree frog on it, a cheap rug like one everyone here uses, a package of cookies for when I crave them at TFI, a couple of large knives with similar leather sheathes, and a couple of other necessities. At the checkout, there was this fudge looking stuff that cost less than a dollar. The woman at the counter said it was really good. On the drive home, I broke it out. It was amazing, really sweet chocolate fudge with minced coconut in it. Westopped at a grocery store for the professors to get groceries and the boys to buy beer. They bought TONS of Imperial. Later, we found out the grocery store is run by Wal-Mart. how depressing huh? I wanted to spend more time in San Isidro, but the professors and the guys were ready to leave, so we left.
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