As many of you know, we have moved to Heredia before setting off to Potrero. One of the things I was most excited about was the central market. I was there once when I was traveling to Costa Rica for the first time, but didn't have much of a chance to really explore on my own time. So on our first full day we decided to go for a stroll to the market. So we took a lovely walk to the market.
Do you remember when we used to make fun of older people who would complain about how bad their lives were growing up compared to ours? "We walked to school in the snow up hills both ways....." Well, they must have been in Costa Rica, except for the snow. I come from Indiana where the world is mostly flat. There are a few hills, we will call them bumps. Those bumps make up a slight incline into softly rolling bumps at best. They do have bumps in Costa Rica but those are speed bumps. My first experience with the central market was going down a hill and up a mountain then down a mountain and up a hill on my way back. Now the walk is only about 2/3 of a mile plus a bit. I learned one very important fact in my life that day. I am fat.
Once my sweating, panting self made it up the final incline to the land of paradise called flat ground, we were a few short blocks away from the central market. Those few short blocks gave me time to catch my breath and not sound like a fish out of water. Well, it took more than a few short blocks to stop painting but for the sake of my own pride I will just casually slip this statement in. Thankfully I made it!!
I was not totally prepared to walk into the sensory overload that are the blocks surrounding the central market. It went from busy(ish) streets to walking into the land of chaos. We all know I'm a creature of chaos. I've named my business Chaotic Contessa, my work bench is always in a state of organized chaos, even my brain runs a bit on the chaotic side. I'm usually more than happy to be dropped into the middle of a mess and work my way out of it. This spot took me a few moments to adjust, but adjust I did! I absolutely loved the whole mess. I'm pretty sure that within a two block range you can find almost everything you ever needed, granted you don't know where in that radios it it.
There are grocery stores, sodas - Costa Rician restaurants, hardware stores, about 7,000 barber shops, a great deal of little stores selling anything from phone cases to rather uncomfortable mattresses. There are the line of buses and taxi's waiting to whisk each shopper off once they are done. There are people selling fruits and vegetables on the street corners, people trying to hustle you into cilantro and lottery tickets, people trying to hustle you out of your money for cheap trinkets and t shirts. That is before you even step inside of the central market.
The central market takes up one Costa Rician city block and is stuffed full of all the things you would expect to find in a central market and a few items that were a bit of a surprise to me. Almost everything you need can be found in the market, though not at prices you want to spend on flour and toothpaste.
About 1/3 of the market is made up of fruit and vegetable stands with people selling familiar items such as pineapples and mangoes to more unusual items such as jack fruit, guanabana, yucca, plantains, and cashew fruit (disgusting I might add). It was interesting to see pineapples hung up next to plantains and fresh onions and garlic hung from their stems. Eduardos's favorite avocado at every stand fresh from the fields. Lettuces so fresh they still had dirt clinging to the roots. I know I am going on and on but it is worth doing so. At this moment I will only buy from one fruit stand because this guy is the only one in the entire market that puts prices on his individual items. I know if it's not priced and they see my whiteness coming it will be twice the amount it would have been without the gringo tax. Yes, that's a real thing here. In the picture you can see my fruit stand guy.
The next 1/3 of the market is fish and meat sellers. I will admit, when we first went into the market I wasn't sure about buying meat that didn't come in clear plastic wrapped sanitary containers or from an American butcher shop. I have since changed my mind. This is not your Kroger chicken breast for $1.69 a pound on special. This is chicken as God intended it to be. Chicken that tastes like the best chicken that ever graced the plate. That is just the chicken. The fish should be in it's own beautiful category of delight. I was a bit shocked to see the number of fish heads being sold at the market. I didn't really think there was a large market for fish heads, but it seems I am wrong. Those fish heads come straight from the boat too - well after a bit of dismantling.
The rest of the market is spices, and odds and ends, and rice, and beans, and little sodas to eat at, and fresh bread, and backpacks, and little plates and bowls. It was just a ramshackle lot of this and that that makes my cluttered mind just sing with joy.
All together I would say the central market did live up to my every desire it could be. We have been going about every other day to pick up fresh foods for the next couple days. I would like to note, after looking at the map I did discover a much easier way to get there that didn't include the hill and the mountain. Thank you JESUS!!
Do you remember when we used to make fun of older people who would complain about how bad their lives were growing up compared to ours? "We walked to school in the snow up hills both ways....." Well, they must have been in Costa Rica, except for the snow. I come from Indiana where the world is mostly flat. There are a few hills, we will call them bumps. Those bumps make up a slight incline into softly rolling bumps at best. They do have bumps in Costa Rica but those are speed bumps. My first experience with the central market was going down a hill and up a mountain then down a mountain and up a hill on my way back. Now the walk is only about 2/3 of a mile plus a bit. I learned one very important fact in my life that day. I am fat.Once my sweating, panting self made it up the final incline to the land of paradise called flat ground, we were a few short blocks away from the central market. Those few short blocks gave me time to catch my breath and not sound like a fish out of water. Well, it took more than a few short blocks to stop painting but for the sake of my own pride I will just casually slip this statement in. Thankfully I made it!!
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| Not the busy streets around the market, just streets |
There are grocery stores, sodas - Costa Rician restaurants, hardware stores, about 7,000 barber shops, a great deal of little stores selling anything from phone cases to rather uncomfortable mattresses. There are the line of buses and taxi's waiting to whisk each shopper off once they are done. There are people selling fruits and vegetables on the street corners, people trying to hustle you into cilantro and lottery tickets, people trying to hustle you out of your money for cheap trinkets and t shirts. That is before you even step inside of the central market.
The central market takes up one Costa Rician city block and is stuffed full of all the things you would expect to find in a central market and a few items that were a bit of a surprise to me. Almost everything you need can be found in the market, though not at prices you want to spend on flour and toothpaste.
The next 1/3 of the market is fish and meat sellers. I will admit, when we first went into the market I wasn't sure about buying meat that didn't come in clear plastic wrapped sanitary containers or from an American butcher shop. I have since changed my mind. This is not your Kroger chicken breast for $1.69 a pound on special. This is chicken as God intended it to be. Chicken that tastes like the best chicken that ever graced the plate. That is just the chicken. The fish should be in it's own beautiful category of delight. I was a bit shocked to see the number of fish heads being sold at the market. I didn't really think there was a large market for fish heads, but it seems I am wrong. Those fish heads come straight from the boat too - well after a bit of dismantling.
The rest of the market is spices, and odds and ends, and rice, and beans, and little sodas to eat at, and fresh bread, and backpacks, and little plates and bowls. It was just a ramshackle lot of this and that that makes my cluttered mind just sing with joy.All together I would say the central market did live up to my every desire it could be. We have been going about every other day to pick up fresh foods for the next couple days. I would like to note, after looking at the map I did discover a much easier way to get there that didn't include the hill and the mountain. Thank you JESUS!!
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