8 Ways to Get Your Holiday Goodies into Costa Rica Easily or Safely

My post about how to receive packages in Costa Rica while avoiding having them snagged by Customs, which requires a trip to San José and a couple hours of bureacratic SNAFU to retrieve said package, continues to be one of my more popular articles.

Still, I often get asked the question: "Just how do you get stuff shipped into Costa Rica?"

Attack of the Drones - CC-SA-3.0

Unfortunately, Amazon drone delivery does not seem to be on the horizon anytime soon.

So, to supplement the original article, here is a list (probably incomplete) on the various methods that I've either used or have learned second-hand from others who have found them to be successful.

Mouthwatering Free Fruit in Costa Rica

One of the things most people savor about summertime anywhere in the world is gleaning wild fruit whether it be wild blackberries, salmonberries, apples, pears, cherries or nuts. I loved gathering tart apples, plums and cherries in Oregon from roadside trees. They were rarely hybridized, grafted, fertilizer-fattened specimens, but they were just as delicious as those in the supermarket bins if not more so.

This morning's juice fruit selection

Most of our roadside fruit here in Costa Rica is of the citrus variety, though there are varieties of vine berries and occasionally other tropical tree fruits to be had. Most of the latter, such as water apples or guanabana, come from neighbors' trees, which they readily share with us.

The past week, Tamara and I have been collecting various citrus fruits on our neighborhood walks and this morning I clambered down the steep hillside below our balcony, thick with six-foot tall coffee plants to add some sour mandarines  to the growing collection.

Despite a similar appearance, these are not the same as the Mandarin oranges one finds on store shelves in the States. These possess a bit thicker peel and are very sour (or ácido in local parlance). Locals claim these provide more health benefits than other citrus fruits such lowering cholesterol and cleaning your liver of toxins.

In the picture upper right, starting from the left side are these fruits: sweet lemons, mandarines, sweet oranges, grapefruit and a few sour lemons.

Update on Tamara's School Mosaic Project

Tamara's big mosaic project is now into its third week. Students and others come and go as the mosaic grows. The last few days she's recruited some of the kids in our neighborhood and even Sean to help out.

Today was a bust, however, as the person who has the key to the classroom where the tools and materials are stored called in sick today. Why the school doesn't have a spare key ... well, that's Costa Rica for you.