Things I love about Costa Rica (cont)

#5- Addresses

When I first got here I thought getting around would be easy because every city in Costa Rica has streets all divided on the same system of Calles and Avenidas, with even numbers on one side of central and odds on the other. The only problem with this though is that there are no street signs ANYWHERE. So even with the best map, you can never find your way without landmarks. So people in CR have dispenced with the names of streets entirely, and everything here is 100m from some landmark. So directions to places are only "100m south of the Subaru dealership", or even more logically, 100m south of the old subaru dealership. Its no problem if you dont know where the old subaru dealership was, because..... what the hell do you mean you dont know where the old subaru was... it was back where subaru was before where it is now...... the old one.... yes... OBVIOUSLY its the overgrown empty concrete lot covered in spray paint......

idiot.

#5 The Pile of Trash on our street

In most of Costa Rica garbage day is the day that you set your garbage on fire. At one hotel we were staying at we saw an employee early in the morning take all the garbage from the hotel in to the middle of a field, get some gas and dry palm franz, set the whole thing on fire..... and then go back inside, cause the only thing better than a burning pile of trash, is an unattended burning pile of trash. Also those fumes can kill ya.
San Jose, however, is one of the few places in the country with regular garbage service. The garbage at our appartment is picked up like twice a week, which makes the pile on our street that much more odd. It is this 3m long pile of all sorts of different types of trash thrown across the entire sidewalk. About every two weeks somebody from the city comes and cleans it up so you can walk on the sidewalk again, but then in a matter of days it is back again. Not only does this make no sense because of the regular garbage pick up in SJ, but it is also on the side walk beside an old abandoned building with nothing in it. It's not like it's a company trying to put out their trash or something.... but just people not wanting to throw stuff in the regular pick up and decided tha this is the place it will go... nope they want to put some gas on it and burn it themselves. I guess you can get country folk in the city... but you cant get the joy of burning trash out of the folk.....

its really kind of quaint when you think about it....
before you realize that you just stepped in a chicken carcass...

We were actually lucky this week and caught a rare glimpse of the pile actually on fire (obviously unattended). Usually we just see the trash stinking and carbon encrusted... some days you thank god you had your camera.