Tamales

This is the traditional food of Costa Rica, specially around Xmas. Coffee and Tamal. Nothig better than this. The Tamal is a wrapper of banana tree leaves, inside there is a dough of corn and some usual ingridients like rice, pepper, carrots, chicken or meat like pork.

Gallo Pinto

Gallo Pinto or simply Pinto… Mmm truly the breakfast of champions. It is basically rice and beans; however, that is just the basic. The most common way to serve pinto is with eggs, and fried bananas (platano maduro). Some people eat it too with beacon, jam, toasts, whipped cream (natilla) and cheese.

Birra

birra This is the national (or at least popular) drink of Costa Rica, Birra (beer). Costa Rica is among the top countries that consume more beers per capita in the world. Maybe that is nothing to be proud of… but hey, at least is supposed to be very nutritive…

Tortilla con Queso

Tortilla con queso (Cheese Tortilla)... very good for the afternoon coffee. Usually you eat it with "agua dulce" or cofee.

Agua Dulce

agua dulde One of the traditional ways to make sugar from sugar canes in the old times of Costa Rica was the “tapa dulce”. These blocks of sugar were scraped and the powder was mixed with hot water and voila… you have Agua Dulce.

Costa Rica is located in Central America. Our neighbors are Nicaragua at the north and Panama at the South boarder. We live the Caribbean style at the east with the Atlantic Ocean and we got beautiful white-sand beaches at the west with our Pacific Ocean. Our time zone is Central Standard Time (UTC-6).

Our Capital City is San José (local nickname “Chepe”). Is pretty crowded and at first glance not much to see; however, there are some colonial buildings like in Barrio Amon that really are worth to visit. These old buildings have very interesting architectures and many of them are restaurants that you can go for a cup of coffee and learn about the old Costa Rica.

The language of Costa Rica is the Spanish but is not hard to find someone who speaks English at some level. Our currency is the Colón which rate is about ₡500,00 colones per US dollar. About the language there might be a couple of Spanish phrases you should get familiar with if you are coming to Costa Rica, “pura vida” which means something like alright! It can be used as a question: pura vida? (Are you ok?) And can be used as an answer: pura vida (I´m great). The other important word you might need to know is “birra” (beer). Ticos drink a LOT of beer; anything is a good excuse to drink, at least that seems to be the conventional agreement around the people.