CR: Parte 四: Around Town

A stitch of the plaza (or "parque" as they call in CR) in Palmares on a Thursday afternoon.

On Wednesday, the pain and swelling in my ear was increasing, but I was still attributing it to TMJ issues.  When I woke up on Thursday, I knew it was an infection, and now it was in both ears.  So Mamá Isa, my mami tica, got it all figured out to take me to her ENT guy in San Ramón.  

 Torii leading across the parque to the church in San Ramón

Go figure.

Long story short, we didn't have much luck there, so we came back to Palmares to see Dr. Solórzano, a regular doctor.  He was great, personable, chatting me up about his trip to Niagara Falls, Toronto and Quebec.  And he prescribed me antibiotics and 400mg of ibuprofen which got to work right away.

View of el centro from Dr. Solórzano's street.  

I'm pretty sure I have the same shot from 1993.

Wheel of a traditional Costa Rican carreta.

At the mountainside cabina of Isa's sister's husband's family.

On Friday, my goal was to get into el centro to take lots of pictures.  I got a bit thwarted, but had a lovely afternoon with Mamá Isa and the tías.  The following is a hodgepodge of pictures from the trip to the doctor's on Thursday, el centro on Friday and footing it around with Yobana on Saturday.

View from the cabina, which was gorgeous, by the way.  

Pool and all.

Carreta at the cabina

El centro

From in front of where Cuco's used to be.

Pollitos y Perritos

Looking towards the former Cuco's, el colegio y Espíritu Santo

El colegio

It looked like they were taking advantage of the two-week vacaciones to do some renovating.

Yoba starts up the driveway.

The Hood

Little Pink House
That used to be behind a church.

Yoba stops to talk to a relative.
They're everywhere.

Cuidado.

Panadería and Parque

El Quiosco

In the center of el parque

La Iglesia

The two cupolas (?) are being reconstructed as they were beginning to fall apart.  No services, and the street in front of the church is now a calle peatonal, but you can be sure that there are still kids hanging out there at night!

Walking down to town.

A view of Espíritu Santo on the way into town.

Circle of Strength

The Ringsted Boys, a group of Danish gymnasts, were in town for a taller (workshop) and performance later on Saturday night as part of a larger Latin American tour.  Yoba and I broke up our walk with a stop in at the gym to see what was going on.  Here, Vero and her fellow gymnasts try to avoid being pulled out of the ring.

The little kids had their own ring.

Campos y el Mercado

Next to el parque.

Soda

I took a lot of pictures of restaurants and signs for future use in the classroom.

A soda is a little restaurant that sells pretty much what you see there.

Misspellings and all.

Oh, how I love to be surrounded by mountains.

Mini pineapples at home.

Vueltas danesas

The daneses wow the crowd with their strength and control.

Vamos, España!

On Sunday, the day before I left, we went to a soda to watch the World Cup final. 

And that was Costa Rica 2010.