Fresca the Spanish word for “fresh” or in my case, the name of my favorite soft drink here in CR. I guess our equivalent in the States would be Squirt. You wouldn’t catch me dead drinking Squirt back home but here, I (we, this includes Sarah) LOVE Fresca. I woke up to yet another gorgeous morning and stumbled to our tiny kitchen to eat another power breakfast. Fruit Loops, juice and a banana from our jungle. One of those 3 is considered Fresca. I had about half a days work around the house today, got that done and drove up to pick up Jose. We had a couple things to do in the closet town to our house Cortes.
The first required both things from yesterday’s post, documents and esperando ( waiting ). After a couple hours of the latter, I wanted Jose to show me a few places to get fresh fish, meat, vegetables, fruit and bread in Cortes. We drove around, he pointed out the good joints and we headed to the carneria ( meat store ). I asked the butcher for some T-bones, well he knew what I was trying to say but didn’t have anything close in the meat counter. He says “uno memento” and comes back carrying the bloody carcass of cow! I’m not talking about a handful of beef here, I mean he lugged in a steer minus the furry pelt. He then slapped the carnage on his meat belt saw and proceeded to cut me out 5 t-bone steaks. Now that’s fresh! I think the only reason it took him so long to come back is because he was chasing the cow around the back lot with his butcher knife. I bought enough beef to grill up a hearty meal for Jose and his family. I texted him, yes I texted him, he’s like 400 meters up the mountain, that the steaks were done. We met on our road between the houses, flashlights in hand and I handed off the Fresca meat (I threw in some corn on the cob and peppers) . He thanked me and said they could all smell the meat cooking from their house. I hope they enjoyed fresh as much as I did.