Costa Rican neighbor friends, Don and Marty, had heard about a local, but large, festival in the (relatively) nearby town of Santa Cruz and asked if we would be interested in going to it with them. Admittedly when we’ve ventured out here in Costa Rica, we’ve been more focused on seeing “tourist” attractions, rather than local. After all, Costa Rica has a lot to offer in a small country, and there’s a reason why Wheel of Fortune keeps giving away trips to this country. But because of how the country was initially shut down due to COVID soon after we first moved here, and then with settling into our house, etc., we just haven’t had the opportunity to see everything we’d hoped to in Costa Rica by now.
So, we thought that it might be fun to attend the “Fiestas Típicas Nacionales Santa Cruz” and agreed to join them on opening day, Saturday, January 14th.
Marty is very interested in horses, and she had heard there was going to be a horse parade associated with the festival. We had assumed that the parade would be on the first day of the festival. But when and where? We needed information.
We received an email from Don just after noon on the 13th, with a picture of a map for the parade and a link to the festival’s Facebook page. Unfortunately, the horse parade was on the 19th, a Thursday. Also, the Facebook page was not at all helpful. It only had a few posts counting down to the 14th, with texts that Facebook had “helpfully” translated, like:
“How many will visit us from Heredia? Here you can walk and even dance half the street”
“Put spider butter on your waist!!! As we can’t wait for January 14th, we’ll be unloading energies on the 13th at the inaugural Barrier Dance”
“Typical National Holidays are coming, in the cradle of the authentic Guanacasteca mountain, here where men risk leather on an animal, is played your honor just by playing glory with the parrandera sounding in the background and looking to provoke applause sound of the board to stay on the loins from an animal that shakes like a hurricane …”
We couldn’t find anything that looked like a schedule of events, so all in all, confusing, rather than useful, information.
Undeterred, we had a quick in-person chat at Don and Marty’s house later in the afternoon on Friday, the day before, to see what we could get figured out. Don and Marty had heard about this festival from their local property manager who admitted that information mostly came by “word of mouth.” While we were there, Marty then reached out to a gringo that owns a nearby business who usually has good intel on things that go on around here. He responded that he didn’t know details but would ask his local employees and get back to her. We enjoyed some wine while we waited. He did call back with some information. There would be a parade on Saturday, but it would be a “Masquerade” parade that started at noon. Following that there would be the events in the stadium, presumably rodeo type events and the popular one here where everyday guys get in the ring with bulls and chase it or get chased by it. We were told that the stadium events were supposed to start at 2:00 p.m. but probably would start later, maybe 2:30 or 3:00, or … whatever. (Precision is not a thing here.)
We decided that it would be interesting to see the “Masquerade” or, as we refer to them, the “big heads” parade, and then maybe grab some lunch. At this point we were definitely planning, like the parents in the Progressive insurance ads that young people shouldn’t become. As we were concerned about parking, we wanted to go early enough that we could find a place to park. We did want to see the parade, but the events at the stadium? Well, we could see, but we wanted to get back on the road so that we were home before dark, etc. Eventually we settled on the logistics – Don and Marty would pick us up at 9:00. That would put us there about 10:30 or so. We could find parking, walk around and figure things out from there.
Saturday morning we made sure we had our sunscreen, hats, and my fanny pack, in which I had packed some small bills in local currency, and my cell phone. Don and Marty were punctual. I noticed that Marty was wearing white pants – a bold choice, I thought.
It did take us about 1 ½ hours on a mix of gravel and paved roads to get to Santa Cruz. This town is large enough that it has a couple of stoplights – a big deal in this country. Don knew that we needed to turn right at the first stoplight and after that, it was anybody’s guess. Right before the stoplight is a Maxi Pali (store affiliated with Walmart, but not as high-end as Walmart, if you can believe that). John and I often stop at the Maxi Pali on our way to Liberia, for a bathroom break. I mentioned that we could stop at the Maxi Pali to use the services, a suggestion to which everyone was amenable. (I am surprised that knowing where all of the bathrooms are everywhere hasn’t made it into one of those Progressive commercials yet.)
Back in the car, we made our right turn at the stop light and headed into the downtown area. We passed a block with grass that was roped off and looked like it was set up for parking cars, for a fee. Marty suggested that we may just want to park on the street to avoid the cost. After all, even though there were a lot of people, it was still early, and it did look like there were open spaces on the street. There were maybe 2 or 3 cars in the lot. In the end, we decided that parking in the lot would be a safer bet and looped back through the one-way streets to find the entrance.
Paying for parking was our next challenge to overcome. There was a small shack set up next to the entrance, where a woman was sitting at a table. We walked over to ask about paying. Everything was done in Spanish. I asked how much, and she replied 8. Don immediately assumed 8 hundred. He had brought with him a small sandwich baggie with local coins and started digging through it. The woman repeated the 8, but this time John figured out that she meant 8 mil (thousand), which is when you need to get to the paper money. I thought John and I should pay for parking, since they had driven, so dug into my fanny pack and pulled out the appropriate amount. That was the easy part.
She then had to fill out a form on a small pad that had carbon paper for copies. What was our name? I gave her mine. What was the license plate? Don quickly went back to look. I spelled it out in Spanish and was successful even though it contains the letter “J.” (The letter “J” is hard for me to remember – “jota”, where the “j” in “jota” is pronounced like an “h” in English.) What is your cell phone number? I looked up my Costa Rican cell phone number in my contacts and started telling it to her in Spanish. She was having a hard time with it, so I tried to point to it, and it started to dial my phone. I stopped the call, got back to where it was, and well, did it again. It took about 4 times before we finally got through that. Eventually the form was filled out and she gave me a copy, and told us that it was good until 5. We assumed 5 that afternoon, but in reality, it probably was 5 the next morning. FYI, it cost us about $14 for parking.
We saw people were moving in one direction down the street, so decided that was the way we should go, too. Along the way we saw a fruit market, bicycle shop, clothing stores, bakeries, and a couple of restaurants. One of the restaurants was a Chinese restaurant that looked spacious, so we filed that information for future reference.
Eventually we made it to the main square, filled with a lot of people and vendors selling food items, drinks, jewelry, clothing, hats, etc.
It was a hot day, so we purchased some freshly squeezed orange juice. Don pulled out his billfold and attempted to pay with a 10 mil bill. The lady politely refused, saying she needed smaller bills. John was able to oblige her. In addition to the vendors there was a stage set up with speakers – looking like it was ready for something to happen.
We walked around the square with its sculptures and main bandstand.
It still wasn’t noon, but we were ready for some shade. We found a street just off the square where some people had gathered, looking like they were settling in. It was shady, and there was some unclaimed curb space, so we decided to sit down on the curb.
I must have given Marty’s white pants the once over, because she commented, “Oh, it’s OK, I don’t mind sitting on the curb with these white pants.” How is that? I had made sure to wear pants of a dingy gray color, anticipating that they would get dirty. I have never had luck with white pants. I had a pair of long white shorts and was very judicious about wearing them in Costa Rica. I had finally decided to wear them out one time to a sit-down restaurant, yes, only 1 time (!) and … when I came home, they had stains on them from something – I don’t even know what! I was sure that Marty’s white pants would come clean, even though I was never able to remove the mystery stains from mine. Aargh!
But I digress. We managed to find out from a man sitting next to us on the curb that the parade would pass by us here, so we felt we had really lucked out finding this shady spot with curb-side seating. At noon the church bells started ringing, as well as those booming fireworks (the kind that only make noise with no pretty display, only a puff of smoke), and then we could hear music and singing coming from the square. After that, people started filing into our street in anticipation of the parade. A lot of people. And they didn’t mind positioning themselves in front of us in the street. There were cars parked on both sides of the street and the depth of the parked cars was the space they filled in. A lot of them were drinking cans of beer. When they were finished, they simply crushed the can and dropped it at their feet into the street. This made us cringe, but as Marty pointed out, there weren’t any trash receptacles around.
We waited for the parade to start. Finally, close to 12:30, a truck drove through the streets scrolling ads and blaring advertising from loudspeakers. I didn’t understand much of what was being promoted but did think I heard that “cremation for pets was included.”
We continued to wait and stood up to see if anything was happening. A young boy who belonged to a group in front of us that was standing in the street, decided that he’d stood long enough, and plopped down on the curb between us. He had a toy that looked like a masquerade and was content to play with it at our feet.
At 12:40, one small, lonely masquerade made its way through the crowd.
Ten minutes later, the masquerade parade began. We watched the big heads make their way up the street. The masquerade heads are made of paper mâché and have cloth “bodies” over metal frames that fit over the human beings carrying them. In the parade the masquerades twirl around with their long fabric arms swinging. They also will dip their big heads at people, especially children.
After the masquerades passed, a band came through. I mean, there were musicians playing instruments, not a marching band with full uniforms like you see in the US. They were playing a tune that everyone (but us) seemed to know. It was very hard to see the band, as a lot of people crowded around them and walked with them down the street, singing, cheering, etc.
After the band moved through, a horrifying masquerade made its appearance down the street. This one was not made of paper mache, but hard plastic. It was a female with long braided hair. Its face could best be described as a female version of the Chucky character in the Child’s Play slasher film franchise. It was terrifying enough from afar, but then it bent its giant head over to the child sitting at our feet! I am certain that boy will have nightmares and possibly need therapy for years to come!
After the masquerades went by, about a dozen police mounted on horses came through. They were followed by several large trucks carrying bulls. Presumably these would be bulls that would be used in the rodeo later in the afternoon.
After the bulls came the horses – hundreds of horses! This wasn’t billed as a horse parade, but it could have been. I’ve never seen so many horses in a parade before. The riders were men and women in mostly everyday western-type apparel.
Some even had small children in the saddle with them or were drinking a can of beer as they went along.
The interesting thing about the horses was that they mostly were doing what I would describe as “fancy” trotting as they went by. Marty explained to us that these were paso fino horses. Their feet move quickly so that their gait makes for a very smooth ride. I don’t know much about horses and their gaits, but they were amazing to watch!
The horses were also very well trained. Since we were near a corner, at times horses had to wait before they could continue on the parade route. There was a lot of noise and sometimes more of those firecracker booms, which didn’t seem to faze the horses at all. Well, almost all of them were unfazed. We did see one nervous horse that kept butting into a car parked on the street. We were again thankful that we’d decided to park in the lot rather than on the street.
There was a “fun” group to the side of us situated behind a truck that had started celebrating early. One man had the tip of a horn from a bull that he was using a shot glass, of sorts. Let’s just say that his generosity and his bottle of booze seemed limitless. When someone approached him on the street that he knew, or maybe kind of knew, he offered them a drink from his horn glass. As time went by and the shots continued to flow, his charity increased to include guys riding horses in the parade, who had no problem accepting it!
It took about 45 minutes for all the horses to pass by us. By that time, we were hungry and decided we’d go back in the direction of the car to grab a bite. On the way we noticed that there were some guys with large trash bags picking up the litter on the street. That made us feel better.
We caught up with the parade and it became an obstacle course to wind our way through the parade watchers along the side of the street, and to find breaks in the horses as they went by in order to cross streets. We did pass by the rodeo stadium. We couldn’t see in, but we could kind of look up through the bleachers and saw that it was jammed full of people. We decided that there was no way that we were going to see the rodeo that day and would just settle for lunch before we drove back home.
We finally found the Chinese restaurant again and pushed the door open to find it packed. We spotted one table for four at the back and made our way to it. The staff (all Ticos, by the way) didn’t seem at all interested in seating us and didn’t mind that we took the table. All good.
Our waitress came over with menus. The menus were in Spanish with English translations, of sorts. We ordered water (in Spanish). I am not sure why this turned out to be confusing, but it was. The waitress, in Spanish, started asking about a lot of non-water options and pointing at some refrigerated coolers next to us. I finally stood up and saw that she was pointing to bottles of iced tea, etc. I spotted the plain bottles of water and pointed to those and said cuatro (four). That settled the drinks.
The restaurant had advertised dim sum on the poster outside the restaurant, but we couldn’t see it on the menu. The waitress returned with the water, glasses, and also, weirdly, a small basket lined with a red cloth containing 3 pieces of bread. No butter, oil, or anything to put on it. Just bread. We didn’t eat it.
She took our orders. We each ordered a Chinese entree. (Mine was shrimp fried rice). Additionally, Marty ordered an avocado salad. The waitress returned after a bit and said that they didn’t have the avocado salad. Marty asked about a fruit salad instead. The waitress was speaking Spanish and trying to help Marty locate a fruit salad on the menu. Finally, they found something and Marty ordered it. Marty turned to us after the waitress left and remarked, “I hope it isn’t fruit cocktail.” I replied, “Have you ever seen fruit cocktail in this country?” None of us had.
When the fruit salad arrived, it certainly wasn’t what Marty had expected. It turned out to be two colorful scoops of ice cream over jello, with a few pieces of fruit underneath all of that. To be fair, Marty did admit that the fruit “salad” was under the dessert area of the menu, but after all, in some (other) countries, they do have fruit on the dessert menu. We all sampled the fruit salad – although unintended, it turned out to be kind of a nice way to end the meal.
When we returned to the car in the lot, no one asked us for our copy of the form that had been so difficult to fill out. We simply got in the vehicle and headed home. (Well, of course there was one more stop at the Maxi Pali for a bathroom break before we got back on the road.)
Remember, it's an adventure. 