We were so excited to study Costa Rica this month! We have friends who have traveled there and absolutely loved it, so Costa Rica is definitely on our bucket list of places to travel. We can't wait to experience la pura vida for ourselves!
Located between Nicaragua and Panama in Central America. There are so many amazing things about this country. For example, although it is small (129th in the world in size and about the size of West Virginia), it contains more than 5% of the world's biodiversity. It doesn't hurt that more than 25% of the country's land is dedicated to national parks, nature reserves, and wildlife refuges.
As always, here is our video list:
- Geography Now! Costa Rica
- Costa Rica Geography - my older kids roll their eyes at these types of videos, but it is undeniably informative about the provinces and their capitals
- National Geographic - Costa Rica - the sound is a little off on this video, but it has some neat glimpses in things you can do in Costa Rica
- Costa Rica Wildlife - cool glimpse into the biodiversity with some fun facts. I just wish they identified all of the animals it showed, although we did have fun looking some up ourselves.
- Baby Sloth Sanctuary in Costa Rica - this showed up on the sidebar of our search, so how could we not?
- 25 Facts about Costa Rica - cute video narrated by a kid
- Travel To - Costa Rica - an artsy short video showing stunning scenes from around the country
- Things NOT to do in Costa Rica - this is the first video of a four-part series (see list here) that was both interesting and seemed helpful for actual travel there some day
Here is our round 2 of videos, covering local sites and food:
- Top 5 Places to Visit in Costa Rica
- Top 10 Places to Visit in Costa Rica
- 4 Dishes to Try in Costa Rica - in addition to talking about other foods, the main dishes featured are Gallo Pinto, Ensalada de frutas, Casado, and Bocas
- Costa Rica Wildlife Documentary - haven't seen this whole thing but have it bookmarked, as my kiddos really love animals
We were super excited to try some of the foods we saw in the videos. There are no Costa Rican restaurants near us, but we found a fantastic website with lots of recipes - and they all look delicious! Here are the dishes we made and tried:
Fruit Salad - this one was based simply on the fruits found in the "4 Dishes" video above. My kids were pretty familiar with all of the fruits except for papaya and mango, and I had never tried fresh papaya before either (shown above). I looked up how to cut a papaya on YouTube (there are lots of videos), but when I tried a piece, it was NOT my favorite flavor. Only vaguely sweet with a bit of bile aftertaste. I did NOT think my kids were going to eat it. So I literally googled 'how to make papaya taste good' and found this great article that recommended just marinating it in lime juice. Which explained why lots of recipes with fresh papaya have a lime juice dressing. So I tried it out, and when combined with the other fruits (watermelon, mango, pineapple, banana), it did okay. It was best eaten with a piece of pineapple.
This is a super simple but tasty recipe with a lot of familiar ingredients. We served it with a couple of fried eggs on top. The only new addition was Salsa Lizano, and I can only say DON'T SKIP IT! It is delicious and our new family favorite. Well worth the price and also made right in Costa Rica.
Costa Rican Tres Leches - https://www.puravidamoms.com/costa-rican-tres-leches-recipe/
It may not look very pretty, but it was ridiculously yummy!
We were a little nervous about trying these because up until this point, we had never made a successful meringue. Plus it takes about five hours for these babies to bake and dry out, so it requires some planning ahead. But this time we got it to work! What made the difference for us was using a metal bowl and the regular beater on a hand mixer instead of using the whisk attachment. Success!
