El Mercado Central

For our next field trip, I spent a very, very hungover day in a market full of smells. We´re talking butcher shops, fish markets, pet feed stores and all kinds of stuff.
I finally started to come around when I got to taste the famous ice cream that has been in costa rica for over a hundred years. I literally cannot find a way to describe the flavor, but its apparently vanilla, cinnamon and vanilla.




Smelly pet/pet feed store





Rows upon rows of beautiful flowers that don´t even look real.




If you needed reafirmation that most of Costa Rica is Catholic, here it is. EVERY store had at least one religious figure somewhere (even the pet feed store. Actually, they had more than one).



But basically, I was so happy to be around a lot of very interesting Ticos in the market who taught me about fruit, vegetables, herbs, meat, cheese and leather that is specific to Costa Rica (also, I was dying to get away from the smell...)