Our First Fiesta Attendance

Before we moved to our current house we lived out of town and were pretty isolated so we never knew what was going on in the community until it was already happening and almost over.  Well, that is not the case since we moved into town.  We are literally 2 blocks from the town square and park, so we always know when there is a "Fiesta" going on.  A few weeks ago, they had a really cool event.  My kids loved it.  It was an all out real "Tico" experience.  And it couldn't have been a better themed event for my kids, because they LOVE horses.

We even completed our "Tico Fiesta" with some local comida {food}.  Sidenote: we would have normally not purchased food from street vendors but David thought it was pretty safe since it was cook by our neighbors.  And, it was solo good.  Our neighbor says he does this for lots of local events.  He marinades pork and then chargrills pork kabobs.  He sold over 500 kabobs that night.  And, then, he brought us a huge plate on Mother's Day too.  Yummy!  I think you can tell from the photos that everyone was enjoying their carnivorous dinner.

The clown came over to us and started pulling out balloons, making animals, and handing them to the kids.  I told David that we would have to pay for them and he said, "No, he is just giving them to them."  Ha!  There is nothing free in this country and I was right.  We had to pay for those balloons, and kind of hard to take them all out of your kids' hands and give them back.  We did manage to tell him, "No, only two, they can share."

The above photo does not even begin to show, what seemed like 100s, of 80s and 90s cars all decked out {what I would call ghetto}.  I think every Nissan Sentra, old Honda Civics, and little Toyota and Nissan trucks have all been imported to Costa Rica once they hit the 300,000+ mile on the odometer and then the Ticos here sunk all their money in them to make them look cool.  Hilarious.  It was an 80s and 90s throwback for sure!

The authentic dancers were so cool.  This was the only little girl that was dancing with them and she was amazing, never missed a step.  And they can twirl faster than your eyes can follow.

There were more than 2 dozen ropers.  That was pretty cool.  They walked throughout the entire parade roping.

When the horses started coming, it seemed like there was no end.  As far as we could see there was just a mass of horses.  Imagine almost 1,000 horses all sandwiched together and some steamy temps mixed with thousands of bodies, much of who were inebriated.  That is cause for some nose scrunching.  You know they say "Don't Drink and Drive."  Well, they should enforce the same with horse riding.  

The man pictured in the middle just made me laugh.  There comes a time in life when someone takes your keeps away for your safety and the safety of others.  Well, I think the time is very near or should have already passed for this dear old man.  I just knew he was going to fall off the horse and get trampled.  He kept falling over and looked as though he were falling asleep several times.  

I am pretty sure every entrepreneur in the central valley was in Atenas that night trying to sell anything.  There were cowboy hats, light sticks, food, whistles, balloons, and the list could go on and on.  

We finally left after we had been watching horses for almost 3 hours, and when we left there was still horses lined up waiting to walk through the parade.  We had a great time at our first "Fiesta."