Costos

I think it’s important to understand how cheap things are here.  Before I left, I heard a lot of talk of “Oh the dollar isn’t as strong as it used to be, America is falling behind”.  Or maybe that was just Donald Trump (is that madness still going on?  You know I’m not coming back if he get elected, right?).  Beside the point.  Here is a quick visual math conversion.

The official exchange rate is 22.something cordobas to the dollar.  If you can believe it, Nica bank hours are even worse than the US’s (they close at 2pm) so I had to have my money “changed” with the coytes in the street (how gangsta, right?).  My $20 USD got me 420 cordobas.  Not bad right?  For those of you whose math is not they’re strong suit (you know who you are) that’s 21 cords to the dollar.  So here’s some quick prices I’ve run into:

12oz beer in a can (drinkable with some lime juice, probably coors light quality) = 20 cords = $0.95

1 Liter (how many ounces are in a liter??) of beer = 40 cords = $1.90

Bread in any form (and quite good) = 5 cords = $0.24

One way, hour long, nonstop, minibus ride to the capital = 23 cords = $1.10

One way, 35 minute, decommissioned school bus ride to Masaya = 8 cords = $0.38

Hour at the cyber café = 13 cords = $0.62

A whole pineapple or avocado = 10 cords = $0.48

Mailing a letter to the USA = 10 cords = a pineapple = $0.48  (Boom transitive property)

3 Liters of Fanta = 32 cords = $1.52 (not a really good price—our town is expensive)

Ice cream bar = 7 cords = $0.33

Cell phone that I’ll be using = 380 cords = $18.10

Flashlight, 2 D Batteries and a mirror = 80 cords = $3.81

Fish ceviche with fresh avocados, carrots, onions, lettuce, and tomatoes = 60 cords = $2.86

Half liter of fresh banana, orange and pineapple smoothie = 40 cords = $1.90

Eating rice and beans twice a day every day = priceless (no seriously.  It’s so cheap it’s less than $0.01)

Now that doesn’t go for everything.  There are some things (two) that I’ve found are more expensive here:

Printing fotos (no one has cameras, or computers or printers)

Iphone = $800 (they don’t even bother putting it in cords but if you want to know = 16,800