No menu items!

COSTA RICA'S LEADING ENGLISH LANGUAGE NEWSPAPER

HomeWalking AroundThe ants won this round

The ants won this round

I should have known better.

This is the tropics, after all. I mean, even fence posts turn into trees in these hyper-fertile lands. But it was just for a few minutes. I opened my sleeve of Chiky cookies, a wonderful chocolate-covered wafer that goes great with my two favorite beverages, coffee and milk. Unfortunately, I had run out of milk, so I twisted the sleeve, set it atop my microwave, and headed to the pulpería, a small corner store, for a gallon. I couldn´t have been gone more than ten minutes. But that was enough for these wily ants to sniff out the sweetness of my go-to snack.

By the time I returned, the ants had gone marching one by one, all the way inside my cookies. When I opened the sleeve to see if the cookies could be salvaged, I found a them teeming with sugar-hungry insects. I opted to cut my losses and chuck the rest. Then, it was back to the pulpería for some more cookies and a plastic box in which to store them. You win this round, ants, but never again will I leave my cookies unattended.

UPDATE: 

Reader Ivannia Villalobos wrote me and offered some “Tico advice: If you can’t close the package well, you have to put the cookies on a plate and that plate should float in another container with water. Ants can’t swim, so the food is safe, at least for a while!”

Thank you, Ivannia. And if you have any tips, tricks, or tropical life hacks of your own, let us know.

Weekly Recap

Costa Rica Coffee Maker Chorreador
Costa Rica Coffee Maker Chorreador
Costa Rica Travel Insurance

Latest Articles