Strange Lands, Strange Tastes...

As I was walking down Avenida Central this morning, I stopped by a street-side vendor and bought a small bag of freshly-cut mangos for 300 colones (60 cents). The vendor pocketed the money and pointed to a bag of white powder, telling me to put it on the fruit I had just bought. “Necesitas sal,” he said. (You need salt.) I assured him that I did not want salt on my mangos, but he refused to hand over the bag until he had thoroughly doused the fruit with salt, insisting that I would like it. As I continued down the street, I reached to the bottom of the bag to find an unsalted slice. Unfortunately for my taste buds, the vendor had salted each layer of fruit as he filled the bag. The result was… mouth-puckering.