Crazy Colones

Here in Costa Rica, instead of dollars we use Colones. Thats what they call their money in Costa Rica. Its all different colors. There is red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple paper money.
​The whole rainbow.  On the front there are people. On the back there are animals. They look cool. 
I read on a website that the Colon is named after Christopher Columbus. He discovered Costa Rica AND North America. 
This is the front:  

And this is the back. 

'I think its really neat they have animals on the back. We didnt have a 5000 Colon but it looks like this: 

My favorites are the monkey, the sloth and the shark.  
The money isn't the same as in Oregon. You can get a little bit more than 500 Colones for one dollar. So if you are trying to figure out how much money it is in the states, you can use a little trick to get kind of close.  First you double the money amount. Like on the 5000 it doubles to 10000 then you drop off three zeros, that makes $10. Thats about how much it is in dollars.  Its a little confusing that they say mil for thousand, but if you use this trick its easier to figure out the money.

There are also different coins, they look like this: 

You can use the same trick with the coins, but you only drop off one zero.  The 500 Colon is about $1.00 but the 100 colon is about 20 cents.  I still get confused sometimes. 

I'm saving my money because I want to buy an ATV. My mom lets me keep the coins from shopping. But I'm hoping if I keep doing my chores,  like collecting the eggs, taking out the compost and helping feed the fish, maybe I can get an allowance. I'm also going to try to sell some lemons. 
I saw an ATV my size at Wal-mart in Cartago.  Its really cool. My mom says by the time I save the money, I will be big enough to ride it. 

On my next blog, Im going to show you some rocks.  My Dad and I have been looking in the river everyday, and there are some really awesome rocks.