Tag Archive for 'Costa Rica'

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A Day of Firsts – First Blood

Published on July 10, 2011 in Baby Boomer. 4 Comments Tags: .

Today, the beginning of my second week at Sedolsoder in Costa Rica was a day of firsts before midday.

The first first was the first planting in Nancy’s Friend’s Garden. Never having been much of a planting person (planting means we usually just inherited the previous homeowner’s flowers and then let them go to hell from neglect.

We have been told that anything grows anywhere in Costa Rica with little or no care. The proof is all around us – the untended fence posts are full grown trees. Farmers will stuff a tree limb in the ground and wrap some barbed wire around it. When left unattended, these limbs turn into trees.

I think I can grow things here.

Nancy had a fantastic idea – one that is certainly “old hat” to flower gardeners everywhere.  She wants a Friend’s Garden.  Every friend gets to choose a plant for the Friend’s Garden.  Cheryl, our first visitor, chose a lemon tree.  Frances, who is a new friend that lives here, chose oregano. “Because it should be something useful.”

The lemon tree went into the earth today. The oregano will be pot grown until our construction is completed.

The Friend’s Garden will be visible from our bedroom window.

Isn’t that a great idea?

The second first was the conquering of a fresh coconut.This also provided for the third first – first blood.

The coconut tree is near the Friend’s Garden. The nuts have been tormenting me since I arrived. Nancy was sure that when they are ripe, coconuts fall to the ground. I know from watching Survivor that one must go get them.

The first blood was the result of an out of control shovel. Having little experience with garden implements when using them to knock coconuts out of trees, the I took a mighty swing and missed – the coconut – but hit my leg.

Owie.

The coconut I grounded after a few more swings was too young. It was full of pipa (coconut water) but no meat. As with most things, it was a booger to get to the water. Luckily, the borrowed shovel was a handy tool for peeling the coconut. And from sheer dumb luck I knocked a hole in the coconut to get to the pipa. I’m not impressed. It’s just water.

But I’m told it is a helluva laxative. Let’s hope this day doesn’t have a fourth first: the Sedolsoder Squirts.

Loving Our New House In Costa Rica

Published on July 7, 2011 in Baby Boomer. 1 Comment Tags: .


I love our new house in Costa Rica.
We haven’t lived here long enough to make it home yet, but it won’t be long.
So far, here’s what I love about our new house in Costa Rica:

  • The countryside, living in the country, living where the farmers live. I never thought I would find myself living on a gravel road, let alone in Costa Rica. In Allen, Michigan, there were gravel roads all around us, but we lived on U.S. 12, formerly a major highway between Detroit and Chicago. It still had plenty of truck traffic. Visitors would remark on how difficult it was to sleep with the windows open (no a/c) because of the truck noise. We lived at the edge of town so the trucks were either upshifting or downshifting as they passed our house. At our new house in Guacimos de Atenas there are no trucks. Only an occassional bus, car or motorbike and then only until dark.
  • Bruce and Frances Jones. Everybody who moves to a new country should have a Bruce and Frances! They would be the first to tell you they don’t know everything about Costa Rica, and they don’t pretend too. But they sure know a lot. They have lived here long enough to know people and places. They are our mentors. Could we have done it without them? Yes, but it would have been so much more difficult. We can never repay them, but we will try. At least, we will try to “pay it forward.” There have been others, but Bruce and Frances were the first gringos we met.
  • Sunrises. I haven’t seen a sunrise (other than on vacation) for years. It was a struggle to roll out of bed at 7 a.m. to head to work. Now I am awake at 5:30 and watch the sunrise out our bedroom window at 6:00 am and I’m ready for a new day.
  • The animals. Aside from the cows and horses and chickens, I love the parrots in the tree beside the pool, the monkeys in the trees just down the hill, the huge variety of birds and their calls, the butterflies.
  • People. So far, we have yet to run into anyone that wants to make our life more difficult. Everyone wants to make our life more pleasant. From the grocery clerk, the hardware store guy, the butcher…
  • The house itself. It is small, very small. Half what we had before. But since we only truly lived in half of that house, our house in Costa Rica will be fine – until we expand. :-) – which will be very soon. We will be adding a master bedroom, changing the guest room into a media room, carport with bodega, and of course, dog fence. A general contractor came within hours of me leaving him voice mail and will have the estimate “soon.”

I have adapted the “tranquilo” life easily. It doesn’t HAVE to get done right now, it will be OK if it gets done later. Internet for example, for a guy that has lived and died by the web, I’m OK that our innerwebs is unavailable here at home. If we need it bad enough, I can drive into town “sometime” and access somebody’s wireless.
Enough sappiness. Here’s the crapola about living in Costa Rica – so far.

  • No friggin’ internet. OK, I gotta take some responsibility – let’s say somewhere in the range of 100% responsibility. When we looked at the house, the guy was using a computer on the internet. Access had been so ubiquitous via wireless or cable that I didn’t give it a thought. Turns out he was using a WiMAX card, which is 512 bps (or something) which is OK for email, but not much else. So we are looking for suitable alternatives.
  • Outrageous car prices. We ended up paying $11,500 USD cash for a 1999 Mitsubishi Montero Sport XL Limited. There are very high duties on cars (to offset low property taxes) so every car is ridiculously priced (compared to the U.S.)

Aside: I’m trying to avoid comparing prices to the U.S. because we. don’t. live. there. anymore. :-)

  • Paperwork. Jeez they love the paperwork in Costa Rica. We paid for the car yesterday (Wednesday), but can’t take delivery until Monday at the earliest because of all the paperwork. After 2 hours with a lawyer to do the deal, the used car guy will call us when we can pick up the car.

I love my new house in Costa Rica. Is there crapola? Claro! There is crapola where-ever you live.
But, it won’t be long before our new house in Costa Rica will be our new HOME.
I love my new house in Costa Rica.

Moving to Costa Rica Milestones & Robin

Published on June 24, 2011 in Baby Boomer. 1 Comment Tags: .

Moving to Costa Rica is just full of milestones. Today there were two:

  • the shipper made contact to confirm that the driver will be a Haus de Bow-Wow at 7 a.m. on June 28. Which is what our Costa Rica shipper told us.
  • Bin/box number 400 was packed today. It was my Costa Rica rocking chair which we purchased on our first house-hunting trip. Wasn’t purely planned that way, but when I got close to that number I figured it was time for the chair to prepare for the second half of the round-trip.

As I sat in the backyard eating lunch, Sedona and Derby were with me… they aren’t far away now that their pals are in Costa Rica. There was a mama Robin and a baby getting food. The baby was in the hoppy stage with limited flight capabilities. It wasn’t long before Sedona noticed and took off after the baby. The lil Robin Red Breast flew to safety about six feet above Sedona’s head. Mama did her thing and divebombed Sedona and lured her away so her baby could be safe.

I love the yin/yang of nature. I think I’m gonna like it in Costa Rica – can’t wait to see Sedona interact with a Toucan! or Laughing Falcon aka/ Orgasm Bird.

My friend Jeremy gave me some excellent tips on off-the-beaten path sites that he found during his 2 week vacation in CR. He says he could see himself retiring there someday.

He’s a hipster raconteur. I can’t wait to meet him on top of volcano. It will be EPIC. (Jeremy teaches me hipster chat.)

More milestones coming up. Nancy is car shopping today. Phone company should get phone and internet hooked up “soon.”

 

Costa Rica Jugs of Mangoritas Baby!

Published on June 7, 2011 in Baby Boomer. 2 Comments Tags: .

Just got the confirmation that our shipping container will arrive June 28, at 7 a.m. I’ll have three hours to load our crap and Smart Car before it all gets trucked to a train to Miami to catch a ship to Costa Rica to a truck to Sedolsoder.

I’ll be heading out as soon as I can close the deal on our house and get all our utilities shut off.

I loaded box/bin number 250 this morning. I’m guessing that we’ll hit the 300 mark when it’s all said and done.

Nancy will be in Costa Rica before me and will have the Jugs of Mangoritas waiting my arrival.

Woooo hoooooo OMG!

Continuing the Conquest of Cramming Crap in Costa Rica Container

Published on June 2, 2011 in Baby Boomer. 4 Comments Tags: .

Box #221 was added to the manifest this morning and stacked up in the garage ready for our forty foot shipping container to arrive prior to moving our crap to Costa Rica.

Still no confirmation from the woman who is in charge of our shipping container. This is the same women who prides herself on her great communication skills.

I understand the business of Tico Time: Everything moves slowly in Costa Rica. But I’m still on Gringo Time. Nancy is frantically loading boxes and I’m sealing, inventorying and stacking them. The last time I heard (May 5) our contact wrote:

I should think June 28 would work well.

Should work? How about WILL work?  (I thought to myself.)

Then nothing for two weeks.  I expressed my chagrin that I hadn’t heard from her she was very apologetic

And, truly, apologies for leaving you hanging.  (This is normally my real strength – communication! — so it’s so out-of-character for me to be behind in this regard!)

What should I do because it’s happening again? Her strength is communication. This is out of character. Maybe she has been eaten by a bug? I should feel sorry for her?

If I was Steven Tyler, I wouldn’t have this problem.

There are three shippers that specialize in Costa Rica. One didn’t respond at all to my emails, and the second is very slow… our choices are somewhat limited and time is winding down. I won’t have a place to live come July 1.

I explained to her that I’m being a nervous-nelly – but only because I. HAVE. NEVER. DONE. THIS. BEFORE.

And this morning this showed up in my inbox:

UPDATE: The power of blogs. I had just posted this when I got an email response. She in fact HAD emailed me on Monday and I did not get it (and I did check my spam folder.) This does nothing for my confidence that future communication from Costa Rica to the rest of the world will be good.

Pura Vida.