La pura vida. That’s how the locals (los ticos)
describe life here. Relaxed, friendly, helpful and beautiful. Our first night
at the B&B, when the hot water wasn’t working and two light bulbs were out
etc. I thought la pura vida meant “nothing works and nobody cares.” I have
since tempered my outlook. As we used to say in the 60’s “go with the flow.”
Being retired helps a lot, of course, since we don’t have to be anywhere at any
specific time and we’re not on vacation where we have to cram in X number of
things in a limited span of time.
One thing I have figured out is how
this country got its name, Costa Rica, which means “Rich Coast.” It has to do
with colones, the money here. 500 colones equal one dollar US. They don’t have
Costa Rican dollars, only colones. It’s as if the US only had pennies. A movie
would cost you 700 cents. So, we filled the gas tank of our rented SUV and it
was 37,000 colones. To convert, drop the three zeros and multiply by two.
That’s $74.00 US. (Gas is expensive here, around $5.00 per gallon.) Anyhow, the
smallest paper bill is a 1,000 colones note. (Worth $2.00 US) But let me get to
the point: Why does Costa Rica feel “rich?” They have these big golden
(actually bronze) coins: 500, 100, 50, and 25 colones. At first, we just handed
them American money, which they accept here. But the change is in colones. After
a day at the market and shopping around town, you have a pound of brass coins
in your pocket. I like to stack them on
the table in our little rented efficiency. They make me feel like Blackbeard
the pirate after pillaging a village. Har!
Getting used to no-street-names is a
challenge. That’s right; they don’t have street names. So, if you want to get
to somebody’s house, you have to ask them “How do I tell a cab driver how to
get to your house?” They write it down. Something like, “From the church in
Grecia, drive out past the supermercado (the new one, not the original one),
take the right fork, then the third left turn and go to the red house on the
left.” So, to get from downtown Grecia (our little city) we know to drive from
the cathedral at the town square about 3 km to a sign that reads El Quixote.
Hang a sharp right and go past Hydrante 4 and take the gravel road to the
right. Odd as it is, you do learn where things are. The GPS is invaluable. You
have to buy one from here. Our US one won’t work, they say. The GPS calls all
the roads “unnamed road” but you see the display of the roads and an English
speaking GPS voice tells you to turn in so many miles. We have already made
several friends here as a result of the tour and just meeting Ticos. So using
the GPS, once you get to someone’s house the first time, you just enter “Juan’s
house.” The GPS logs the coordinates and will show you how to get there next
time.
Costa Rica is a small country of
more than 20 micro climates, depending on the elevation and the mountains.
There are few flat places here. Everything is up and down, and your car knows
it (especially if you have an automatic transmission) This is the rainy season
throughout the country. Where we are, that means an afternoon shower every day
and temperatures that stay in the 70’s year round. Two hours away from us on
the Pacific Coast it gets to 100 degrees and humid at the beach. (Costa Rica is
only 10 degrees north of the equator.)
The rain forests are always wet and humid. No thanks!
We are looking for a rental house,
furnished, with some open land to have a garden, chickens, a goat, horses, Internet,
etc. etc.. We should be able to find something like that for $500 a month. We looked at
a beautiful new 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom house with an amazing view of the hills
and coffee plantations and distant mountains -- for $850/month. That's more
than we'd like to spend, but considering you never need heat or a/c, it's
certainly not bad. Yesterday we looked at a place for $450 a month that
would be called a Tico house. It was a masonry bungalow on a steep hillside in
the country. It had no glass windows, only wooden shutters. Two of the three
rooms had a ceiling. The third room was like a shed (but it was supposed to be
a bedroom and it had a bed in it). No ceiling and no soffits, so it was open
where the roof met the walls. A bird flew out in a panic when we stepped in.
And for that $450 a month, instead of
pesky windows that you’d always be washing, the house came with … juro por
Dios … BATS living in the bathroom (bat-room?). Oh, and birds too, but it
was the bats that REALLY got our attention! So we're still looking. We're
willing to rough it a bit but I draw the line at taking a shower with a row of
bats hanging from the rafters. We took pictures and said, “We’ll
let you know.” The “landlord” -- a very nice young woman who is really only the
sister-in-law of the sister who now lives at the beach and apparently owns the
“house” will discover quickly enough that nobody will rent it at that price
(maybe at any price.) There are too many other Ticos and Americans who have
really nice properties available.
Interestingly, as more and more Americans move here, I fear
that the McMansions will begin to take over the Tico houses; and the hillsides,
instead of being dotted with little farmhouses, pasturelands and coffee bushes,
will be a puzzle of interlocking housing developments with nothing to look at
but other housing developments. Once we move here, we don’t want anyone else to
come (well, unless it’s any of our friends or family, of course).
Ciao (adios) for now, friends all,
