BUSING IT FROM COSTA RICA TO NICARAGUA: PART 2, BEING THERE by Paul and Marilyn

Sunset over the Pacific.

Hotel El Jardin

Like the blind men and the elephant, our reflections on our brief stay in San Juan Del Sur are limited to a very small slice of what is available. We didn't experience any of the apparently expansive night life or the adventure sports. We didn't hang out with the giant Jesus on the hill either. So this post is less a travelogue and more a reflection.

 This photo of El Jardin is courtesy of TripAdvisor

At Hotel El Jardin, breakfast (included in the room rate) and dinner were served on the patio, a lovely place to start and end each day with a balmy breeze, Nacascolo Bay and the blue Pacific in the distance. However, we found to our disappointment that El Jardin doesn’t have a shuttle van to take guests into town. Marilyn had checked out so many places on Trip Advisor before deciding on El Jardin, that she’d confused it with a different hotel that DID offer shuttles. So if we wanted to get to town, we’d have to call a taxi.

Looking out on the Nacascolo Bay with the Pacific in the distance.

But after breakfast, on our first day, we decided to walk down to the bay for a swim  We had heard that during the dry season, Guanacaste, the Costa Rica canton just south of the Pacific Nicaraguan border, is hot and dry, like West Texas. We had seen this for ourselves on our bus the day before. The trees were bare, the ground covered with brown leaves. Save for the occasional palm trees, it could have been October in Delaware. The same was true for this part of Nicaragua. Our walk down to the beach was hot, 90’s for sure.  And unlike our mountain home in Grecia, where the foliage remains green year round, the mountains around the hotel were brown and dusty.

We also walked to the bay on our second day, but started out a lot later and had to walk back up the hill at high noon (For some photos of our swim and hike, check out Marilyn’s photo essay). So on our first day, after cooling off in the lovely El Jardin pool, we decided to take a taxi ($10 – should have negotiated a better price) to go into town for lunch. The main street of San Juan Del Sur parallels the beach with shoulder to shoulder thatched-roof restaurants, beer joints, sodas, surf shops and little hotels, a few of which one might want to consider for an overnight. 

Beachfront restaurants and hotels at San Juan Del Sur

Really good pizza!

Watching sand and surf from
our table at Pizzaria San Juan del Playa

We wandered in to an open-air restaurant (Pizzaria San Juan del Playa) that provided welcome relief from the blazing sun. We had a brochure-perfect view of the bay – a few swimmers and many boats. On the advice of a guest back at El Jardin, we ordered beers and a pepperoni pizza (our first pizza in more than six months!!). The pizza was so good we immediately ordered another. Since it was about three in the afternoon, we counted the first pizza as lunch and the second one as supper. 

Fishing boats, San Juan Del Sur

Bocce ball on the beach.

After happily stuffing ourselves, we strolled on the beach at low tide. A group of expats were playing bocce ball, and a few people were wading in the shallows. As we made our way down the seemingly pristine beach, it was unsettling to see a drainage ditch or sewer leading from under one of the restaurants out to the water. This does not appear in the brochures.

Umm ... what is draining into the sea from this ditch?

Street paralleling the beach.

A block or so off he main drag.

Wandering in a block or two from the beach, we were reminded that this is a third world country and poverty is everywhere. The difference between the touristy beach row and a few blocks in was striking. 

One of several charming clapboard houses in the tourist area.

Looking for a market to pick up some fresh fruit, we found our way to a mercado that can only be described as squalid. A single light bulb cast shadows over piles of half-rotten bananas and shriveled vegetables. Unlike Costa Rica, there were no Holas! Or Buenas Tardes! for the Gringos. No smiles. Groups of people and naked children chatted with each other in the dark as if we were invisible. We left fruitless, buying a few bags of chips from a snack vendor. When Marilyn picked up the bags of chips from the shelf, several cockroaches scurried for cover. It says a lot about how much I knew I would need Doritos later that I bought them anyway.   

Funeral procession.

Outside it was easily 95 degrees, and people were sitting and lying on the sidewalks in the shade to get away from the heat. With no room on the narrow sidewalks, we walked in the street. 

Soon we were crowded off the street as well, as a funeral procession passed by. The lead vehicle was a white pickup truck carrying the flower-covered coffin. Contemporary music blared from the truck, so the deceased was probably relatively young. A second pickup, overflowing with flowers, followed, then at least a hundred solemn people on foot passed by. Some bystanders watched quietly, respectfully; others continued to drink their beers and tend to the minutiae of the day.

Iglesia San Juan Bautista

We continued through the town, heading for the town square and the church. Like Costa Rican churches, this one faced west and was the center of San Juan Del Sur. 

Wooden interior Iglesia San Juan Bautista

Welcome breezes from the church's open windows

The church was a wonder to behold. Massive wooden trusses tied together with intricate joinery held the walls and the roof in place. All the doors and windows were open. A few votive candles burned by the altar. We sat quietly as faint sea breezes played over our heated bodies. A parish priest chatted genially with two women. Another woman, gnarled and bent, keened loudly as she rocked to and fro in a pew several rows in front of us. She was obviously a regular, because neither the priest nor the women gave her any notice.

Because our budget wasn’t going to allow us to do any tours (including what looked like an incredible sunset horseback ride on the beach), we decided there was nothing much more for us to do in the town. Before returning to El Jardin, we arranged our return to the border at a hotel. Rather than going back to Rivas to pick up a bus, the shuttle from the downtown hotel would be dropping us right at the border so that we could go through customs on our own without waiting for a busload of people to be checked through. The $45 fee included picking us up after breakfast at El Jardin. We’d read that there were bus kiosks right at the Costa Rican border, so it seemed like it would be easy to arrange for a bus back home. More on that in the next chapter. 

When Marilyn posts our March expenses, she’ll have a breakdown of all of our costs for this trip. But for our one day in San Juan Del Sur, we spent $25 on our two (delicious) pizzas and beers and $20 for the round-trip back and forth from El Jardin (after we returned to the hotel, we talked to another couple who’d negotiated $6 one-way for the taxi – obviously, we could have done better). Oh, and about $4.00 for two bags of Doritos and two Snickers bars. These would come in handy the next day. After our swim in the bay and our hot hike up the hill, we were too tired to go into town to eat. And dinner service didn't start until 6:30. After carefully inspecting our snacks to make sure they were free of "visitors" we ate our hearty lunch of chips and chocolate. Next:  The return home. 

BUSING IT FROM COSTA RICA TO NICARAGUA: PART 1, GETTING THERE by Paul

Me on TicaBus.

Until Marilyn and I obtain our residency in Costa Rica, we need to leave the country every three months. So, at the end of March, we decided to travel north to San Juan del Sur in Nicaragua for a 4-day stay at El Jardin, a beautiful hotel looking out on the Pacific Ocean.

I must have watched too many
 "bandito" movies in my youth.

Since moving to Costa Rica in October of 2013, I have replaced my old Hollywood engendered, stereotyped images of Central America with real-life experience. No mustachioed campesinos in white pajamas swinging machetes, no chickens on the dirt runway at the airport, no desperados with belts of ammo over their chests and wide missing-tooth smiles. At least, not here in Costa Rica. 

In my mind, these guys would be "greeting" us at the Nicaraguan border.

However, now I was facing Nicaragua. In the back of my mind roosted images of Daniel Ortega and the Sandinistas, Ollie North and the Contras, and crooked officials in uniform demanding bribes at the border. In reality, neither Ollie nor Daniel was at the border and nobody demanded a bribe. We now know what to expect when taking the bus to Nicaragua, plus we observed some interesting cultural, economic and climate differences between Costa Rica and Nicaragua.

Marilyn had ordered the bus tickets several months ago as proof that we would be leaving Costa Rica 90 days after we returned to it in January. Tickets were $27.00 for each of us. To get to the Nicaragua-bound bus, we took a 10 a.m. local bus from Grecia down to San Jose and arrived an hour later. Cabs were waiting at the bus stop, and for one mil ($2.00), our driver took us to the Ticabus station, five minutes away. We hung out for an hour and a half and then boarded our luxury Ticabus for the trip north.

The interior was clean, spacious and air conditioned. Comfortable seats offered plenty of leg room and reclined far enough to make it possible to actually fall asleep. And there was a bathroom on board, though there was no toilet paper.

I am always worried about being hungry on a long trip, so we brought sandwiches from home and bought extra bottles of water at the bus station. I’m glad we did. We did not stop for food during the four hour ride to the border. At one point the bus stopped to pick up a man on the side of the road who had a cooler of empanadas and drinks.  He moved down the center aisle to sell his wares, however, most people had thought to bring food with them.

Sitting across from us was a young Nicaraguan family – two parents and their three kids. The oldest child was probably five, the youngest, two. During the entire trip, the children were serene and peaceful, playing quietly or napping. We’ve noticed that for the most part children here overall seem more well-behaved than kids we’ve experienced in public places in the states. No tantrums in grocery aisles, no hyperactivity. Marilyn thinks it has something to do with the fact that they’re not fed junk food and high-fructose corn syrup; I think it has something to do with not being overstimulated by TV, video games and an over-abundance of toys. Maybe we’re both close to the truth.

/This lovely and peaceful family were our bus-mates to the border.

It was late afternoon when we arrived at the border crossing. Workers, their faces covered with flimsy cloth masks against toxic fumes, sprayed the underside of the bus with pesticides. Despite the air conditioning, faint fumes still wafted through the bus’s interior. I don’t think any thin face covering could protect those guys from eight hours a day of spraying.

While still on the bus, we filled out customs forms which were collected by an official along with our $14/each entry fee (important note: bring your entry fee in dollars -- not colones). Then we left our luggage behind and entered a building where a woman behind a Plexiglas window took our passports and asked a few perfunctory questions. After hanging around outside for about a half an hour, we reboarded. 

With the Costa Rican check point behind us, we drove a hundred yards through no-man’s land to a large cinder block warehouse with a loading dock at one end. Twilight was upon us. Another official boarded the bus and collected all our passports. Turning over one’s passport in Nicaragua is slightly stomach-churning.  I wondered if we would ever see our passports again. (I pictured waiting in a filthy cell while my siblings argued over whether they should pay the ransom.)

At the Nicaraguan border. Waiting to for our passports
 so we can reboard the bus.

We got off and waited by the side of the bus. In the now nearly-dark parking lot, peddlers worked the crowd – offering sandwiches, soft drinks, ice cream, Cordobas (Nicaraguan money) to exchange for Colones (Costa Rican money), and phone cards. Meanwhile, the driver, flashlight in hand, pulled out luggage from the bus storage compartment, matching bags with their owners. I imagined how much more challenging this would be in another month after the rainy season starts.

We dragged our bags up some crumbling concrete steps to the loading dock and waited again. A dozen rough wooden tables were lined up.  A single light bulb dangled over the last table where the inspection of luggage was apparently taking place.  

After some 20 minutes, the line had not moved. The fumes from idling bus engines wafted toward us as Nicaraguan officials combed through the engine compartment and luggage areas of the bus -- presumably looking for drugs.  Then, as everyone in line shuffled from one foot to the other in the non-moving line, an official walked down the row of passengers, collected our customs forms and told us to return to the bus. No luggage inspection, no questions, nada. 
We hauled our bags back down to wait by the side of the bus. I chatted with a backpacker from Detroit while Marilyn hung out on the steps with an amiable old hippy, scrawny and bearded, bandana on his head and a beer can in hand.

An official appeared with a bundle of passports and by the light of his flashlight read off the names of passengers in his thick Spanish accent. Luckily, Marilyn and I recognized our names and we took back our passports and reboarded the bus (Sibs can stop worrying about ransom issues).

Though we had paid the fare all the way to Managua (three hours north of the border), we got off on the side of the road in a little town called Rivas, closer to San Juan Del Sur. A cab was at the ready. The driver threw our stuff in the trunk and for thirty US dollars agreed to drive us to our hotel (apparently we could have negotiated the price, but it was almost 8 p.m. and we were tired and hungry).

Our driver apparently a frustrated tour guide,wanted to take us on detours to see Lake Nicaragua and the beach at San Juan Del Sur before driving us to the hotel. “Solamente queremos comer y dormir,” I protested.

 
This photo of El Jardin is courtesy of TripAdvisor

He veered north up the coast a bit and then turned onto a rutted, dirt road up a steep hill. At the top was our hotel,  El Jardin, a beautiful multi-colored stucco compound of patios and porches surrounding a clear pool that rippled in the warm breeze. On the patio by candle light under the jet black velvet sky, thick with constellations, we ordered dinner and two Nicaraguan beers (Toña). It was 8:15 p.m., 11 hours after we’d left our house back in Grecia. Next:  Impressions of San Juan Del Sur.

 
This photo of El Jardin is courtesy of TripAdvisor

A DAY IN NICARAGUA: HIKE TO THE BEACH by Marilyn

We went to Nicaragua for our 2nd 90 day border run. Paul is writing another entry about the rest of our adventures. This is just a photo essay about going to a beautiful, isolated beach. Our hotel, El Jardin, sat above the Playa Nacascolo, the cove just north of San Juan Del Sur.

HORSE PARADE IN GRECIA by Paul

We went to our first Tope last December. These horse parades are held in just about every town and city in Costa Rica.
Click on the link below to watch the video:

Grecia Tope

MY COSTA RICAN GARDEN JOURNAL: Note to Self: Find Blight-Resistant Tomatoes by Marilyn

Me in my garden with my first carrots and daily lettuce.

In my last entry, I was mourning the upcoming loss of my squash plants to cucumber beetles. Although I planted five varieties of squash (3 summer, 2 winter), the only ones that made it through were the zucchini. They prospered despite the proliferation of beetles. Probably because they were the fastest growing they could push past the attack. The other squashes, and the cucumber and cantaloupe plants, were DOA. I will try floating row covers next time. I couldn’t bring myself to photograph the total devastation of that part of the garden.

In the other part of the garden, the spinach continues to produce and we have enough lettuce to eat salads daily. One day I found a recipe for lettuce braised in butter and garlic – two big bunches became my lunch – a nice diversion from raw salads. The carrot tops were getting huge, so I did a test harvest of two of them – the carrots are getting enormous! You can see in the picture that they have a way to go, but I won’t have to be getting carrots at the feria for a while. I googled carrot-top recipes because they are so beautiful, they look so healthy and smell wonderful. I’ll be making this one from Vegetarian Times soon:  

I will be eating the carrots AND the tops.

Warm Chickpea and Carrot-top Salad
Serves 4
1 tsp. olive oil
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 medium onion, minced
1 14-oz can chickpeas, drained
1 cup finely chopped carrot greens,
Juice of 1 lemon
Salt, to taste
Heat oil over medium heat. Add cumin, and sauté 1 minute, or until fragrant. 
Add onion and sauté until golden, about 2 minutes. 
Add chickpeas and sauté until heated through and any liquid has evaporated, about 2 minutes.
Remove pan from heat and add carrot greens. Toss, then transfer to a serving bowl and season with lemon juice and salt before serving.

And with all my carrot greens, I was happy to find the article, 5 Ways to Eat Carrot Tops.
from a great foodie website called TheKitchn.

The cornstalks “look” lovely and healthy. But I’m not holding my breath for that first corn-on-the-cob feast after talking to some folks who’ve tried growing corn here. It has to do with the light. Here in Costa Rica, we get 12 hours of sun every day (well, not in the rainy season – I’ll have to research growing corn then). Apparently, to bring the sugars up to the kernels, corn needs more dark and less daylight. One friend told me that his corn grew to about 4 feet and then – nothing. My cornstalks are now about 3 feet high and I’m seeing some tasseling – I will make a full report in my next garden entry. An aside – when we were here in June-July, Paul and I bought what looked like delicious, wonderful sweet corn from a guy on the side of the road. He had huge piles of it. Well, we got home, steamed the corn, got out the butter and salt and … blech! What were we eating, feed corn? Turns out we were eating the kind of corn used to make tamales. Live and learn.

BLIGHT BLUES

Early blight - so sad.

So, now for the sadness that was my gorgeous, full-of-blossoms tomato plants. One day they looked great. I thought I was doing everything right – I garlic-sprayed the white flies within seconds of discovering them, never got the leaves wet when watering, fed them yummy chicken poop mulch. But it was not enough. Early blight took over the crop, seemingly overnight. The plants are still blooming and fruiting, but, as you can see in the photo, every fruit looks like it was punched in the eye (if tomatoes had eyes). I googled “can you eat blighted tomatoes?” and some folks say “yes, just cut off the blight” but I went to the feria instead and bought a kilo (2.2 lbs.) for $2. I still want to grow my own – I just need to find blight resistant varieties here in Costa Rica. Since many coffee farmers have now turned to growing tomatoes instead, I should be able to find better seeds at a nearby agricultural store.

So many tomatoes, so much blight :(

Eggplant blossoms - I can't wait!!!

These pepper plants were totally destroyed by the dog
 knocking them down the hill. So happy they've come back.

First pepper blossom

The peppers and eggplant that I’ve also planted on the patio seem to be flourishing. They’re starting to blossom and so far nothing is eating them (knock wood). Eggplant has got to be my absolute favorite veggie (not counting tomatoes which are officially fruits) and I’ve noticed it’s hard to find eggplant at the Farmer’s Market, so I can’t wait to begin harvesting them.

Basil doing fine!

Two tiny chive plants - c'mon guys,
you can do it!

In our little backyard, I had turned over some soil, added compost and planted several varieties of herbs. So far, the only herbs that seem to have made it are basil, one tiny cilantro plant and two even-tinier chive plants. Once the rainy season starts I will stick in some rosemary sprigs from my neighbor’s giant plant. I would love to be able to grow oregano, thyme, and parsley. Maybe I need a greenhouse.

Mmmmm ... snow peas in paradise

One little cilantro

I did plant some snow peas against the fence, despite the fact that the clue in their name should have discouraged me from trying to grow a cold crop in the tropics. So far, I’ve harvested enough for a nice lunch – raw snow peas, minutes from the garden, dipped in homemade honey mustard yogurt dressing. That was heavenly. They are still blossoming, so maybe I’ll get one more lunch out of them.

I do love getting lost in gardening, so I’m not giving up, even though my first attempts in Costa Rica have only been about 50 percent (maybe 40 percent) successful. I welcome insights and guidance from anyone who’s happily gardening in Costa Rica (especially in my micro-climate – 4,500 ft. in the Central Valley).

Lots of lovely lettuce

TOUCAN RESCUE RANCH -- NOT JUST FOR THE BIRDS by Paul and Marilyn

Baby Two-Toed Sloth

B&B Cottage on the Grounds

 We recently spent a wonderful afternoon at the Toucan Rescue Ranch with our friends Mark and Georgi.

Directors Leslie Howle and Jorge Murillo have created a peaceful sanctuary for injured birds and animals from around Costa Rica. While the goal is rehabilitation and release back into the wild, sometimes that is not possible, and the creatures become permanent residents at the Ranch.

I'll let Paul's video speak for itself about the tour -- but I do want to mention that if you're visiting Costa Rica's Central Valley you might want to consider booking a night or two at the Ranch's adorable B&B. It's a great opportunity to be introduced to an amazing array of Costa Rican wildlife by some terrific folks who've dedicated their lives to these fascinating creatures.

Here's the link to the video: Visit to Toucan Rescue Ranch - February 2014

From the Toucan Rescue Ranch website:

THE GOALS OF THE TOUCAN RESCUE RANCH ARE:

•     • To establish a captive breeding program for all 6 species of Costa Rican toucans.
•     • To accept, evaluate and treat rescued and decommissioned toucans, sloths, owls
  and other birds and animals in need.
•     • To rehabilitate and release when possible any injured bird or animal back to its’ natural environment.
•     • Provide educational programs, research sites and facilities as well as volunteer opportunities for local, national and international community members.

Grounds of Toucan Rescue Ranch

FEBRUARY EXPENSES – EVALUATING THE $2,000 GOAL by Marilyn

CATEGORY	AMOUNT
Groceries/Household	$568.63
Rent/Utilities	$1,001.09
Transportation	$126.81
Doctors/Dentist/Meds	$400.97
Dogs	$66.86
Entertainment	$57.69
Trips	$14.16
Workshop/Garden	$0
Furniture/Fixtures	$0
Misc.	$12.00
February 2014 TOTAL	$2,248.21

We exceeded our $2,000/month goal by almost $250 in February. Looking at the categories, two stand out. The first is “groceries/household.” We expected to spend about $100/week for this category – and this month it’s more than $140/week. I thought that by baking my own bread, making my own yogurt and salad dressings, growing some of our food (at this point it’s mostly lettuce and spinach), and buying our meats and produce at the feria (farmer’s market), we’d actually spend less than $100/week.

Apparently though, I’m genetically programmed to hoard household items. Price Smart (the COSTCO of Costa Rica) is my Achilles heel. This month we went to Price Smart to get dog food, and left with a groaning grocery cart $230 later. Of course, we now have enough toilet paper and paper towels to last into the next decade, but we also bought some items considered “luxury” in Costa Rica – a block of feta cheese imported from Wisconsin, wine in a bottle instead of a box, and giant quantities of chocolate chips, pecans, dried cranberries and pasta.

I also visited AutoMercado, which is a Gringo-style, upscale grocery store. I needed cheese cloth for my yogurt (I’ve been using and rinsing out the same tattered piece since we moved here in October) and parchment paper for baking. I’d read on one of the expat Facebook pages that AutoMercado carried these two items, so on the way home from our February Blooms meeting, my friends Irina and Kathy and I stopped in to find these items. The parchment was easy to find (but expensive -- $8.63!) but there was nothing resembling cheese cloth. I approached a gentleman who looked managerial and asked if he had “fabrica de queso” when I should have asked for “la estopilla.” Unlike my husband, who is really good at looking up what he needs to say in Google Translate before he goes to the store, I just pulled some Spanish-sounding words out of the air.

Señor AutoMercado Manager scratched his head as he watched my wild gyrations. I was trying to mime putting yogurt into cheese cloth and squeezing out the liquid, but it probably looked more like I was milking a cow. So he said something to one of the clerks, who came back with a jar of Cheese Wiz. Meanwhile, Irina found two women shoppers and tried to communicate my cheese cloth needs to them. They said something to Señor Manager and he motioned us to follow him through the store. We got to the housewares aisle where he handed me a package containing a microfiber bag for storing lettuce. I couldn’t bring myself to tell him that’s not what I wanted, so I bought it ($16.42). I’ve tested it to see if it will drain the whey from my yogurt – water does come out of it, so it may work. And it looks sturdy enough to last forever.

I’m hoping that we can avoid Price Smart in March so I won’t be tempted. We’ve only gone through about half of the giant bag of dog food, so we may be able to hold out until April. Our pantry is nice and full so it could be that we’ll even be under the $100/week for March.

The other budget-breaker in February was the doctor/medicine category. Paul had a chiropractic treatment, but everything else was me. I had to have a lot of lab work ($180) and my regular medicines are pretty pricey. They’ll continue to be until we get our residency and can use the CAJA (Costa Rica’s required medical insurance that is based on one’s monthly income.) We’ll be depositing my Social security check into a Costa Rican bank and that will determine what we’ll pay for the CAJA. It appears that for the two of us it should come to about $150/month. Once we get on the CAJA, I won’t have to pay anything for doctor visits, lab work or most of my meds.

This is the third month that we’ve published our budget. In March we’ll be going to Nicaragua for our 90-day border run – something we will have to do until we’re in the process of obtaining our pensionado (our category of residency). Many folks do a quick run across and back – but since we’ve never been to Nicaragua, we plan to spend several days visiting Grenada and doing some other touristy activities. So even if we sidestep the lure of Price Smart, we will have some trip expenses to account for. It will be interesting to see how close we can stay to $2,000 in March.

I love doing this monthly report and I hope that it will help folks who want to know what it’s really like to live in Costa Rica. Everyone’s experience is going to be different:  some folks may have much lower housing expenses because they’re perfectly happy in a one-bedroom apartment; others may spend much more because they choose to live in a fancy Escazú condo and spend every weekend at a beach resort. As I’ve written before, we were initially inspired by Paul & GloriaYeatman, who’ve been publishing their monthly budget for several years. It really helped us before we moved here to determine that we really could retire and live for less in Costa Rica.

WE GO TO SAN JOSE FOR 1 BILLION RISING by Paul

On Friday, February 14 (Valentine's Day) we went with a van load of Blooms' women (and two token men) to participate in the global campaign for justice for women around the world: 1 Billion Rising (click here to read about the campaign). To see the video where the Blooms joined several other humanitarian organizations and the University of Peace to dance in a flash mob, click here: One Billion Rising with Blooms Group

PICKING COFFEE FOR FUN IN COSTA RICA by Paul

We hung out with our landlord Jenny and her family to learn how to harvest coffee beans. The video link is below:

Paul videotaping Jenny's coffee harvesting lesson

Click here for video: Picking Coffee for Fun in Costa Rica

Nathan and Kenneth are coffee bean experts