The "Lasts"

As our days shorten there starts to be a list of "lasts". For example, this will be our last Memorial Day, I am down to my last bag of sugar, next to last rent payment, got my last version of Photoshop, well you get the idea.

So as we go through our list of "lasts" before you know it there will be a list of "firsts" to start. By the way, the picture is my "first" HDR image using my "last" version of Photoshop, finally Adobe got something right.

This probably will not be my "last" posting.

Garden of Life

When we got our house the garden was not very grown up. Since the builders had just finished building the house the plants had been put in the ground. We returned to the house six months later and what a difference. That amount of growth would have taken 3 years here in the Pacific Northwest to show the same amount. We landscaped our house here with lots of plants and although some did well others were not that much bigger when we sold it 4 years later. It will be interesting what it will look like again on the next trip down.

We will be buying the small lot next to us for added buffer so when all is done we will have about 2000 sq meters of property. Landscaping in the tropics is a bit different especially since this is part of an old cacao finca. Unfortunately most of the trees have the fungus that affects the fruit causing it to turn black and rot and not ripen to its bright yellow color. I would be nice to be able to harvest some and make our own chocolate, there are place around that do and it is really the best.

Before we left I put an avocado seed in the ground so I will be interested to see if that took. We also have a few banana plants growing. The banana plant is the largest herbaceous flowering plant. Plants are normally tall and fairly sturdy and are often mistaken for trees, but their main or upright stem is actually a pseudostem that grows 6 to 7.6 metres (20 to 24.9 ft) tall, growing from a corm. Each pseudostem can produce a single bunch of bananas. After fruiting, the pseudostem dies. It will be nice to be able to harvest our own bananas.



The Montezuma oropendola is a fascinating bird. We had a flock of about 20 brids show up one evening feeding on the bananas across from us. This large bright yellow tailed bird (18-20 inches) builds pendulous nests, which cluster in colonies of sometimes 140 or more! The most bizarre feature is Montezuma's unforgettable song, of wheezing, gurgling and popping sounds. The male, seen in front of the female, will execute a complete somersault around a branch while simultaneously singing this medley of sounds.


Nests of the Montezuma oropendola

So it really is a garden of life

How Safe is Safe?

How safe is safe? I guess that is always a question that you have to ask yourself as you embark on a life changing move. When we took off on this road we knew we didn’t have enough saved to make it through our golden years, especially with the down turn of the markets and the out of control price of health care. Since we started coming to Costa Rica in 2000, I guess I always felt that this would be a great place to live out those few remaining years. Patience is the key to a happy life (Pura Vida) in Costa Rica. Things move (or not) at a very different pace than the fast paced life of the US.

Although I have never felt very secure while in San Jose, outside of San Jose I have never felt any real threats (other than driving on the roads). Then again we don’t do a lot of night life kinds of things like dinning out or go dancing till all hours of the night either. That was reserved for the younger days and now with those days way far back in the rear view mirror we are content to live a simple life and enjoy the abundant nature that surrounds us.

When I read something about Costa Rica it perks my interest and when I saw some comments someone made about Costa Rica I started looking at what might have caused this to be so negative.

Here is a small except from an article I saw in the New York Times “Your Money” section:

“”Americans Who Seek Out Retirement Homes Overseas
By SHELLEY EMLING
Published: May 18, 2010 The New York Times

For those worried about finances, Latin America seems to be one of the safer bets, according to Kathleen Peddicord of Panama City, Panama, author of “How to Retire Overseas.”

Ms. Peddicord said she used to recommend Costa Rica, but no longer does. She cited the growing crime rates both within and outside of San José, the Costa Rican capital.

As time goes on, retirement hot spots change along with countries’ economic and political situations.””

Interesting that she believes that crime is a factor not to recommend a place to live. Try finding a place in the world without crime! All those in New York better find another place to live!

Here is a small except from the US State Department’s web site on Panama:

“Crime in Panama City is increasing and the Department of State recently increased its evaluation to “High” for purposes of providing increased resources to protect Embassy employees housed in Panama City. The increase in violent crime is primarily related to narco-trafficking related violence. The city of Colon is also a high crime area. Police checkpoints have become commonplace on weekends on roads in both cities. Based upon reported incidents by local police, the high-crime areas around Panama City are San Miguelito, Rio Abajo, El Chorrillo, Hollywood, Curundu, Veracruz Beach, Panama Viejo, Casco Viejo (particularly at night), Santa Librada, San Miguel, Cabo Vierde, and the Madden Dam overlook.”

Here is a small except from the US State Department's web site on Costa Rica:

“”Crime has become an increasing concern for Costa Ricans and visitors alike. Daytime robberies in public places occur, and thieves have been known to brandish weapons or threaten violence if victims resist. Over one and a half million foreign tourists, the majority American, visit Costa Rica annually. All are potential targets for criminals, primarily thieves looking for cash, jewelry, credit cards, electronic items and passports. U.S. citizens are encouraged to exercise the same level of caution they would in major cities or tourist areas throughout the world. Local law enforcement agencies have limited capabilities and do not act according to U.S. standards. Travelers should minimize driving at night, especially outside urban areas.

Thieves may work in pairs or small groups. The most prevalent scam involves the surreptitious puncturing of tires of rental cars, often near restaurants, tourist attractions, airports, or close to the car rental agencies themselves. When the travelers pull over, "good Samaritans" quickly appear to change the tire - and just as quickly remove valuables from the car, sometimes brandishing weapons. Drivers with flat tires are advised to drive, if at all possible, to the nearest service station or other public area, and change the tire themselves, watching valuables at all times. Another common scam involves one person dropping change in a crowded area, such as on a bus. When the victim tries to assist, a wallet or other item is taken.””

What they say here is all true, I have read many post by tourists citing the very same tale with the flat tire or leave valuable in cars parked in parking lots. You notice that the State Department did not put an evaluation of “High” on Costa Rica (yet). I think to say that Costa Rica is a bad place that should be avoided is, in my opinion, not true. We have never had any problems (knock on wood) while we have been in Costa Rica and want to keep it that way.

Our Little Town

Our little town

It is getting harder to contain oneself as the days get fewer and fewer. Although there are still so many unknowns about this whole transition between here and moving there, I feel we are prepared for most of the surprises. There will be a lot of logistical things we will need to get done once we get there. After a week or two we will need to go to San Jose and meet with ARCR folks to go over our paperwork and to get a driver’s licenses so at least to get that out of the way. It will be hard to do all of this since we will have the dogs to content with in a new place. Finding someone to sit and watch the house will be a chore. By then I hope to have our cell phone activated so we can keep in touch while we are gone.

I will have to drive our friends back to San Jose the week after we get there so they can catch their flight back home, that will be a long day, 8 hours of driving in Costa Rica is like driving a week in the states. Hopefully by then they will have taken care of all the landslides along Ruta 32 as it goes up and over the mountains. The mountains are mostly unconsolidated material and not like hard rock granite so when you over steepen the slopes and add lots of rain chances are landslides will happen. The new coastal highway is going through that stage now where huge rocks the size of houses are falling on the cars. One more reason not to drive at night, to say the least.

Being on the coastal plain is much different since it is so flat and it is prone to flooding. When a big low pressure sits off shore it can pump a lot of moisture into the mountains and huge amounts of water comes tumbling down. Riding a bike there is real easy since it is so flat, a plus for sure. We will need to find a couple of well used bikes to go into town since that will probably become a daily part of life. The list of things we will need to get isn’t too long but trying to find out where to buy will be the challenge.

It’s not like Home Depot is right around the corner so you have to find out who sells what and who has the best price. I was looking at toilets at the building supply place in Hone Creek and they were $600, what a shock. Now that's what I call a throne.

Just what to expect

Well yesterday I read another article about a person being deported from the country for over extending their stay (by three months). The problem with these types of articles is that it never gives you enough background information surrounding the incident. Sometimes a one sided in the point of view is presented. Comments in the article where a bit distrubing. Although I feel sorry for the individual for being bared from the country for the maximum time of 5 years, there must be something else, as Paul Harvey would say, "And now for the rest of the story".

Since we will be using ARCR to help us through the process, I am hoping that we will be treated fairly since we are going through the process as required by the new law. By the time we actually file, the process may change again since the law has not been finalized in La Gaceta, the official counterpart to the US Federal Register.

We have after all, signed up for the adventure, and I am sure we will be in for the ride of our lives.

"RECORD COLD"

This is one phrase I will not miss. Here we are on the 24th of May with "record cold" temperatures. Not even the 10 day forecast looks like we will pull out of this crappy weather pattern. Until there is a big change in the Jet Stream, I am afraid we are doomed to be cast in cold weather.

""Forecasters said they do not see any kind of big warm up through this week.""

Oh how I long for the warm weather of PV! Sure it's muggy and hot but I was hoping not to have to pay another $300 for propane before we leave. so much for that! Living in a "barn" is just that; it feels like someone did leave the door open!

Been Busy, Well sort of

As we are confined to the cold northwest, our friends Larissa and Rami (who build our home) are helping us out by have things done to our house. We had doors added to the bathrooms and are having some furniture made, some tables, a bed and kitchen cabinets.



This table is being made for a wood carving we bough in Quepos back in 2001.

Travelin' Man (Person)

Wow, we haven't even left yet but we just got tickets to come back to USA and then leave again. Since we will need to leave at least once before we get our file number we thought it better to go ahead and do it now and not wait for prices to go up. Besides, we needed a return ticket as insurance in case we are asked while processing our application. We have way too much invested in this process just to let a small cheap plane ticket put us in jeopardy.

So with that out of the way that enables us to do mare planning and another chance to bring more things back with us, especially after being there for 3 months to see what we really need to bring. One thing that comes to mind is celling fans.

All These Documents

Granted it's only five pieces of paper, but they are an important part of the process to become a full time resident in Costa Rica. Two Birth Certificates, One Marriage Licenses and Two Police Reports. All need to be notarized, State Certified and Embassy Authenticated. It's the last part that has me a little worried, just how do we get these there and back in time to leave in August.

Right now I am trying to come up with a plan to fly to Washington DC to stand outside the Embasy door to see if they will attend to my needs on a walk-in basis. The good thing is we have friends that live within walking distance of the Embassy. That would be a huge saving. I would also like to fly out of Denver while we are there instead of flying out of Spokane since there is no such thing as a cheap flight. Timing is everything. If we can get out documents back from the State's long before we are ready to leave I just might.



Since Spokane is not a hub, flights in and out are very limited which makes things more expensive and longer flights.

None the less it looks like DC is in our plans.

COSEVI Revealed

Wow, I am way excited! I finally found something that pointed me in the direction of the Driving Licenses Place in San Jose. Since there are no addresses, other articles would always say it is on the main street of Uruca (that helps). Well from the looks of things it would be hard to spot unless you knew what you were looking for!!

So once we get down there we will be able to find it and know where the Bank is and the Doctors office. So maybe it will only take us a day to get this done.

To top it off I even know where the Immigration Office is too!




It's the little things in life that excite! Pura Vida

Trading UP

Just so you know where we are coming from, this picture is of the BARN we live in now. This was the only place we could to find live while waiting to make our move after we sold our house. We did not expect this since we had been told that the average days on the market for a house in Moscow was around 200+/-. That would have put us at the end of July when we had planed on leaving. That would have worked out perfectly. But as it is, we are staying here. Don't get me wrong, we appreciate the opportunity to have a place where we can keep the dogs.

Right after we signed the lease the owner got an offer (after sitting on the market for a year)and sold it to a young couple. They accepted the house as is, meaning they had to wait until our lease was up. This young couple is eager to get into their new place and start a life, we are eager to get out of this house and start ours. The next couple of months will be interesting as I am sure they will be around more often than not doing little things to the yard, bring stuff over to store, etc. You get the picture.

We will be blasting out of here as soon as we can, taking with us what we have left, dropping off bags of goodies to friends in Spokane who will be coming with us on the flight, and the rest to the kids to keep and bring down when they come.



I will gladly trade up to this.

Good Dog News

Well a fellow traveler has successfully navigated their way from Denver to San Jose, Costa Rica with dogs in tow flying on Frontier Air Lines. Here is a copy of the report:

""Everything went so smoothly we were waiting for something to go wrong. But it was the easiest transfer ever!!! You are probably leaving on the Midnight flight so get to DIA around 9 pm. We were the only passengers there so we had about a dozen Frontier employees helping us.

Out dogs did great! They are enjoying the life here in CR (just getting used to the heat and humidity!)

Just follow the USDA guidelines and you will have everything you need. I had my dogs rabies shots at least 30 days prior to leaving and I had the International Health certificate filled out by my vet 10 days before leaving. The vet faxed the certificate over to the local USDA office to make sure it was filled out correctly. I then made an appointment (without the dogs) with the USDA and picked up the certificate and the rabies vaccination verification from my vet and took it to the USDA office in Lakewood. They verified all the information, stamped everything and I was set. Actually very easy!!

Call Gail at the USDA, she is great - 303-231-5385 .""

With only a few more questions, we should have part of the mystery cleared up so when we arrive at the airport with dogs in tow we will know what to expect and what to do. If this goes as planned then a lot of hand wrenching will not be needed.


""We took them straight to the ticket counter with our other luggage. After we checked in, they checked our health certificate, and put all the stickers on the kennel, we went with them to a security room where we had to let them out of their kennel so the kennels could be examined. After that we put them back in, we wire tied the kennel doors and they were taken to the plane. Our dogs are around 65 lbs so we used a 400 or 500 series that we purchased from Petsmart for $100 each. We picked them up in the San Jose airport at baggage claim #4 (for oversized luggage).

Our dogs are 4 and 6 years old and had never been in a crate before, but they were fine. We purchased the crates a few weeks before we left and left them in the house without the doors so they got used to them being there. We also would throw in treats everyday so they new it was ok to go in them. I think your dogs will do fine.

Also, you may want to find out where your local USDA office is so you can hand carry the certificate to them to get it stamped. Gail could probably help you find it.

Also, the first thing they will ask you at the ticket counter is "Do you have a return flight?" Contact me on my email below and I can tell you about that as well.""

I called the USDA Vet today (5/17) to see what we needed for them to certify our dogs for travel to Costa Rica. Since we will be in Denver longer than 10 days, we can’t have the Idaho USDA do it since the 10 day travel certificate that the airlines use would expire. The 7001 form is good for three months; it’s the other form for interstate travel that runs out in 10 days. So it’s the airlines that have the 10 day restriction not the USDA or Costa Rica.

So anyway we found a USDA Certified Vet in Lakewood that will certify the dogs ($92/ea) and then they will fax the forms to USDA for pre-approval. Once we get the OK from USDA we will make an appointment to take all the original forms to USDA so they can stamp them and we’ll be good to go, or should I say the dogs.

So soon our snow dogs will become beach dogs (we hope)..

New (Political) Era

Our Road sign

Now that there is a new government in Costa Rica, we are moving down just in time to experience the first woman president in the history of Costa Rica. So far she has put a moratorium on gold mining, called for better security and safety and added more rights to working women. Not bad for the first day in office, that would have taken a couple of years here in the US to accomplish.

We are under 100 days before the big move. Next month will be busy getting our documents together that we will need for residency. Hopefully we can get everything done before we leave. We will need two birth certificates, one marriage certificate and two police reports all certified and authenticated. Piece of cake!!!

Downtown Shopping

The other thing will be a trip down to bring items to the house that we will need. We won't be able to bring down everything but a lot of what we need right from the start. Things like computer stuff, art that we have collected from our trips to CR, other odds and ends, DVD's, etc. I will pick up the car from storage and hopefully be able to drive the short route to Puerto Viejo. The road has been closed for about two weeks now because of landslides. When it was originally built the engineering was not stellar and each raining season things like this happen. If you have to take the other road it takes about 10 hours to drive instead of the 4 hours and is more dangerous.

I plan on leaving the car at the house and taking a bus back to San Jose. When we come back in August, we will hire a private van to take all of us to Puerto Viejo and not have to worry about having to pick the car up.

Our Street Corner

Hurry Up!!!

EDIT: OK it's May 6 and gues what? It is snowing once again, enough already!!!

Ok, it's May 5 and it is 32 degress and snowing outside. These last few days can not move fast enough as far as I am concerned. The temperature in our house was 54 degrees, that makes it real hard to get up out of a warm bed!!

I know it will be hot and humid when we move, but after a couple of weeks the body usually can adjust. Plus you don't need the the layers upon layers of clothes like here. I know there has been a lot of discussion about wearing shorts in Costa Rica and I think as long as you don't have to go to San Jose things are OK. After all you are at the beach although I do see most of the older Ticos wearing long pants.

Enough about fashion I am just worried about not being able to warm up for another 99 days!

Using One's Head - "Holy Criminal - Batman!!!"

End of the Road as we know it


A recent article today that was in "Inside Costa Rica", a daily news blog, carried an article about the increasing crime in Costa Rica focusing on the tourists. Those who have never set foot outside of the US are easy targets for these criminals. They are unaware of the types of things you should or should not do. Here is a small excerpt from the article:

""What’s so sad about this article is that the message has been written many times before, published in all of the English as well as Spanish press and yet Costa Rica’s revolving door of setting criminals free just adds up to bigger and better crime.

We who live here are more than casually cautious, especially when around the airport, rental car companies and the freeway corridor connected to lay-over hotels not to mention the downtown streets of San Jose.

But the tourist has not been warned that for years criminals have created new ways and even more efficient ways to steal more things in less time. And almost all, if not all of them, have been arrested over and over only to be set free to try again the next day.""

What prompted this article is that someone made the cardinal sin of leaving their car full of suite cases in a parking lot. I don't think you would do that in downtown LA, why would you do that in San Jose? I did hear something the other day about you're not a resident of New York unless you have been robbed at least once!!!

It is true that the judges are just letting people go for some unexplained reason. Some guy was caught with 28 kilos of cocaine and was let free. Another person was caught posing as a house cleaner only to clean out peoples houses. They were let free. What this message sends is no matter how diligent the police work is it does not matter, the judge will just let them free. At some point I am sure that the police will just give up and there will be no law.

One thing that you must put into perspective is that this is a hybrid Napoleonic law form definitely not the same as the USA. Bonaparte remarked that care should be taken to preserve personal freedoms especially when the case was before the Imperial Court: "these courts would have a great strength, they should be prohibited from abusing this situation against weak citizen without connections." However, remand still was the normal procedure for suspects of severe crimes, such as murder.

So as you can see, the mind set is to keep the criminal free unless they do such a serious crime that requires jail. Justice can be swift, but for the petty crimes there doesn't appear to be justice. Just one more reason not to live or stay in San Jose for any length of time.

The house we bought has been robbed (or attempted to be robbed) once. The robber was chased by a machete wielding person never to been seen again. Our living room is open to the outdoors and no way to close it in (most people can't understand why we would have such a place without walls). When we leave the house we lock up every window and door. That's one reason why we are not taking too much with us, for one we don't need it and for another I don't want to attract attention. Our street has many more street lights than the street we lived on in Moscow. It's quite and hard to just drive up without someone noticing. The other advantage is dog's sounding the alert. Robbers have been know to poison dogs to gain entry.

Puerto Viejo has it share of petty crimes, I am not saying that it does not. People have been confronted and robbed, but again, if one uses their head and is aware of the surroundings those types of crime can be avoided. It's no different than any other big city in the USA, if you don't watch yourself you can find yourself in a position you would rather not be facing.

As a note: An article in "La Nacion" today spoke of the long lines of people waiting to get their permits to carry arms. This is what happens when the police force has no force. People will start defending themselves, it's only natural. Remember the days back in the 1920 and 1930's when guns blazed all the time until the laws tighten up. The new president coming in has security high on the list but I would think that would mean that criminals caught should be dealt with and not just set free the next day.