Fritz in Costa Rica: 2008

Upon arriving in Nosara full time on Sept. 4, 2007, I began a journal of my new adventure. I kept it up for a couple of months, before the pace of my new life, such as it is, overwhelmed my ability to keep it current. It wasn't until more than a year later that I picked up it again while I was in San Jose attending Spanish school. The format of blogger.com is limited, which makes it a challenge for the reader to follow in chronological order. Nevertheless, what follows is my original journal, in its entirety:

We arrived on schedule in Nosara on Sept. 4, 2007, and it seemed like a series of small miracles.

From the airport hotel the night before, I checked the progress of Hurricane Felix as it appeared to be tracking directly into our flight path from Miami to Liberia, the airport two and a half hours from our new home in Costa Rica. Well, we’re going to get wet, if we get there, I thought.

I managed to get a few hours of sleep at the airport hotel before our 3:30 wakeup. I was pretty tired, Jane was holding up ok that evening, as we watched a movie, Blades of Glory, to help us relax. She had woken up that morning at her sister Lindsey’s house with a lot of hip pain and insisted she needed another day in the States, during a low point in the afternoon. A call to the airline convinced her that wasn’t an option, and she seemed to settle down a bit.

We got a strong start in the morning, getting to the airline with plenty of time and finding a porter who could cut to the head of the line for us and get us checked in. When the porter said that Jane’s passport was expired, I assumed she must have her current one because I knew it had years to go before expiration. When she didn’t have it, because she accidentally grabbed the old one, I assumed this meant that she was going to get the extra day she had wanted.

She knew where it was, though, and she soon had Lindsey on the phone, who has provided us with a room and plenty of storage space for our new US base at her home in Ruxton, Maryland, next to Towson. Lindsey would soon be on her way to the airport with the passport, and with some luck there would be enough time to get Jane checked in.

As we considered our options if Jane couldn’t get on the flight, we approached the departure time, and I went to wait at the passenger drop off area, looking for the old diesel Mercedes Benz with the two canoe racks on top. Jane got her ticket, she begged some people to let us cut in line at security and we joined the embarking passengers as our plane left on time.

I dozed on the plane, but in Miami as I stared out the plane window I could see the 2 pieces of luggage Jane checked roll down the luggage belt, as they were the last on, first off.

Our flight was smooth and we arrived on time to dry weather, with our driver Antonio waiting for us in his Toyota 4-Runner.

We made good time, the roads were in good shape and they were even rebuilding a section of the road between Nicoya and Nosara. The last 12 miles to our home and new community are unpaved and always a mess in the rainy season, and Jane had the back seat to herself and was laying down trying to get through the bumps as well as possible. We dropped her and the luggage off at our third house, greeted our two gardeners as they continue to build out the landscaping, and the maid Cecelia was there so the house was open.

I continued with Antonio to the Taller Pena, where our 97 Nissan Pathfinder had been staying since we purchased it on our July visit. It needed some muffler repair and other bodywork.

I drove from there to pick up our keys from our property manager, Agnes, who also runs the Villa Mango B&B with her husband Jo.

“We’re really here,” I said as we hugged.

It was while staying with Agnes and Jo a year and a half earlier that Jane received the news that she had a malignant breast tumor.

“So how does it feel?” Jane asked me on the ride down to Nosara.

I said I wasn’t sure, it still feels unreal.

But now it is real, we are in our house, we have spent a lot of time unpacking, we are thinking about our future away from Washington DC.

Moving into a new house provides a lot of opportunities for fresh starts. It is exciting, but can also have its frustrations as you have to look through every possible drawer to find something. For someone who enjoys cooking, especially on his new kitchen island, it is part of the overall adventure to shop for new ingredients at the local stores, and discover new vegetables and have ripe tropical fruit in abundance. I stocked up at the Super Nosara, and our friend Lori stopped by with champagne to welcome us. I made some guacamole with the perfectly ripe avacados that always seem to be available.

Lori is a Canadian from Newfoundland who runs a gift and crafts store called Nativa that caters to tourists. She originally came to Nosara for the Nosara Yoga Institute, and sometimes teaches one of the public classes. She has been an early friend.

To help Jane get ready for the move, Lori spent six days at our house in August, and got to have only one tour of the city, at night. Her help was one of the critical pieces that made the whole move possible.

On my first day in my new home, I woke up with the monkeys at daybreak. I made some coffee and then went next door to check emails. We have a dial up internet connection in the first of our three houses, a smaller two bedroom that I still love like a first born. Our wireless high speed internet modems were burned by a lightning strike and the telecommunications monopoly had not been by to do their part of the repair work. So, for the time being, our communications would be handicapped.

There was an email from my boss Joe complimenting me on the September newsletter which included some late breaking news about Bush’s mortgage rescue proposal that I had added after leaving the office for my last regular day on Friday, Aug. 31. I had written, edited and published the newsletter on deadline, even though the distractions with closing on the sale of our house were enormous.

Friday was the closing day, and it was a tremendous relief to know that the sale was completed, after a challenging inspection and repair process during which the buyer had threatened to try to break the sale. I don’t know what my blood pressure was during this process, but it will likely take me awhile to chill out.

Our first full day in Nosara was a beautiful day; it became cloudy in late afternoon but only sprinkled a bit. We made the 10:30 yoga class up the road, and I dozed off briefly during the final resting corpse pose, something I’ve never done. I was clearly ready to starting chilling out.

Lori showed up with tuna filets that had been caught that day by some tourists that she had befriended earlier, and I had just taken my Weber grill out of the storage room below the pool deck, where it had rested since I purchased it on my last visit in July. We talked about dogs and options for finding and training a dog for added security, as well as companionship. Lori was taking care of Doris’ dog Perla while she was away, a Doberman-Rottweiler mix who had a mellow, sweet personality with a deep bark. Too bad we can’t clone her, I thought, because she is very well behaved and wouldn’t hurt anyone, including the renters who we want to come back for future visits.

We watched DVDs for evening entertainment and I played my guitar as Jane retired early.

Lots ahead, but no rush.

Sunday, September 9, 2007

Lunch with Emi Garcia and her husband Nico (for Nicholas) today will be a delight. When we first began our construction, Emi was an assistant in our development company, Nosara Development, and was very helpful to us with a lot of details. We became friends and were very sorry when young Emi decided to return to her native Argentina. She married a man in France that she met in Panama and we were very happy to see her back here working at Harmony Hotel in July. We were basing our YogaSurf vacation at this beachside hotel, beautifully upgraded by the new owner, John Johnson of the Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical company. They were fashioning it as an eco-hotel and Emi is the director of sustainability.

When I saw her again Thursday night, I couldn’t believe it to hear that she is also the new editor of Voice of Nosara, the monthly local that I had long planned to become involved with to use my journalism skills at the local level. She was thrilled to hear of my interest and before I left she asked me to contribute a story about the trip we planned the next morning to Ostional for the Arribada, the periodic arrival of thousands of Olive Ridley turtles to the beach to lay their eggs.

This is a renowned event and the reason the beaches in the area, including our own Playa Guiones, has special protections.

Ostional is several miles north of Nosara and this time of year the Rio Montana is impassable. The Harmony Hotel arranged taxi drivers, and we met Miguel at 5 am. At the river, he flashed his lights to another driver on the other side, and we crossed the pedestrian suspension bridge, not for the unsteady of foot. The two of us squeezed into the cab of a pickup truck on the other side and proceeded to the beach entrance, where there was a small crowd and a couple of tourist buses.

We were at the end of the typical seven day egg laying period, governed somehow by the phase of the moon but no one is sure, and we saw a few sets of tracks that had not been washed away by high tide. Vultures picked at the remains of what seemed like thousands of shattered egg shells.

While Jane and I started walking north on the black sand beach, the crowd had gathered to the south, so we joined them. Dozens of Ticos were engaged with rakes, clearing driftwood and any other beach debris and setting it into large piles. Meanwhile, some smaller groups had gathered to gaze down at the sand at what we were to discover were baby turtles emerging by the dozens from holes in the sand.

Here, from a nesting that must have taken place a couple of months earlier, were the babies finding their way up through the sand. An instinctual draw to the sea would get most of them on to their new lives, but the initial process seemed a bit scattered as the hatchlings scattered in different directions.

We saw an American girl there, Erin Lear, who was volunteering as part of a special project to protect the turtles, Global Crossroads. The presence of people to keep away the vultures and other predators helps ensure that more make it back out to sea, she said. She used a finger to help clear some of the sand that kept falling back into the hole and into the face of each successive turtle as it crawled toward the light.

While Ostional is a national park, it is legal for locals to harvest some of the eggs, which are considered a delicacy. Many are crushed by each successive wave of mama turtles as they flap their way up the beach.

The September Arribada will yield hatchlings in November. Once hatched, the babies spend an additional 8 days in their nests buried in the sand before finding their way out.

Our lunch with Emi and Niko and Lori started out poorly as we couldn’t find their house, but when we found the right road we were rewarded with a spectacular view overlooking Guiones beach. I found a bottle of Argentian pinoit noir at our local grocery, Dos Lorenos, and Emi was thrilled because it was one of the top labels in her home region of Patagonia. Nothing is contaminated by chemicals there and everything is grown organically she had told us proudly.

This led to a discussion of the water supply in the American Project of Guiones and the situation facing the entire coast if development outstrips the ground water supply. The poster child for poor water use is seen at Tamarindo where their aquifer became salinated from too much use, and they have already drained the aquifers of two neighboring watersheds. They have now asked the government to take water from Lake Arenal, a man-made reservoir that is already low and overtaxed, not to mention a major source of hydroelectric electricity. Emi thinks that because there is so much development and money in Tamarindo now that they will get what they want.

The conversation turns to the global financial system, which Niko seems certain is headed for a 1930s level crash. Emi described a very bleak time in Argentina when their economy collapsed due to a debt crisis, and people lost their savings.

I said I had seen many financial crises in my career, from the oil collapse to the third world debt problem to the current situation with bad mortgages, and think we’ll get through without a huge crash.

Anyway, if that happened it would be good to own land and have some diversification. Costa Rica is a good place to ride it out, I think.

I went to the Nosara Surf Shop Thursday to see about buying a surfboard. Pio was there, a young Tico I had taken a couple of lessons from a few years ago. We looked at a row of longboards, some just over ten feet in length. Pio thought that as I progressed I’d want something around 9 feet and there were some beautiful professional level boards at around $1000 and some others at around $700. We agreed that a 9’4” board would be about right for me.

We had purchased a used Nissan Pathfinder on our last trip in July from a young blond yoga teacher named Joy who had taught yoga for us on one of our yogasurf retreats. I drove it to the surf shop the next day to pick up my board. I felt like I was getting the right board. The shop owner even knocked a few bucks off.

But first, back to check emails and spend some time on CBA business.

Getting out in the water toward the end of the day, the board seemed to glide smoothly and steadily. I got up consistently for short rides in the whitewater, remembering what it is all about.

I took it out again in later afternoon the next day, walking the few hundred yards to the beach in flip flops. My choice of footwear was governed largely by a concern that unattended shoes may be stolen from the beach, and flip flops are far from my first choice for comfort, but they reminded me happily with every step that my new lifestyle was real. When the next day I headed out to surf in the morning after an early rise and coffee, I knew I was finally living my dream, a day that starts off with catching a few waves.

The day continued with time on the internet and CBA, and then a short walk to the daily 10:30 yoga class at the Nosara Yoga Institute, where Jane joined me. We had lunch at the Soda Tica, where a delicious fish platter is $4.

A few days later I met Nico at 7:30 on the beach. He had a borrowed shortboard that he was learning to surf with, and I couldn’t believe he could ride that thing at all, and in fact he had been barely able to get up on it. We went out, while Emi walked on the beach. He wanted to head for the outside, past the breaking waves, and I figured I’d do my best to get out there with him, even though the waves were large and breaking in short intervals and I knew I probably wouldn’t make it. I did my best, though, paddling hard into crashing waves, hoping for a long interval but not finding it.

No problem, I caught a few on the inside, feeling the fatigue in my arms. I crawled out of the water after exhausting my strength. Sitting on the beach, Emi appeared and we had a nice talk while waiting for Nico. We discussed the story idea she had about the status of real estate sales in the Nosara area, as well as the prospects for and procedures to establish zoning rules to provide local control over development. I mentioned the conversation I had with a developer named Chris, a former Californian who moved here a few years ago and has been involved in selling property and building houses in the area.

His view is that even though not much is selling now, people are not dropping their asking prices because they can generally afford to hold on to what they have. He said he thought having land now in Nosara is a better investment that in the U.S., where it is losing value. Jane and I agreed, although I think the law of supply and demand has not been repealed.

We had our second home listed for sale since last November for $390,000, a price that we considered attractive. There were no offers. A few days ago a local real estate agent tracked me down because he had a buyer who was seriously interested, someone tired of the crowded and overdeveloped scene on the mid-Pacific coast well to the south of us, but I told him we were no longer interested in selling. We had put the house on the market with the anticipation that we would keep our house in Washington and rent it out, and would need the cash to pay down our debt or build some additional cabinas. However, that scenario changed, like so many before it.

Back to the beach. Emi and I concluded our editorial meeting as we spotted Nico approaching along the beach. The current had carried him down a bit. He had managed a couple of rides and was starting to really enjoy the sport. His experience snowboarding in the Alps and his lighter build gives him some great advantages as he tackles his new sport. We agree to meet at the same time and place hasta manana.

As I get back to the house, Jane and Lori are on the deck doing Pilates. A few minutes later John shows up, who is a carpenter/contractor from Georgia who has also recently made a permanent move to Nosara. We had asked him, after seeing him again at the Soda Tica, to give us an estimate on building out shelves in the three storage rooms, or bodegas, at our house. I showed him a large empty room underneath our pool deck, and we discussed a plan to have shelving for four or five surfboards, which would give guests or renters a secure place to keep their boards and not have to bring them into the house. John is a tall dude about my age with surfer looks and a seeming laid back mentality, and he said he needed a little time to get connected with materials and labor, and I assured him we weren’t in a rush.

Our 11 boxes that we shipped from DC had arrived a couple of days ago, and contents were overrunning two bedrooms, so the extra storage space was definitely needed. But the bedrooms weren’t yet needed for guests and we weren’t expecting any until November.

It’s great meeting new people here. You’re bound to run into them on the beach or yoga class, at a restaurant, at a grocers or just walking on the road. It may not leave a lot of room for privacy, and gossip is a major preoccupation, but there was none of this in my world in Washington and I am still awonder at the pleasures of randomly meeting familiar faces.

On our July visit, I kept running into Stephan R., at the SuperNosara, the beach, a restaurant, maybe even 4 times in the space of a few days. He is working with Thierry, the developer who built our houses, to build Alma Verde, a retreat center with about 50 home lots near Garza, one beach to the south. Stephan is the director of the Omega Retreat Center in Rinebeck, NY, and his Costa Rican center is planned on that model, with facilities for 100 or so and a similar lineup of retreat stars in the personal growth field.

Lot sales there, up a steep road with incredible views, are by invitation so as to ensure the kind of community appropriate for a retreat center, and we had decided to purchase one a year or so ago after Jane became concerned that our current location would be too dusty and noisy from construction trucks. This concern flared up on one of our trips when some gravel roads were being laid in a new development and all the Mack trucks were taking the road in front of our houses. I knew this was temporary but there was no appeasing Jane but to spend $200,000 on a lot at Alma Verde, in addition to the five lots we had subdivided our original land into.

By being among the first buyers we had been able to select a choice view, overlooking Punta Guiones, a large land outcropping that separates Guiones and Garza beaches. I don’t know when or how we’re going to ever build a house there, but so far I haven’t exactly gone wrong in investing in land in Costa Rica, so this will probably turn out to be a great investment as well. What it doesn’t have is walking distance to the beach, but I feel like it will eventually open an interesting new chapter in our lives.

Jane and I went to the 8am yoga class today, since it was rainy and I needed a rest from surfing. I’ve been meeting Nico at 7:30 but haven’t been able to paddle through the waves to get to the outside. He muscles through with his short board, but it’s harder with a long board, you can’t do a duck dive underneath the crashing waves.

The yoga class was great, a teacher we hadn’t met before who put us through an intense 90 minutes. We’ve been taking a class almost every day at the Yoga Institute. The Institute was started as the Nosara Yoga Retreat Center about 12 years ago by Don and Amba Stapleton, and Jane and I were their first retreat guests, in November, 1995, before we were married. Jane knew them way back from their days at the Kripalu Ashram, when it was headed by guru Amrit Desai before he was disgraced and sent packing after a sex scandal.

Jane was on the invitation list when their Nosara center opened, and we were the only ones there for their inaugural week, it turned out. It was on that most incredible trip that we came to purchase our lot. Amba’s mother owned a real estate agency in Costa Rica and made it very easy to buy. We were back in San Jose our last night, so I spoke to her on the phone from our B&B, run by Arturo and Vanessa Calvo. Vanessa was also a real estate sales associate for Amba’s mother. At the time I had little idea what was in store, but buying the available lot seemed like a good thing to do at the time. I think really it was to impress Jane, because it was on that trip to Costa Rica that I decided we had matrimony in our future.

Don and Amba regularly walk their two golden labs by our house on the way to the beach, and we invited them over Sunday night for some of my home cooking. They’re vegetarian, but I’ve had some experience stir-frying tofu, and I’d grill some vegetables on the Weber grill.

The NYI is doing well, with up to 60 people in the 4 week teacher training programs they do several times a year. They mentioned the need to start offering on-site lunches, and we joked a bit about Fritz’s grill shack and doing barbecued tofu. Jane said she liked the idea of having people down to our house for lunch, and I can never be sure when she’s kidding. I’ve learned to be careful what you wish for when you’re down here because wishes tend to manifest themselves. Anyway, they thought my cooking was great.

We’ve discussed building a yoga palapa on the top of our hill, since we don’t have money to build a house and it would allow Jane to offer yoga retreats on our premises. Maybe it could double as my barbecue shack, I’m just thinking aloud here. Lots of possibilities for a new career in the culinary arts. We do have a beautiful ocean view at the top of our lot and it would be good to put it to use.

Life is settling into a bit of a routine here, with surfing and yoga interspersed with CBA internet sessions. I’ve started making salads for dinner at Jane’s request, and then we settle in for a movie. A young man from California who moved here a few years ago with his dad started renting videos and now offers an excellent and wide selection of rentals. Then I’ll often practice guitar for awhile until I’m sleepy or my fingers are too sore.

Sept. 15 was our 11^th wedding anniversary and we went to La Dolce Vita, a great Italian restaurant that I think was here on our first trip. It’s much larger, or course, but on this Saturday night in the off season we were one of only two couples in the place. We nevertheless had delicious lasagne and I had lobsters, I think there were four on my plate. We left stuffed and happy. It had been a rainy afternoon so we picked up a couple of videos and spent the afternoon watching them. I felt a little strange just hanging out, I’m not too used to the chilled-out lifestyle. I have to remind myself that I’m in the process of creating the life I desire. It’s a great challenge, and I have to figure out a new balance that feels right. I need to spend a sufficient time writing, playing music, reading, and socializing, as well as income-producing ventures.

Saturday we got kittens.

Sarah, with help from her boyfriend Ty, rescues kittens and finds homes for them. We heard about her during our July trip when we were discussing pets with Lise Quan, our surf instructor for our yogasurf retreats.

They came over on their quad with five kittens in their carrier, so we could pick a favorite or two. I had thought that a kitten would help keep me company when Jane was not around, and was not sure about two of them. But they were as cute as, well… kittens, and as they scampered around our living room floor, it seemed natural to have a couple of them, so they could also keep each other company. A boy and a girl, and we found a pair that seemed to get along well with each other. I wanted to pay for their vaccination but Sarah wouldn’t let me. She had a sheet with information about when future shots are needed and contact information for the vet that makes a periodic trip to Nosara from the provincial seat of Nicoya.

A woman around 30 or so, Sarah is a nurse although not practicing in Nosara. We heard from our gossip source Lori and Emi, later, that Ty has been in Nosara since arriving with his parents as a teenager. He has apparently established a reputation with his adventures.

Ty offered to return with his welding equipment to repair some metal rods that have broken off from the fence that surrounds our pool deck. I’m looking forward to his return, and the opportunity to invite them for a meal prepared on my Weber grill.

Some time back, I found some grill and barbecue designs on the internet, some based on a 55-gallon drum that require some welding. We’ll see where that goes.

Jane is thrilled with the cats, a pleasant surprise because she has always called herself a dog person and has been planning to get a couple of dogs once she’s settled in here after a heavy travel schedule that takes her to March. She said the kittens, and the responsibility they entail, help her feel like the whole move to Nosara is more real.

Sarah hand-fed the kittens, helping to ensure their natural friendliness. Our previous experience with a cat was Jaxx, who we took care of for a couple of years while his owner went overseas to indulge her fantasy about the Peace Corps. Jaxx wasn’t that friendly, although he warmed up to me just fine. Jane never had kittens before (and I hadn’t since childhood) and was delighted with the experience.

Sarah and Ty departed with their remaining three kittens, borrowing a trash bag to cover the carrier since it had begun to rain. Ty said he only had a quad, a 4-wheel ATV, because the bad roads just did too much damage to vehicles and maintenance was high. It started to rain pretty heavily after they left, and although they had full rain gear, I did not envy them the ride back to their home in the hills.

That evening we skipped a free movie they were showing at the Harmony Hotel, and watched the movie Queen on dvd and played with the kittens. They have leopard-like striping on a gray-beige background with white legs and neck rings. We discussed different names, and I said I wanted to name the boy Felix because Hurricane Felix was in our flight path on our way down, and Felix is a great name for a cat, almost as good as Fritz. Jane wanted a more exotic flavor and was drawn to Isis.

As I type, they are next to me cuddled next to each other, sucking each other’s fur no doubt thinking of their absentee mother’s tits. How cute is that?

The next night, Sunday Sept. 23, would be Jane’s last night before returning to DC and then on to a retreat she is producing in Italy. We invited Lori, Emi and Nico over for another dinner ala Weber, this time a mahi mahi steak and chicken. I got to the local carniceria too late; it closes at 11am on Sunday. The butcher shop and its location near the local landing strip was a critical discovery I had only made earlier this year. Finding the Weber was another momentous event occurring on that same trip in July. My first purchase there was pork ribs, and I pointed to my own ribs to indicate what I wanted. The ribs were cut into smaller portions and I would have to learn enough Spanish to describe a St. Louis style cut.

A bridge on the only road to the airport was damaged by heavy rains, underscoring the delicate condition of the infrastructure. This caused Jane consternation as her departure approached, because she could not really afford to miss her flight. We were hearing regular reports about the bridge, just the other side of Garza, which is the next beach to the south of ours, Playa Guiones. At first, some cars were able to pass, but the passable section continued to erode and the authorities ordered it closed, with truckloads of dirt dropped in front of it to ensure no one made an attempt to pass. Even though we heard that the bridge would not be repaired until after the rainy season in November, there were workarounds in place. Monday morning, I drove Jane to the bridge and helped carry her luggage to the other side, along with others including a busload of Tico commuters. Agnes had arranged for a taxi to meet her on the other side at 8 am and take her on to Liberia, a couple hours drive.

I stopped at the seafood market in Garza on my way back, where everything is frozen. I had been introduced to it by Tyler, who was responsible for the surfing instruction on our first yogasurf retreat in 2005. He said it was a cheap way to feed a lot of people, and we got a kilo of small lobster tails, more the size of jumbo shrimp, and a nice dorado (mahi mahi) steak. I recall it was under $20, and I grilled up for about a dozen of us. This time I ordered a kilo of jumpo shrimp and a relatively small dorado filet, not much more than a pound. The sales girl was having trouble translating the price into dollars, which is all I had, and consulted with a young man who seemed to be used to this sort of confusion. I paid about $35. Since there are no prices posted and I’m a gringo with limited ability to communicate, I just pay what I’m asked. I understand Ticos will often have a gringo price and a Tico price, but I’m not too concerned since everything is pretty cheap, and the Nosara groceries generally have prices on everything except vegetables and fruit, which are fresh, delicious and inexpensive. I later learned that the jumbo shrimp are quite expensive and the regular size are reasonable.

I have renters arriving Oct. 1, a family from Tennessee who have never been to Costa Rica and are spending the entire month here. I told them via email that because of the bridge we’d need to make special arrangements to get them here. They had a travel agent book our 3 bedroom house, and I disclaimed that I hope they’re aware that October is deep in the rainy season. They’re looking for a family adventure and to give their kids a great experience, and I’m sure they’ll do that. I told them to bring dvds and books for downtime. I said I would try to find the most economical means of renting a car and getting from Liberia to here.

I’m overdue for meeting with Emi and giving her my copy. I’ve had to focus on my own newsletter this week, and my precarious dialup connection has made this slow. But worse really, is having to go to the house next door to get the connection.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to my new newspaper career with Voice of Nosara. Just a couple of years ago it was a dozen or so Xeroxed sheets that came out monthly. When the editor at the time moved from Nosara, it was basically up for grabs. I think the woman who was publishing it was asking for a couple thousand dollars for the software templates, and there was a rudimentary web version as well. Had we been able to move at the time, I saw myself taking it over. This would be the culmination of my career in journalism, starting in high school with the Bosse Spirit and my own alternative, the BullSheet, moving through the Indiana Daily Student and then the Henderson Gleaner. One of the great things about journalism is that it allows you to think of your own stories, then research and write them. There aren’t that many people in Nosara, although it is growing quickly, and everyone has their own story.

But John Johnson bought the VON, after he bought Hotel Villa Taype and renovated it beautifully to Harmony Hotel. He’s a member of the Johnson&Johnson family, and from what little I know he fell in love with Nosara and is not worried about an immediate payback on his investments. The Hotel has been done with every ‘green’ feature that is feasible. The rates are still quite reasonable at about $100 a night but the management is highly professional and know they need to return a profit. Likewise, he has subsidized the VON with money for professional design and printing, and a certain editorial budget that gives Emi some salary and a little more for small fees for some articles and translating, since it is bilingual. Emi said he is looking for a break-even situation within the year, and a professionally designed web version will be available in time for the high season. There is a pretty fair amount of advertising revenue available.

Today started out with spectacular sun and I met Nico on the beach at 7:30am to surf. He was very confident that today would be the day that I paddled past the waves to the outside. I wasn’t as confident, but he boosted me up. Yesterday, I invited him to try my longboard, because he’s been borrowing a tiny board which I think must be impossible to learn on but probably is a lot easier for him to dive under waves with and have an easier time getting to the outside. He liked my board as he tried a couple of waves on the inside and popped up easily. I thought he would be satisfied staying on the inside and practicing his popups, which he got little chance to do on his tiny board. But he successfully broke to the outside with it and got some nice rides from there.

So I had to go for it today, and it looked like the waves were bigger than usual. More surfers were out, and it looked like conditions were ideal. We waded out as far as we could and then started paddling. I kept going as the muscle fatigue turned to agony, and thought of the dragon breath exercises we did the previous day in Kundalini yoga class.

It was starting to feel like my arms were going to drop off, but I was hanging on through some large crashing waves and heading in the direction of China. Finally, it appeared that I was well on the outside of any breakers. I rested for awhile, letting my arms hang lifelessly in the water, like a corpse, for a few moments and then decided to retract my arms in case they attract the attention of a hungry fish. I had actually beaten Nico to the outside, but he was now out, much closer to shore, studying the waves. I slowly paddled in toward him, giving him the surfer signal with my thumb and little finger. We discussed what to look for in a wave and how to tell which way it will break, issues he seemed to grasp much better than me. We took our time wave watching, and I finally decided I was ready. I picked one that I could see was already starting to break, paddled and held on for dear life as the wave was crashing around, finally managing to get up to my feet and immediately falling over. I started paddling back out again and managed to make it, since I didn’t have as far to go this time. The waves gradually knocked me back to shore, and I headed back to start my Saturday.

Friday night had been frustrating. Two men with ICE, the government-owned telephone monopoly, showed up Thursday night and after an hour or so of working through a variety of problems, had the high speed internet restored. In retrospect I should have given each of them a $20 tip, probably about a days pay, but the service has been down since a lightning storm in mid-August and that’s a ridiculously long time. The wireless still wasn’t working, though, but that was set up by a computer guy named Jose who had originally charged me $800, including equipment, to set it up with wireless modems in each of our three houses. It was working beautifully on our trip in July, although my Vonage router stopped working after a few days, leaving us without free phone service to the US.

So on Friday I commuted next door to our second house where the modem is located, and connected the cable and put the finishing touches on CBA Reports, enjoying the big upgrade in speed. That afternoon I toyed around with the routers and got wireless up, and was looking forward to a weekend of internet and phone calls lounging by the pool. My setup was a bit precarious, as I hooked up a couple of phone modems and had two or three laptops running browsers, testing things out. I punched in Jane’s phone number into Skype on the MacBook, a recent acquisition that has me wishing I had stuck with Windows, and heard the beginning of the simulated phone ringer through my headset, and then,

Nothing! There was no connection to the internet, Skype informed me. I eventually went to check the modem at the other house, and determined that it was not receiving a signal. So I’m back to dialup for the unknown future.

The experience of dialup has been interesting. It requires patience, for sure, but that seems easy here in the tropics, surrounding by nature. Not having it available in the house has been more of an issue. True, the walk to the next house is only about 75 yards, door to door, and as commutes to work go, it can only be beat by actually keeping the laptop in bed with me. But without internet we have no phone service in our house, and we have no television, just a dvd player and 19-inch tv. The withdrawal from media is something I have generally welcomed, although it makes it interesting to observe habits and consider the process of change. The experience of moving to Costa Rica is all about change and reinvention, the opportunity of a lifetime to make conscious choices about how I will spend the rest of my life. That is the dream at least. Someone asked me what I was going to do in Costa Rica, looking like she couldn’t imagine a typical day here. I said it would start early with surfing, doing a little work on the Internet, taking a break for a yoga class, doing some more computer time for both CBA and my other stuff.

My neighbor Ernie from across the road showed up and interrupted my nascent muse about the prospect of starting my life over. He just came in from his home in San Diego to settle on the sale of a piece of land he owned and would be around for two weeks, which is great news. We spent some time getting reacquainted and later went to Marlin Bill’s restaurant for dinner. Ernie is semi-retired, maybe close to 60, and has been dabbling in real estate in the area for several years, long enough to have gotten in before the big price run-ups of the recent boom years.

He sold a lot for $145,000 that he paid $35,000 for four or five years ago, so he was happy about that, especially since not much is selling in today’s phase of the real estate cycle. Ernie likes to surf, I guess it goes without saying, and is single and a bit of a ladies man, by reputation. He has a handsome, leathered face with features that show his Mexican ancestry, and is fluent in Spanish. He’s well connected in town from spending a lot of time here over the years and I was happy to make some new acquaintances over dinner.

I had never met Marlin Bill himself, although his restaurant may have the best central location of any, across from Café de Paris and elevated in the hillside just above Coconut Harry’s Surf Shop. It’s probably the most Americanized of any of the restaurants, with prices reflecting that. Bill is a big bearded man in his 40s and his waitress, Angie, is married to Kimbo, a surf instructor who works with Tyler Marsh running the Safari Surf Camp. Kim was one of our surf instructors on our first YogaSurf retreat in 2005. The other guy hanging out was Mike, who had been a harbor pilot in Virginia Beach and now has a good collection of surfboards that he rents out, Ernie told me, and helps out a couple of hours at the restaurant in exchange for dinner.

I asked about the whereabouts of Coconut Harry, another Virginia Beach native, who had sold his surf shop earlier in the year. Harry had been a ubiquitous presence at the beach or around Café de Paris, notable with his shoulder length bleached blond hair, surfer physique and garrulous attitude. He loved to talk and had been a salesman before moving to Nosara in his 40s. The last couple of times I had talked to him, though, he had turned darker in his outlook about the state of affairs in Nosara and was rueful of the local surf punks who were using crack and turning to crime instead of honest work.

Mike said Harry was always trying to rescue people, and had heard that he was currently trying to help out an ex-wife who had a serious illness. He mentioned in passing that Harry’s apartment above the surf shack had been burglarized by some of the local punks that he had been trying to ‘rescue.’ Well, that would explain Harry’s mood shift, and probably his decision to sell the shop.

When Jane heard that he was asking $350,000 for the shop she started thinking seriously that we should by it. This surprised me, but also sounded like a very cool idea. Jane has a retail streak in her and has dabbled in selling clothing, so her idea was to sell yoga-style items in the shop, as well as the surf and tourist items that are the shop’s mainstay. But to buy it would have required the sale of our second house, which we had on the market at the time for $390,000. More critically, Harry also had another prospective buyer lined up, who had first dibs while he lined up his financing. That came through, so it was only a short-lived fantasy we had.

Back to the process of reinvention; a rainy morning gives me the opportunity to think about it. My mind turns to the issue of television, and whether to have a satellite connection. I really haven’t missed the connection to the outside world, especially as it is so dominated by news about Iraq. It is much too easy to turn on the set as a palliative against boredom. I haven’t been in the habit of reading books, and this is certainly the opportunity to develop that pastime. And certainly, I wouldn’t be on the laptop writing this journal if television were absorbing the time.

We won’t face the issue for real until Jane settles in here in March after her series of yoga travels. We had agreed back in Washington to forgo having the satellite installed, both thinking it would be a healthy break. But when we were settling in here she said she missed it, especially the PBS evening newshour, which we were in the habit of watching.

I’m ruminating about this now because it is a huge issue, and tv will likely absorb countless hours of time that I might better spend writing, playing guitar, reading, or socializing with new friends, part of a new and better lifestyle. When I look back on my life in years to come, will I think fondly of the enrichment I received through television, or will I be grateful for the effort I made to become a better musician, or writer?

Of course, even without the satellite, watching dvds every night can absorb just as much time, and that’s what I’ve found myself doing. While Jane was here, we rented movies, and now by myself I’m digging into my extensive collection of concert dvds. Reinvention is a work in progress and involves a lot of conscious effort.

Oct. 4

I totally missed celebrating my first month in Nosara as it escaped my mind. The day started early with a drive into Nicoya with Agnes and Ernie. The bridge had reopened the day before, and we had some business to conduct in the regional government center. Agnes thought it would be a good idea for me to register my gardeners, Marco and Jason, as well as our part time maid, Cecelia, under the name of my corporation, because we would pay a lower rate for social security and workmen’s comp this way. Wages and benefits are under $3 an hour, but little savings add up over time. As household employees, rather than under Agnes’ business, the rate is lower, with the same protections and benefits.

We also applied for a third phone line so that eventually we can have a phone in each house, and we applied to have the line in our two bedroom house moved over to our new house where we are living. She was told that we could expect the line to be moved in 30 days, but it could take more or less forever to get an additional line. I know that our developer, Thierry, had paid a multi-thousand dollar bribe to get the two lines in, so I’m not exactly holding my breath for a third line.

We also met with Agnes’ tax accountant, and set up some paperwork so that I could start paying some tax on my rental income. I agreed that this would be prudent, especially since it would not be too much. Agnes said there is a tax inspector who sometimes shows up in Nosara, who might start asking questions if he sees our rental properties.

We also made some initial inquiries into health insurance, which is run by a government monopoly called INS that also insures our home and I hope our car, although that’s another story. Details, details.

While there is basic national health insurance that covers everyone in Costa Rica, for extra money you can upgrade the insurance for greater coverage and better hospitals. Even out of pocket, health care is remarkably inexpensive and many from the US and elsewhere come to San Jose for cosmetic surgery or dental work.

All this paperwork required hours of waiting, which after lunch was accompanied by heavy rain. Since I hadn’t bothered to bring my umbrella with me I tried to squeeze under Agnes’ as much as possible, while carrying bags with the kitty litter box, Science Diet brand kitty food, blender and spare gas can that I had purchased.

The patron at our last stop, back at the family-run accountant’s office, kindly gave us a ride back to the service center where we had dropped the Pathfinder off for an oil change, fluid and filter check. Agnes also asked them to check the battery because it sometimes struggled to start. Upon our return, reuniting with Ernie, we were told that it needed some more extensive work to the alternator and I’d need to bring it back as soon as possible. This was bad news because the ride on the unpaved part of the road, although not much more than a dozen miles, was tortuous this time of year. I can’t adequately describe the constant jarring from the massive potholes and deep ruts. Finally getting back to Heartwaves around dusk, I felt beat. It didn’t help that I was up until midnight the night before, as my renter Tonia’s lost baggage was finally delivered by an airline courier who had trouble finding the place.

So I never remembered the one month anniversary.

I’ve been spending a lot of time with my neighbor Ernie and he has been showing me around and giving me tips on surfing. My progress has been good but yesterday I got pounded by a wave and didn’t have the strength left to get to the outside. My strength may have been affected by the copious wine from the day before at Doris’ house. She is a remarkable cook and had extended an invitation to me to join Emi and Nico, as well as Jacque, a 32 year old Swiss American with remarkable energy who is involved in a local development project. It was a wonderful Saturday afternoon at Doris’ open air casa in a Tico neighborhood in Nosara. She is an attractive blond Austrian of about 40 who keeps books for the yoga institute and some other places. She had been in a relationship for awhile with a Tico man who ultimately proved unfaithful, and had been single for awhile. Lori was currently sharing her house following her own disastrous relationship, but had returned to Newfoundland for October.

I had met Jacque in July and he was in a tumultuous relationship with a beautiful woman named Ashley, whom Jane had met on an earlier trip. Ashley was a serious astrologist and shared that passion with Jane, so they became quick friends. Our conversation turned to the difficulties of finding a good partner. Doris and Lori were both frustrated with the lack of suitable prospects in Nosara, and Jacque was frustrated over the constant battles that appeared to be dooming his otherwise passionate relationship with Ashley. They just didn’t seem to be cut from the same cloth, he lamented, although at one time they were planning a wedding.

On the other hand, Nico said he proposed to Emi a week after they met. I suggested that there is always time to find the right partner. It was on our trip to Nosara in 1995 that I concluded that Jane and I had our futures together, and we were in our 40s by then.

October 8

This morning Ernie took me with him for breakfast in the village and I waited for him while he got a haircut at one of two local shops. I’m letting my hair grow out for now but am glad to know about the local options. He likes a short crop and I may eventually want something like that, and you can’t beat the price, under $5. He then took me up the mountain road to show me where Ty and Sarah live, through beautiful countryside that you can take all the way to Nicoya in the dry season. Even though the rain and clouds obscured most of the views this morning, I got a clear sense of how beautiful the passage must be, and looked forward to exploring it during the dry season on my quad.

Ernie was more interesting the more I learned about him. He had a spiritual philosophy that was similar to my own but more developed through practice. It was based largely on the Law of Attraction, a concept popularized currently by the book and dvd The Secret.

I have not studied it in detail, but the idea is that the things that you think about the most are the things that will materialize in your life. This happens whether you think about negative things or positive things, so it is important to think positively, and to associate with positive thinkers as well. I think this is a good, practical way to live, regardless of whether there is a spiritual aspect to it, or any possible scientific explanation based on the principles of quantum physics, as its proponents ascribe. I’ve had too many good things happen to me in my life, so I find this spiritual philosophy very attractive, no pun intended. I’ve often said, especially lately, ‘be careful what you wish for’ because you will probably get it.

Another tenet of this philosophy is ‘go with the flow,’ rather than try to paddle upstream, because the flow is natural and will take you in the direction you want to go and bring you to the things you seek, while also minimizing resistance. This has an obvious attraction to someone such as myself who might be described as ‘laid back,’ and who prefers to avoid confrontation. So far it has worked for me and I don’t see any need to change now.

A third component is to ‘pursue your passion,’ which I am likewise drawn to. This will take some work, as I have to rediscover my passions, following 30 years of being pay-check oriented. But I know that writing is at the core of this, and can feed the artist that is within me. The embers are still there but have to be stoked. If I can’t do it here, then it’s not going to happen. Not in this lifetime.

But I have other interests to explore, to see if there is really passion. My guitar has been sitting largely idle, and needs some sparking. Perhaps that will happen when I start taking lessons with Nosara’s artist-guitarist-in-residence Bill McPherson when he’s back from recording in LA.

It remains to be seen whether my interest in cooking and especially barbecue is strong enough to lead to a commercial venture. I guess I’ll go with the flow on that one. One reason I’ve been drawn to the culinary is that it provides such instant positive feedback from people when they like something you’ve prepared. A great meal offered to a small group of appreciative friends can provide more praise than years of work behind the desk of an office and leave you feeling better inside.

Ernie is part of a group of followers of an entity named Abraham who is channeled by a woman named Hicks. While there are certainly possibilities for mischief from such a source of wisdom, the message either rings true or it doesn’t. And Ernie has the type of positive outlook and perennial natural smile that you have to admire and want to associate yourself with. It may be more from a lifetime of surfing, or having hard working and aspirational parents, but he built a successful home repair business, raised three children, and has created a great life for himself that still has many exciting chapters ahead.

Ernie was telling me about a local woman named Richmond who was among the first here as the American project, as it’s called, was first started in the 70s, and she was its manager. By coincidence, or what might be called synchronicity, her daughter and Ernie’s niece were friends in the San Francisco area. Our developer Thierry had also been their guest when he visited San Francisco, and these had been Ernie’s contacts and motivation for first visiting Nosara less than five years ago. Thierry had showed him a number of properties, but Ernie liked and bought the first lot he saw, across the road from our lot.

I told Ernie, as he sat getting his haircut, that I had a story for him. A couple of years ago Jane started taking Pilates at a new studio near our house in DC. We went to an open house party there and mentioned to her Pilates teacher that we were planning a move to Nosara. She said she knew a couple who had just moved there from Colorado to open a bed and breakfast, and had sewn the wedding dress for the woman. The couple rode down on motor bikes toward South America but stopped in Nosara. We looked them up on our next trip down, it was Agnes and Jo at Villa Mango.

I tried marinating a Lomita beef roast in orange juice for about 24 hours before putting it on the Weber, and it turned out tender and tasty.

Oct. 9

The rain has stepped up and caused me to postpone my return trip to Nicoya to get the car fixed. Meanwhile, I have moved next door to the two bedroom while workmen are carving up the kitchen counter to prepare it to be replaced by granite. They disconnected the wireless internet server there, which also knocked it out here in the two bedroom. It still works in Heartwaves Two, so I visited Tonia and her boys and she didn’t mind me hanging out on the deck catching up on emails. Not much is going on, I’m a little surprised at how slow the action is back at the CBA office, but certainly don’t have a problem with that. I took an early siesta, the rain was pretty steady and seems to make naps more inviting. The rain clouds finally cleared in the afternoon, so I checked up on the mess from the workers as they were off on a break. Concrete dust is everywhere, it will be a real mess to get cleaned up. I hoped that two days of cutting the concrete would be all they needed, although the process of getting the granite ordered and delivered could be a long one.

I invited myself back over to Tonia’s to do a final email check for the day, and Julian was eager to play cards and Tonia needed a break to tend to little Liam, so we played around of a game called 31, and then went on to Texas Hold ‘em poker and some Go Fish! It also gave me a chance to meet two neighbors who had already befriended Tonia. Shana had recently moved into Henry’s House around the corner with her boyfriend, who is the son of the owners of Harbor Reef hotel and restaurant. She regularly walks by with her two Huskies, who are eager for play on the beach. Another neighbor, Yogi, drove by with her three sons, and she and her husband Steven live in one of the houses on the way to the beach, and have lived here about five years. He’s a specialty neonatal physician in San Diego who commutes here every few weeks. Tonia, Julian and Liam were soon off to join them on the beach and I’ll have to conclude our game of Go Fish later.

Oct. 10

Today I made it back to Nicoya with Agnes; it didn’t seem to have rained that much overnight. The roads had turned to ponds in many places, but with Agnes to talk to and help guide me through small floods, the drive passed fairly quickly. We ran into several people from Nosara, including Marcel, a Frenchman who runs the hotel and restaurant Tropicale Giardino and is the current president of the Nosara Civic Association, and Bobbi Johnson, a resident of some 17 years and all around community activist and environmental protectionist. I saw Bobbi the previous evening at Marlin Bill’s with Ernie, when I had reintroduced myself. She promised to keep me busy with some local projects and I said I was willing, and also was planning to write for VON.

We also met Enrique in line at the bank, and he runs the Nosara Office Center, a small shop with internet access and services such as copying. He and his family had been robbed at gunpoint a few nights before, and the thieves took some laptops and money. Agnes said it might lead to some additional organized action against crime, since it was not just gringos who are getting robbed now. Certainly, crime at gunpoint is an escalation that is a source of alarm.

One of Agnes stops was a T-shirt shop, where she was having her new business logos for her B&B and property management companies put on shirts and caps. We’ll want to eventually have our own logos for Heartwaves and YogaSurf Nosara and getting our own T-shirts designed would be cool. I also picked up some cough syrup because I’m starting to have an allergy issue with the kittens. I was afraid this would happen, but I think I can keep it under control. Leo and Isis have been great entertainment and companionship. They’re venturing more outside now, but still like to cuddle up in my lap for a nap.

The Nissan was finally finished by early afternoon and the disturbing whine was gone, to my great relief. We had a drive home free of rain. Agnes said the recent rain had been as bad as she has seen it, and the entire green season had been unusually rainy. This brightened my outlook somewhat, because if I can get by during the worst weather, prospects as a year-round resident weren’t that bad. In fact, I was concluding that I preferred the green season to the dry season, with all of its dust.

Today continued with more rain, with intermittent dry spells and a dry but gray late afternoon, spent mostly with Julian as he played internet games on my computer at webkinz. My wireless is still on the fritz even though they have finished sawing up my countertops and the dust has been cleaned up, allowing me to reconnect the router.

Tonia would like to take the family to see the Monteverde Cloud Forest when her husband Josh arrives next week. I’ve offered to find information about it on the internet, but Julian is catching up on two weeks without the internet so all I have time to get is a phone number for her. I’m not much of a tour guide yet, but it’s another persona that I aspire to. But I’ll need to get a lot of miles under my belt first. Perhaps what I can do is help her plan her trip with information I can get online.

Friday began with a lot of rain again. Nico said there was a hurricane off of the Mexican Pacific that was responsible. I met him in the afternoon to show him a map of where our houses are that he could fax to some potential renters. He and Emi are leaving for a month long vacation in Argentina next week and he said he was suffering from jungle fever because he hadn’t been away for six months. We made plans to get together Saturday somewhere that has satellite tv to watch the Argentina-Columbia soccer match, which Emi was excited about. I said I would grill Sunday and we made plans to gather the usual suspects around the Weber.

I stopped at Dos Lorenos for supplies and couldn’t get the engine on the Nissan to turn over, like the battery was dead. I stewed over my options as repeated attempts indicated a dead battery. There were four local young Ticos hanging out in front of the store, so I mustered up my Spanish and implored of one young man, sitting on a bicycle, ‘por favor, necessito empuje,’ hoping I had remembered the right word for ‘push.’ The young men were quick to gather and I got a rolling start, shouting ‘muchas gracias’ as I motored down the road, thankful indeed.

Mauricio, who works for Karl our builder and speaks pretty good English, stopped by to show me three granite samples that I had picked for our kitchen counters. The azul that was my favorite is clearly the most beautiful of the three top picks, also the most expensive, and we confirmed the deal. Mauricio is a very personable fellow and he patted me on the back as he left, but I’m afraid it will be awhile before the granite is installed.

The alarm next door in our middle house with the dysfunctional kitchen went off again for no reason, and I went next door through light rain and punched in the code to silence it.

October 18, 2007

At last, a (mostly, so far) dry day, after more than a week of steady rain. This has been a test, and what I had prepared myself for in this rainiest of seasons, but the severity of the rain has been unusual. The river by the gas station has flooded, forcing anyone needing to venture into the village to use a back road, itself in terrible condition. Some of the major hiways in the country are closed, and the condition of the hiway to Liberia is in doubt.

Ty and Sarah stopped by to give Leo and Isis vaccinations. The vet from Nicoya wasn’t able to make his scheduled trip because of the road and weather conditions. Ty lamented the rain and his inability to complete a welding project.

The steady rain has started to give me a bit of cabin fever. I got some relief Tuesday evening as Doris came over, joined by Emi and Nico, to give a yoga class on the deck. I haven’t been getting any exercise, without surfing and with the end of classes at NYI for the month of October. Doris did an excellent class with good spinal twists and some balancing postures that I struggled with, feeling a little moldy myself.

We planned to do it again Thursday, which is today, and I said I would fix dinner if they could stay. It is Emi and Nico’s last night here to relax before they depart Saturday for a two week visit to Argentina, so it gives me something to look forward to. I’ve been spending a lot of time watching dvds, and all day on the internet. Some CBA business is a welcome, although uninspiring diversion.

A news report today from amcostarica.com includes this update on the weather situationhere:

… more than 54 stretches of road that have been washed away or otherwise damaged. Some 98 communities have suffered flooding, and at least 22 bridges have suffered some form of damage, the commission said.

Thank God for the internet! My surfing today brought me to a blog written by a women fashioning herself ‘gypsy journalist,’ who here with her husband and three young boys from Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin, near where my sister lives in the Milwaukee suburbs. This is great reading and an inspiration to me to step up my own level of discourse. What I’m missing is photos, though, as my Nikon digital pocket camera crapped out on me early into this trip. And today my video cam has also malfunctioned. I’ve been told that the tropical climate takes a big toll on electronic devices, but I’ve been in some denial. Note to self: Back up computer files.

As if on cue, I just got an error message that says “Windows Explorer has experienced a problem and has to close.” Well, I had a lot of web sites and blogs open, but at least I saved the website link for the gypsy journalist:

http://web.mac.com/gypsyjournalist/iWeb/Maggie%20blog/Welcome.html

I found some other blogs and sites in today’s surfing adventure, helping to while away another rainy day. Today, at least the monkeys showed up during a dry spell, providing a little more diversion. Here are some links I found worth looking at, and am most interested in the site dedicated to cooking and new recipes from Costa Rica called jungle fusion.

http://www.abroadincostarica.com/

A 51 year old real estate agent in Key West starts a new life with her family after burning out as the real estate market in the US begins to crash.

http://doscolones.typepad.com/

Helpful info and commentary, his ‘two cents’ worth

http://www.jungle-fusion.com/

I really enjoy cooking in Costa Rica, with the discovery of new foods, and everything seems to taste better. Last night I decided to try roast chicken and vegetables, which could cook in the oven while Doris led yoga. The stove in this house, our first, is fairly rudimentary and the oven has three selections, with no indication of temperature. I chose ‘maximo,’ apparently the nuclear option, and found my dish blackened on top and stuck to the bottom of my pan. However I salvaged most of it and it still received pretty good reviews, with no leftovers. There’s a deluxe European style oven in the other house, in the bedroom for the time being.

Seeing Nico and Emi leave for a couple of weeks is sad because they’ve become my favorite new friends. Emi challenged me to think of more stories to write for Voice of Nosara; she has a good instinct as an editor.

I said I was still thinking about an article reviewing local real estate development and sales, and the local economic outlook in the face of the turmoil in housing in the US. However, real estate people here seem to have the same optimistic outlook: prices will stay stable at their current lofty levels and sales will pick up again in a year or so. I told Emi that I’m not completely convinced that that will be the case, that there could be more of a downturn here. Certainly in the US, real estate forecasts are constantly being revised downward. However, I’m not sure I want to start my new journalism career on such a negative note, and one that could put me in disfavor with so many people. Doris suggested I write under a false name, which was a pretty funny thought but not without merit. But I don’t want to write something that just regurgitates the perennially optimistic views of real estate developers either. So I need to think of some other story ideas. There will be plenty of topics, many controversial.

Crime is a good example, one which we touched on. There are three local policeman generally on duty, three on and three off. But they don’t have a phone, and get around on bicycles or scooters! Coconut Harry offered to buy them a phone after his store was burglarized, but he said rules disallow that because it could be considered favoritism. For serious crime, investigators will eventually come from Nicoya, but don’t count on anything soon. And the guilty are quickly released while they await prosecution, a system that doesn’t provide much deterrence. There are two private security companies now for those who can pay $50-70 per month for the alarms and monitoring, but without a phone connection they don’t know when an alarm is triggered, and my experience with false alarms is discouraging. There is some sense, though, that there is some deterrence, and time will tell more.

One day Jane and I will visit Emi and Nico after their planned move to Argentina, and explore Patagonia and the other wonderful places they have described.

Jane is back in Baltimore, suffering from more health issues, not sure if she can return Tuesday, Oct. 22. She was pretty healthy when she left here, getting stronger every day, that’s all I know. But there’s not a lot to get back here for now, rain and a dysfunctional kitchen.

I’m having some allergy issues, related to the kittens and/or mold issues from all the rain, but am getting by ok with an occasional benadryl or dose of cough syrup. The fresh air is the best remedy, sitting on the poolside deck with laptop, legs propped up on a chair. I’ve learned from the blogs and chat groups that allergies are common when the rain gets this bad. Apparently a lot of new gringos get a case of crud after arriving, with more intense symptoms, that can last a few weeks. It’s thought to be a one-time thing, part of the adjustment process to a new climate, but I’ll be happy if I can skip that initiation.

I’m interrupted by the sounds of the alarm going off next door. This time it’s not a false alarm, but workers returning to take measurements for the new granite countertops. There’s a woman whom I’m guessing is with the granite company, and a man who says he’s from Thierry’s office, who take a lot of measurements and ask me some questions that I think are related to how far the bullnose should extend. I try to reach Karl when I get back here to my phone, but just get a recording.

I’ll have to move back over next week because Ron is arriving here, and I hope they at least will have reconnected the kitchen sink. I can probably get by for awhile without the stove by putting my Weber to good use, and also have a microwave, but kitchen plumbing is another issue.

Ron and his wife Rebecca leased our two bedroom for a year and had planned to oversee construction of a house they planned at Alma Verde, the Omega retreat center. They’re from Vancouver and publish a magazine and website, www.shared-vision.com

As I understand it, they scaled back their plans after getting their passports and perhaps purse swiped while being distracted on the road. It might have been the common ploy used by some thieves here to induce a flat and then show up to ‘help’ the unwary tourists.

Jane met them on a previous visit and I’m looking forward to meeting Ron, although we had some issues regarding the terms of the lease. We agreed to help defray their costs by subleasing the house to the extent possible. They’ll be future neighbors at Alma Verde, unless they have completely changed their minds, so I don’t want any issues among us.

Oct. 22

The second day of sunshine and beautiful weather! Today, I started out by surfing. The water didn’t seem too bad, considering all the runoff. I watched the waves and paddled to the outside without getting clobbered. It had been at least two weeks since being in the water. I thought I was well outside the breaks, but a big wave came up and broke in front of me, wiping me out as I remembered Ernie’s advice about staying under long enough to make sure you don’t surface as the board is landing, possibly on your head. Well, it was still the best way to start the day.

It was busy, both with CBA and other activities, and I stopped by the Nosara Development office looking for Mauricio or Karl to make sure someone would reconnect the sink in Heartwaves 3, because I had to move back there tomorrow, as Ron and Becka were scheduled to arrive Thursday in HW1.

Thierry was there, having returned a week earlier from an extended stay in Europe. We had a wonderful meeting, sharing views on the subprime financial crisis and state of the world economy among other issues.

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Friday, December 12, 2008

Barbecue update

Saturday, December 6, 2008

Fritz's Smokin' BBQ Joint is Open for Business!

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Seafood Buffet at Lagarta Lodge

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Archived Journal from September 3-October 22, 2007

Sunday, November 30, 2008

Parque Nacional Barra Honda

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