Settling Into Paradise

Buenos dias,

Here we are in Paradise, seriously. Deb and I are constantly amazed by the beauty we are surrounded by. The view from the front porch of this house is amazing. We are on 2 1/2 acres of land, and much of it is tropical trees and bushes that are full of flowers and fruit. Butterflies are everywhere, and the birds are colorful and sing their songs every morning. One of these birds, a blue-crowned motmot,sits outside our kitchen window almost every morning. It is so beautiful that we just stare at it in awe. Google this bird to get a pic of it and you’ll see what I mean.
Below us we have a beautiful view of the city of Escazu, and at night the lights of this city seem to sparkle. During the day the mountains behind it take on different shading and colors depending on the hour of the day and the position of the sun. The shape of the mountains seem to change because of this. It is so serene and gorgeous, I don’t know that we can or will ever take this for granted.
As most of you know, I love to cook. Rice and beans are a mainstay here. We are getting used to that, adding different spices and side dishes to enhance the flavor. Chicken and seafood are also used extensively, which is fine with us. The produce is very fresh, cheap, and obviously not grown on corporate farms. The shape of some produce, especially veggies, is not perfect, but the taste is!
The cost of most (and I mean most) food in the store is cheap compared to what we are used to paying. Here is a short list as an example.
Fresh non farmed shrimp – Bought 1 1/3 lbs – $10.50
Chicken breasts, free range – Bought eight – $10.25
Whole Pineapple – $1.85
Avocados – Bought 4 – $2.00
Peppers – 4 sweet – About $2.10
Brown rice – 2.2 lbs – $1.00
I could list many more, but here is the best one, I’ve saved this item for last. Coffee drinkers, get ready.
100% Costa Rican Coffee – Over 17 oz. – $3.90!!!!
I wrote that as Deb was pouring more into my cup. Seriously.
Time for Deb to write now. I hope you are going to enjoy this blog as much as we are. I miss seeing all of you, but this is a nice way to stay in touch. We do have Skype, so that can be a way to connect with any and all who wish to do that. Stay happy. Keep smiling. I know Deb and I will!!

Buenos Dias Everyone,

This truly is paradise. The people here have really good manners and are always so helpful. If we are trying to tell someone something and they don’t understand, they will try to find someone who does speak English or we carry around a little book which helps us figure out what they are saying or helps them to know what we are saying. We are practicing learning Spanish. Every night we look in our little book and try to learn new phrases or words to better communicate.
Yesterday our landlady, Laurel, took us to a store like Costco (which is actually affiliated with Costco somehow) to stock up on food and paper goods. The drive there was beautiful. We are situated in Santa Barbara and this store was in Alajuela which is like the next suburb over. They had a Starbucks, a Taco Bell and a McDonalds much to our dismay. Why go there? Anyway, the shopping area was very modern with little shops and a large movie theater.
One thing that we didn’t expect to see was the number of overweight people in this country. But probably with the fast food type places like we have in the U.S., it has caused this obesity problem here. Just a surmise. And, of course, automobiles.
I am constantly appalled at the terrible drivers here and I mentioned that to Laurel on our ride yesterday. She explained that we have to realize that these drivers are mostly only second generation drivers and that we have to teach them how to drive by example..
Tim just told me that the temp. in Apple Valley right now is 56. Here it is 78. You may have heard that Costa Rica got hit by a bad tropical storm this past week starting on Wednesday afternoon through Thursday. We were in a monsoon. It was the worst storm they have ever had. Streams became raging rivers in Guanacaste region on the Pacific side of the country. There are a number of people who can’t be accounted for. Here, when they get a lot of rain, they get landslides. There was actually a landslide in Alajuela somewhere the day after we arrived. We didn’t venture out of the house all day Thursday. It only got up to 65 that day. It was so cool that I had on a long sleeve T-shirt with a sweatshirt and long pants. Then I had a shawl on over that! We have a wood burning stove but we didn’t have wood to burn so we couldn’t warm the place up.
Friday we woke to a gorgeous sunny day and it stayed that way all day. Same thing this morning. We are supposed to get rain at some point today but not yet. I don’t see a cloud in the sky.
We, of course, are in the rainy season and during that time, the spiders want to get up off the ground because it’s wet so they climb up high and spin webs. I am not exaggerating, in the least, when I say some of them are as big as the palm of my hand. They are harmless. We take a long stick and knock them down but they just come right back.
There are butterflies everywhere all day long at Laurel’s compound. Chickens roam wild through her property as well. She has banana plants and she told us that in order to get the bananas, you chop down the whole plant and new shoots come up. I didn’t know that. Pineapple trees have to be replanted after they are harvested.
One of our next adventures will be to the organic coffee farm which is right in town and where we can take yoga. I am told that there is also a nice restaurant there. We have already been to one restaurant in Santa Barbara named El Banco De Los Marisocos. We both had ceviche, and it was so good I could have made a meal out of bowlful of that. Cold soup, lemon based, cilantro, shrimp and sea bass. Oh yeah, it was the best part of the meal, and the rest of the meal was very good too. It was raining, and the waiter made us sit at our table while he called a cab for us and then let us know when it arrived!! Typical Tico friendliness.
Enough for today. Don’t want to bore anyone! Know we both miss and love you all. Like Tim said, stay happy. We will.

Pura Vida