Road to Retiring- Days 9 and 10

 2/16

Surfers at Quepos harbor. 

This was our “down” day.  I’m really tired from 3 hours of sleep and John is a little surf bummed I think.  Or maybe it’s missing Santa Teresa and our disappointment with this area. We have seen some Titi monkey action around the hotel, but for Manuel Antonio its been pretty slim on wildlife. We drive around and see other surf spots around Quepos and its dismal in comparison.  Plus we are warned not once, not twice, but three times at three different places to be careful of the car break-ins that are notorious in this area. As if we needed more to say “no” to this stretch of Costa Rica for us. 

We are not going to go further south and stay in Dominical as planned, having canceled plans to see any real estate here.  We discuss driving to Arenal for 2 nights, and even a brief discussion as to the practicality of going back to Santa Teresa for two days.  We decide both are too far and too much time and John finds an eco-lodge in Parrita online that is about 30 minutes north of us towards San Jose. We book for one night and then we will decide what to do next.

2/17

Breakfast, pool time, packing, trying to catch monkeys on film and ready to leave at 11:00 AM check out.  We notice right away as we are driving that not 15 minutes north of Quepos there’s a quiet, finca attitude in the little towns.  They are cleaner, better kept homes and yards and agriculture is the focus, not tourism. We drive through Parrita, mentally marking where we need to come back to for this evening, but we really want to see if there’s some more surf spots of interest in this area.  We drive down a dirt road that says Walt Paraiso that is another hotel that we can stay at in Esterillos Oeste for one night.  It’s large with OK looking rooms, pool, pool tables, big open grass areas for soccer and such and reasonably priced.  And its deserted.  Weird for such a large hotel by the beach. 

We continue down to the town of Esterillos Oeste and it ends right on the beach.  There’s a lot of wrecked buildings right on the beach and we learn later that a tropical storm with tornados did great damage here 2 years back and the road to recovery is slow. The waves are pretty closed out right here at this time of day but it’s a nice beach with a really interesting reef break at the far north end.  We decide to keep driving around a bit and as we go back towards the main road a different way we see a whole neighborhood of some very nice houses.  We drive past the unmanned gate house and start looking at these homes which look a lot like what you’d see in Laguna Beach.  Several are for rent or sale, more are occupied.  As we drive out with telephone numbers written down for real estate agents, we pass a car with some Gringos and ask about the neighborhood.  They tell us to turn around and follow them as one of them will be renting her house out soon.

Roxanne is a stunning woman from New York, a writer for CNN and now writing history books.  She built this Costa Rica get away to write in and get away from the hustle and bustle.  She shows us her 2 bedroom house with 2 bathrooms, laundry room, modern granite kitchen, open beam ceilings.  These homes are very nice.  She has also done an outdoor kitchen in the driveway area with Bar-B-Q, sink and prep area.

She tells us of the neighbohood, that it is a very close knit, warm and inviting ex-pat community.  There’s a woman in her 80’s who started a volunteer lifeguard training program and the local ex-pats help raise money to pay Ticos to be lifeguards.  Lots of community involvement in education and children’s programs too.  Owners in “The Hills” as it is called, also pay a fee for the security guards who patrol randomly during the day and man the gate house all night.  She will putting her house up for brent for 6 months or so before she comes back for an extended stay again.  There’s also some other places for sale and rent and she gives us the real estate agent who handles the whole neighborhood.  We give her a call and plan to meet her in the morning at 10 AM in nearby Jaco.

Roxanne recommends a motel in town, Hotel Rancho Coral and we drive down to check it out.  We meet a couple from Miami who are there with their Dad who is a major paddleboard surfer.  The motel is right on the beach, no pool but hammocks, outdoor bar, family feel.  They unfortunately have no rooms tomorrow night, though we can check back.  We decide to surf here.  I go right out front and the closed out waves are not nearly as long and forgiving as up north on the peninsula.  John goes to the reef break and actually gets some decent surf in.  We shower at their outdoor shower and decide its time to look for the lodge we are staying at.  You do not want to drive at night here.

Back to Parrita and then up a dirt road.  Our GPS actually finds the place and it’s a LONG bumpy road for over 40 minutes to the Eco-Lodge Carlisa Paraiso.  The lobby is cool with a big open area and veranda overlooking the rain forest.  

They also do an animal rescue and forest care program with international volunteers.  We are given a suite instead of just a room, same price,  and we drive down the dirt road to our room.  Its rustic and a trifle worn with a big room with bed type of sofa, a sofa bed, TV, desk, refrigerator, separate bedroom and bathroom.  A whole family could stay here for sure. We hike down the road further to see if we can make it to their waterfalls by dark.  We pass the orchid gardens, animal rescue and stables.  If I stayed here again id take the horseback ride to the upper falls.  We can’t make it to the falls before dark but we do feed crackers from Ceviche Miguel to several parrots.

Back up to the lobby for dinner. Guests are sort of a captive audience for meals here. There’s a ping pong table- a nice one- in a room off the lobby and we ask for paddles and balls- which are also nice and new.  John destroys me in three games but I do get some shots in that he comments have nice spin.  Dinner at the lodge we get no menus with prices. We order bottled water, a pumpkin cream soup and an odd potato salad with fish in it.  We have entrees with a white fish and beef fajitas served with rice and an odd puree that we are told is potatoes with lemon.  The plates lacked green.  In the morning we will find out that the waters were $3 each and together with the food- and 23% taxes and service- it will have cost close to $40.  Too much for that quality I can tell you!

Tomorrow we meet with The Hills real estate agent in Jaco and we will surf the Esterillos break again.

Road to Retiring- Day 8

El Santuario Canopy Tour

2/15

Up early for the 7 AM zip line as the forest gets pretty toasty by noon.  We are loaded into a van by Charon and meet Cuva and Ehrlich.  She from Sweden, he from Montreal.  3 more ladies join us as well as a freelance guide, Alex,  and we journey through a palm tree plantation.  Charon tells us that the nuts are harvested for oil.  The plantations are everywhere and harvest happens every 3-6 weeks.  Talk about sustainable energy and multiple use of a product.

The zip line company, El Santuario, run by Diego Correa, is posh, clean, safe and super fun.  The area where we are served coffee and fruit while being fitted for our clean, new gear is really attractive with guanacaste wood tables and wonderful sinks made of natural stone. 

Up the mountain in our vans to our first platform.  We are shown the basics and I marvel at how simple and safe this will be, even for the older lady who is sporting a lot of weight and the children that are 6- 10 years of age. When I did this in Nicaragua, we applied the breaks on the wire with our dominant hand and held on to the connect rope to keep from spinning!  And we jumped off diesel truck tires and sketchy wood platforms.  These are nicely maintained steel  or wood decks and lots of quality metal staircases. 

 
There's a bunch of suspension bridges too which have always scared me, but I'm hooked into a safety wire and I do fine.  I'm surprised at the climb up one tree which is 150 feet  tall, even though I'm still not able to do the treehouse at Disneyland, but here, it's all good. 
John even does one upside down and now I wish I'd tried it too.  11 zips- 1 lasting over a minute at a mile and half , several suspension bridges, a ton of butterfly's and toucans.  Plus funny, personable guides.  At the end, the Tico casado is served.We would recommend this tour company to anyone.

We come back and decide that pool time with a book and WiFi and no driving is on the agenda for the rest of the day.  The pool is perfect, lots of cool folk to chat with and we round off the day with a much needed rest.  Dinner, we share the Steak special and a salad, and they bring us 2 small steaks with chimmichurra sauce.  Excellent service, good food.

We walk down to an art gallery, gift shop and they have some super impressive works by local artists.  I'm really loving looking at the work, especially some mixed media and contemporary work.  

Intentions to go do karaoke get sidelined though as John feels a touch of stomach rumble and we decide instead to watch War on DVD in the room.  I sleep through the film and then after it's over wake up until 2 AM.  Excuse me for one female moment but I hate menopause and all folk living with older women should lend much sympathy to our moods and physical changes as our bodies go into full scale revolt against us.  Hot flashes and insomnia are my personal devils in this fight! Tomorrow we will hit some local surf again.  The physical exercise is generally a good salve to whatever ails the body.

The maids leave elephants, swans and other critters on the bed. 

Road to Retiring- Day 7

My little 7'6" Surf Betty NSP I bought off E-Bay for $120.  Fits our coffin and it's pretty indestructible.   John's tool kit for putting the fins back on, emergency ding repair, and Leatherman utility knife.

2/14

Up early.  It is so easy to get up for dawn patrols in Costa Rica.  Maybe its the early to bed philosophy, or the intense light so early.  I don't know but I like it.  The buffet breakfast at the Falls is amazing! They have lots of fruit, banana bread, juices, coffee with heated milk and then they ask you what eggs, potatoes, French toast, pancakes you want too. 

We decide to go explore Dominical, Uvita area as we think the rents here are awesome and we have arranged to see several.  It stays very jungle here.  Think Jurassic park as it was supposed to be on an island off Costa Rica though it was filmed mostly in Hawaii,  and you've got it.  We see several little roads down to beaches but it's lots of rock and reef.  The main road, however is phenomenal.  Nicely paved.

The town of Dominical fails to impress, though to be fair we didn't give it much of a look.  I call this the Santa Teresa effect of other places not living up to that standard.  Dominical is reminding us of Playa Guiones but more run down, if one can imagine, and it's very hippie.  They are gearing up for a Burning Man/ Woodstock type of Art celebration called Envision where the tickets to attend are around $95 for a one day ticket, $50  per day for the 5 day and $625 for VIP.  I'll never understand how these Art festivals for free spirits became so not FREE.

Downtown Dominical

Downton Uvita

 Down to Uvita and more of the same feel plus the added "bonus" of cashing in on tourism for the Whale's Tail with really expensive paid parking in dirt lots. We spot some of the rentals we were to look at and decide that Santa Teresa has indeed spoiled us.  Decision has been made. 

We are moving to be near surf as well as become part of a community with our same vibe and this ain't it.  No disrespect to anyone in love with this region.  But our life is finally full of "choice" and we are in supreme gratitude that that is a fact and intend to honor it as fully as our budget will allow.

Love parking so near the water. 

We check out a fishing village and a few more beaches.  We finally decide on a beach at the far south end of Dominical and try the surf.  It's not bad and John is getting consistent lefts at the area off the rocks. The water is murkier here due to the dark sand.  The waves have tons of power and we get in a good session but we keep comparing it to the Nicoya Peninsula and it's not stacking up for us.

As we leave we stop at one of the many ceviche stands advertising for $1000 colones.  That's $2.  We have guacamole and chips in the room so that'll be lunch.  I only have a $5 bill and get out to purchase.  The young Tico gives me the cup plus crackers and $1000 Colones back.  I ask for another $500 Colones as it's only supposed to be $2.  He won't make eye contact, nor the other 4 Ticos at the stand but tells me that $1000 colones is $3.  I reply that this is the one spot in the country where the exchange rate is different.  I want to push it or get John involved because I hate being treated that way, but I decide  "This is a sign.  It cost $1 to know that you will not be treated well here."  I am saddened by this as the people here are without a doubt, kind, generous and warm of heart.  He and his little gang are an isolated incident, but still we take it a bit to heart in our decision to forego this area, heeding the sign sent by the universe.  So, don't buy at CEVICHE MIGUE. 

Fridays and Saturdays there is a big green market in Quepos and we are blown away by the prices and the quality of fruits and vegetables, cheese, eggs and rice.  No wonder people retire here.  3 pineapples for $2 ( $3 at Ceviche MIGUE).  Tomatoes are 3 Kilos for $2- that's almost 7 lbs. and averages out to less than $.30 a lb.  I'm paying $1.90 a lb. here in Florida if I'm lucky

We decide on a late dinner at The Falls and have pasta with seafood and fresh tuna.  It's all very good!  Tomorrow we will do our zip line in the AM and then relax.

Road to Retiring- Day 6

Santa Ana

2/13
I'm up at 5 AM.  I check the internet, e-mail and watch morning TV- cartoons are great for improving my Spanish! .  John gets up at 6:30 and gets us coffee at the patio.  We head down for breakfast at 8 am on the patio and Rosa is waiting on us.  What a great spread of yogurt, fruit, bundt cake, juice, eggs, toast, grilled tortillas with cheese and beans.  And cappuccino.  And expresso. And Rosa helping me with another Spanish lesson.  I can say “scrambled” in Spanish now.  It's all amazing. 

Los Candiles, Santa Ana

Breakfast patio

 Kevin and David are here at 10:30 and we hand over all the apostilled stuff.  This city is a maze and we are glad they are driving. We go to the copy store where every page of our passport must be copied.  Then on to the lawyer where I sign over the power of attorney to David for immigration purposes only.  I'm the one with the pension so the immigration is for me and family.  The lawyer seems like a good guy and acts not only as an abogado but also a notary and a professor in the local law school.  Kevin dubs him to be one of the few honest ones in the country.

We go to Kevin's home office where we do the last of the paperwork, which is the Step papers for the Dept. of Immigration.  Voila.  They are still waiting for the apostilled police forms from Florida but everything else is in and David will file this week. Some coffee and cookies with Kevin's lovely wife Sam, and of course, directions to get to Manuel Antonio. We will meet back with David next Wednesday for fingerprinting at the police station.  It is nice having everything taken care of for us.  It IS more expensive, but I can't imagine the translating and red tape we'd never plow through,  though plenty of others do it.  At every place where money exchanges hands, it comes from Kevin or David as we have paid our fee to them and its all inclusive.  Of course lots more questions about cars, insurance, community theatres that are springing up all over, are talked over. 

We head out, finding the right toll road, and it's not long before the landscape makes a change to greener, more jungle terrain.  2 hrs and 45 minutes to Quepo and we are on the right road though our focaccta GPS tells us twice that we've passed out hotel and make U turns, leading us effectively in circles.  But we find the Falls Resort and it's lovely.  The room is huge with a patio, walk in closet, giant bathroom, sofa, king bed, frig, desk and 42" flat screen.  This is another deal I got on Living Social.  4 nights plus a zip line for $359.00 and you can see how fancy the digs are. 

A dip in the Infinity pool and then we go down to the beach.  Not a surf beach for sure, but very pretty with a full moon rising.  We stop at a restaurant advertising pizza and order one with a salad to go, to eat on our patio with cold beer.  Tomorrow we'll see what surf beaches are nearby and possibly take our zip line tour, leaving Saturday and Sunday for exploring the region.   

Road to Retiring- Day 5

 

View of the swell from the hilltop looking down at Playa Hermosa

2/12

Off to the beach at 7AM .  The swell has really gone down 1-2 foot, still clean lines though with very low tide which was tending to close a lot of waves, so you had to be more picky on the wave choice.  There were some spectacular views of folk not making the drop or going over the falls.  But we laugh as any bad day of surf here equals a good day of surf in Florida.

There are these very cool little sea critters that create the coolest graphics in the wet sand.  They have a small shell but don't look like crabs, having more of a snail like fin that propels them and a moustache like aperture that comes up for air and food I'd suppose.  Anyone know what they are called?  

Playa Hermosa is also wonderful for families and this little one playing in the sand with Dad is a common sight as well as teaching youngsters to surf.

2 hours in the water and we head back to eat the last of the package of eggs and pack up.  We travel pretty smart and it takes no time at all.  A last, little conversation with Scarlett and Lincoln and we are off.  We will miss this beautiful beach as well as new friends, including Popeye the Kitten Man who can consume his weight in raw fish!

Janoul, the real estate agent,  has called Scarlett and given directions to the Spanish man's house in Manzanillo and we also are given directions for a way to Cobano and the ferry without having to head back to Santa Teresa.  We find the property in Manzanillo no problem and the owner, Geordie,  is in.  Again broken English, broken Spanish but my Pimsleur approach tapes are paying off and I'm doing ok in communicating. He shows us around and it's a pretty Spartan Tico home of a kitchen, bathroom and a loft sleeping area, plus a large cabin with 2 separate rooms each with a bathroom that he rents out.  The property is big and clean.  The reason he wants someone there is that he has on his property the well for the whole neighborhood and it must be protected from vandals and contamination.  Makes sense.  But John is thinking we might want to settle in for the first 6 months to a year in a little nicer digs. 

The road to Cobano going this way is nice and very pretty though still hard packed gravel.  We will remember this way for sure!  Gassing up in Cobano at over $5 a gallon- one of the other "not cheaper" Costa Rico expenses. We make the 2 PM ferry and get ready to finally find that damn toll highway to Escazu where we are staying tonight.

Success on the highway- which is very nicely maintained- but we get to Santa Ana and we are totally lost and our GPS won't find our hotel.  We can't find a pay phone so we stop at a paint and hardware store with 2 employees and a guard at the front door.  I ask - in Spanish- where the hotel is and they don't know.  So I ask for a telephone and they dial up our relocation service, Great Sunrise.  David Marquez answers and comes to our rescue, driving to the store and leading us to the hotel.  It's nice, Los Candiles, servicing mostly business types.  And we've internet.  Whoo!  The weather, by the way, is beautiful in the San Jose area answering why it's a popular relocation location.

We head out for an easy dinner, but end up at a Mexican place where steak tacos, 4 beers and a large sandwich with pork and avocado comes to $35.  Everywhere, outside of the little sodas serving casados, there is 13% Tax and $10% service added.  That’s 23% on top of what the menu price says. Sigh!  Eating out will be a luxury in Costa Rica but since I like to cook, I don't care. Early to bed after driving all day.  Lawyers and paperwork tomorrow.