Ola from Costa Rica - Week 1 Recap

We have been terribly busy for retired people.  While driving around the lake last weekend looking at some of the houses being constructed we ran into an American realtor, Mike, who promptly invited us to a garden club meeting/party at his house on Monday.  The meeting lasted about 5 minutes with an exchange of plants and then it was party time. Ken says I've found a replacement for my book club, which was usually about 5 minutes of book exchange and then eating and gossip.

Tuesday Mike took us arround to show us what the housing market is like here.  There are Tico houses which are cheap (but may not have closed in walls or more than rough shutters for windows and doors), there are some 300-500 thousand dollar American houses which have air conditioning (not needed) and too much space.  Then Ken fell in love with a moderately priced house on the side of a hill with a great view of the lake, lovely breezes through the house, two master bedrooms with baths, an open living space and a huge patio with posts for two hammocks. The yard has mango, avocado, orange, lemon, lime, papaya and pineapple, with a chicken coop, a covered garden for growing lettuce, tomatos and vegetables (which is needed or they get washed down the hill in the rainy season), and room for a tilapia pond.  The owners live next door and say they pick and freeze the fruits and make smoothies for breakfast every morning.  Anyway, despite Ken's enthusiasm, I told Mike we're not ready to buy but would love to rent for a year if they are willing.

This may be the most luxuriant, green country we've ever been in.

After house-hunting we went off to Marisol's (Mike's Tica girlfriend) restaurant and ate guacamole and cerviche, which was tilapia and shrimp "cooked" in lemon and lime with chiles and cilantro and green onion and, of course, more hot sauce.  Needless to say Wednesday was spent at home with my insides burning out.  That turned out to be OK because Wednesday is merchant day.  Farm trucks drive up our river bed road to offer fresh picked fruits, vegetables and eggs.  The german bakery truck came and opened up their back to show fresh baked breads and pastries.  The buggers even had a doughnut for Ken. We managed to do our grocery shopping without leaving the yard.

Thursday is "Gringo breakfast" at Las Diliciouso in Arenal. There we met many more ex-pats, then went for our Spanish lesson with Ilya, a Tica married to a Persian, originally from Tehran.  She speaks Farsi at home, and teaches French, English and Spanish.  She looked at what we had been studying and the rules we had learned (both real and the ones Ken made up because they sounded good) and promptly started us from the beginning.  We will be taking lessons Thursdays and Saturdays and going to the Gringo Spanish only breakfasts on Monday and perhaps the Monday dinners for Ticos who come to practice their English.  Hopefully by the end of our stay we'll be able to formulate a sentence in Spanish.