Gone But Not Forgotten

This is much delayed update, it is longer than normal, so get comfortable.

We became aware that vortexes rotate in the opposite direction down here.
An omen, perhaps…..

While continuing our search for a house, we came across a lead. A couple we met from Boston had a guy in their office, who new someone’s sister who’s boyfriend’s friend’s girlfriend was renting a place. She spoke no English, and he was kind enough to help us broker a deal.

Finally, we have a house. A little cottage-like place that’s a gigantic improvement and much more accommodating for us. It has 4 bedrooms and windows in some of the rooms. In front we have a wonderful collection of beautiful plants that surround our patio. We have it set up with tea-lights, rocking chairs and a small wooden table built by descendants of the carpenters who made Noah’s Ark. It has a dirt floor which keeps the Costa Rican flair. There are many random dogs. Two in particular have adopted us. We descriptively named them Underbite and Dirty Dog. We also have a one eyed cat,,,, really. Its name is (you’ll never guess) is- One Eye.

It is very secure and we are surrounded by the family whose houses border ours. There is the occasional herd of cows, or we think maybe they are oxen, roaming our yard. At dusk there are bats diving around us at dinner time on the porch, feasting on the mosquitoes. They fly so close you can feel the wind of their passing. We have equipped our yard with hammocks between coconut trees and a giant dirt area for Soren’s excavation habits with the shovel he got for his birthday.

New Years Eve was spent hanging out in Montezuma, a laidback-funky and very popular little ‘town’. It was warm and beautiful that night, with the streets packed with dancing people getting crazy and having a great time. Sitting on the beach watching the people and fireworks and just thinking of all of our friends and wondering what ya’all were doing just then. (It was 10pm your time, you were probably drinking)

I’m off to San Jose on the 1st to meet Jazmyne at the airport late that evening.
I spend the day running errands including Hypermas (Latin American Wal-Mart) to find items like real peanut butter and jelly. I’m also looking around town for Bonnie’s Birthday present. It’s hard to find a Dollar Store in Costa Rica. I was robbed in the Hipermas. Some very fast and fearless thief, managed to open my pack (which was under the cart full of goods) take the wallet, rezip the bag and flee. The cart was never more than ten feet from me. I think a small child on roller blades raised by circus performers may have done it. I lost $400 cash, my passport and my dignity.

Jazmyne’s flight gets in at 9:30. I’m at my hostel with nothing. My host is very gracious and takes me to the airport and I’m praying that Jaz brings some cash. Our life depends on it!
She arrives! There is a warm and joyful reunion followed by me calmly asking if she has any money. She looks quizzically at me and says yes. OH THANKGOD!
WELCOME TO CENTRAL AMERICA!

Ironically, Jazmyne has brought a strange form of bad luck in the form of massive biting spiders and scorpions. We have seen none of real significance so far in all the time here up til now. Jazmyne has Arachnophobia and we’ve been assuring her that the spider lore she’s heard from everyone isn’t true. The day she got here this was proven wrong by a large, gnarly looking spider that is sighted to their horror, and is brutally crushed with my flip-flop. This is followed a day later when I unearthed a giant Tarantula from under the laundry pile. I didn’t let her see this one, or she’d be on the next plane out of here.

Later that month, I’m roused in the middle of the night by a sharp and excruciating pain in my forearm. I know something has bitten me, Bonnie gets the lights and we lift the sheets and a huge, downright prehistoric looking Scorpion runs under the blankets. Bonnie goes off with the most savage screams and flailing I've ever seen, and I start punching the bed hoping to kill it. It dies. I pull the bedding away to reveal a real specimen, this thing is big, and majorly ugly. Bonnie then goes into the freaking out part of the healing process. Let me just say that I’ve been subjected to many a painful smashed thumbs, torn flesh, and punctures with pneumatic nail guns. The pain of this scorpion sting ranks up there. While telling our hostess Mary, she informs me in barely discernable, rapid-fire Spanish, that oh yes they hurt, especially when you get stung on the head! This is no comfort to me. I fake a smile and walk away. All day I’m contemplating just how one gets bitten on the head. Sweet dreams.

We take the kids to see their school which starts mid-January. The girls are unimpressed. We take that with a grain of salt. We assume that they wouldn’t show any interest unless some of the teachers were bare-chested beach hunks with chiseled abs. The school is comprised of small bungalows, adjacent to a large soccor field and tennis courts. There is a gym in an open air building that has one of those punching bags that looks like a pissed off guy without arms. No matter how many times I pass it I think there is a dude in there working out, but wait, freaky man, he’s got no arms! Oh yeah.

Two weeks into her stay, Jazmyne makes it known that she feels she is better off back home. With a budding art career and the momentum she’s created in Portland, it’s difficult to say so, but she will be happier if she goes. Jazmyne is a brilliant soul.
I am so proud of her. She has won awards in Portland for her artwork and has been chosen by Portland’s Mayor to have her work displayed. Bravo Jazmyne! We were able to play in the beautiful turquoise water, on our favorite white sand beach, and enjoy the time we had. She will be missed.

School starts with a bit of a stutter. The staff is still unpacking and sorting thru boxes. The headmaster assures us that she has some books for Catherine in one of her closets, she thinks. They talk a much better game than they play. The boys take awhile to settle in, but they do. Soren makes some good friends after some sorting, which can get kind of ugly at that age. Lucas is pissed that he’s in with the little kids and none of the teachers speak any English. He moves up a level which makes for a longer day, but he is happier.


For all of its foibles we know that the diversity and newness that this will offer is the kind of education that is hard to come by, and will be an asset to them over the long haul. The benefits we think will balance out the deficiencies, and make it worth all the expense. We are sure that Catherine has begun to like the school. This is evidenced at the corner bus stop, where the cute boys that sit there being young, single and foreign. She is a beautiful, very bright girl in a very small field of play. It is a joy to see her be happy and have much to look forward to. She now lives to ride the bus. I think we could be living in Beirut now and she’d be ok with it as long as she has the bus ride.

Daily life here is pretty great, especially when we have perspective. We were talking the other day about how the things that we tell people about are mostly some of the downside stuff. Probably because it is so dramatic, and makes a good story. The reality of how we live day to day, and the smaller joys go unreported.

We have a bunch of coconut trees in our yard that we harvest and drink the coconut water. The boys love the process of getting them out of the trees with a long piece of re-bar with a hook on the end, hacking at them with the machete and drinking straight from the coconut. It’s so cute seeing Lucas drinking them because they are as big as his head. We have strung two hammocks between some of the palms, a great place to relax, read and play with the kids.

We had big plans to run everyday and get totally in shape for ultimate and maybe some triathalons. We have run some mornings, before the heat and its been hard. The dirt roads are rough and when a car passes you are smothered in a cloud of dust. Bonnie has been attacked a couple of times by a demon Pigeon. Really. The last few times she’s gone out she has been assaulted by this pigeon, who seems to be waiting for her. The first time it happened it was scary and she was yelling and swinging at it. She actually hit it off her as it dive bombed and eventually it left. The neighbors were staring, having heard her battle cry and yelling. After a few more attacks she ran with a stick, but it’s a little unnerving to run and prepare to be attacked from the air at any time. And as soon as she decides she’s in the clear and drops the stick, demon pigeon attacks! We decided just to run together. The bird apparently is afraid of bald men.

During the week we get the kids off to school, have tea and breakfast on the patio. Later in the morning we either go into town to do shopping or errands or we head to the beach. We live near many of the best beaches and frequent these often to lie around, read, swim, and lately, surf. Our surfing is coming along, being that we have been sporatic with it. Surfing is very physically demanding. After taking a sound beating by a wave, you just jump back on and paddle, paddle, paddle. We just bought a board and are getting up much more now and have ridden a couple of open face waves.

It is an understatement to say that the beaches here are beautiful. Our favorite is a small beach called Playa Mancha. It is a small cove with white sand and very clear water. When the tide is right it is absolutely stunning to swim there. The sunlight plays through the water on the white sand making these undulating webs of light. Just floating face down, letting the swells lift you, the sun on your back, looking into the clear sea is really something. Good snorkeling on this beach and it’s calm enough to swim out to sea for some exercise. Coming to Mancha on a clear night with a full moon is just unbelievable and surreal.

Playa Hermosa is another favorite of ours. Very fine sand, the perfect size waves for surfing, and very picturesque. The kid’s school is a five minute walk from Hermosa, and they come to the beach every Friday. Soren and Lucas are getting into boogie boarding here and Catherine is becoming an adept body surfer.

We have a tiny bookstore in Montezuma where we can trade and exchange books. Reading is an essential element of our tropical immersion program. There is a very decent cappuccino to be had here, and our favorite ‘Cappucino Chiller’- frozen vanilla yogurt with espresso, in the nearby Sano Banano restaurant. A local fisherman a few km down the Cabuya road sells freshly caught Mahi, Tuna, Sea bass, and Snapper. If timed right, the boats pull up on the beach behind his house and they fillet them right there. Eight dollars buys a kilo of fresh tuna!

Laundry is done in this little machine that has a washing drum and an extractor side by side. All the laundry is hung to dry, and the clothes never really return to their normal proportions after a while. The house requires constant cleaning because of the dust coming in from the road, and it’s good practice to sweep just in case of any critters hiding in the corners. The wind chimes sing, the cows bray, beans and rice are on the stove and all is well.

In late January we had our first visitors- Audra and Hayes from Bend! It was so great to have Audra come out and bring Hayes with her, she also toted along a huge bag of immensely longed for tasty treats from the U.S. She can attest to the challenges of traveling with small children and massive luggage. Audra is a trooper and we all enjoyed playing with Hayes. Sadly, Tucker couldn’t get away from work and wasn’t able to come along.

We planned a trip with them to Playa Grande, which is north about 180km. The Leatherback Turtles nest there four months out of the year; it’s one of only a handful of places in the world that they nest. Being the turtle fanatics that we are, we felt we had to make it there during the nesting season. Bonnie has determined that the turtle is her spirit animal, a good compliment to my spirit Rhinoceros.

Bonnie and Audra were to meet at the airport and then go to Playa Grande via Liberia. The kids and I were to take a route recommended by our neighbor and meet them in Playa Grande the next day. I had no idea what we were getting into. The standards held by the locals here for what is a good road and which is the fastest route to take are questionable at best. The route we took was crazy! We crossed I don’t know how many rivers, and came to dozens of intersections in the middle of nowhere with no signs anywhere. You can’t get around here and be shy about asking strangers standing in their field for directions. But you never know if the directions are right. Ticos (Costa Ricans) never want to disappoint, so they will give you an answer even if they don’t know.

We had just crossed a wide river and were barreling along when the temperature gauge was pegged. I stopped and lifted the hood and could hear the radiator hissing and the oil boiling in the engine block. Not good. Somewhere along the way we lost a motor mount and the engine had lunged forward and jammed the radiator fan into the housing. You kind of need that fan to cool the engine. I filled a 10 gallon water bottle from a river and we limped along, stopping every ten minutes or so to add more water and let it cool down. This road climbed and traversed mountains and valleys far, far away from anything.

Next, the car died on a steep descent, the power brakes and steering failed and we came to an emergency stop in a shallow ditch on a switchback. The road there pitched about a 30 degree decline. The motor showed no oil, and we were almost out of water. Just me, three kids,a broken down car, and the prospect of a 30 kilometer walk. Perfect. I finally got it started again and we continued, but the brakes never came back, we just had the E-brake.

Needless to say we were a bit late making it to Playa Grande. Bonnie was very relieved when we finally arrived. We immediately headed to the beach and started enjoying our mini-vacation.

The next night we were lucky and got to see a leatherback nesting. It was a warm night, with about fifteen of us in our group, walking down the beach to the sight where the laboring turtle was spotted. Leatherbacks are huge! We saw one last time that had to be 4ft by 3ft and 800lbs.

The turtles go into kind of a birth trance while they are digging their nest. The guides have red lenses in their headlamps and we have to stand behind the turtle out of sight so we don’t disturb her. No photos allowed. The turtles have articulating fingers in their flippers, they cup and dig the sand out of the hole scoop by scoop, switching sides each time. They are amazingly patient and deliberate. The nest is more than 3ft deep and the turtle takes deep breaths occasionally, exhaling loudly. Bonnie, who loves birth in all forms, was very moved by the turtles’ labor.

We were close enough to see the turtle drop her eggs into her nest. They are soft and wet and come out 3 or 4 at a time. One of the park volunteers laid on his belly inches behind her, actually lifting her flipper to see better. After she’s finished laying her eggs, 60 -100!, she methodically pushed sand into the hole and patted it down with each stroke, switching sides each time. At the end she flings sand over it with her front flippers which are very long, and then labors, slowly, back into the sea. It was incredible, well worth walking a mile in the sand, at night to see.

We left for home the following day, after having the car repaired. Miraculously, we found a shade-tree mechanic who replaced the missing motor mount in the dirt driveway in front of his house. Costing a whooping $34 dollars- and a few days off my life. The journey home was only slightly better. We were told by the hotel reception of a “faster” route, which of course ended up taking twice as long. We made it home after a harrowing race to catch the last ferry in Puntarenas. Once again a Costa Rican episode of the Amazing Race. They say never to drive in Costa Rica at night. The reason for this we discovered is that there are NO lines on the roads, they are too narrow, there are no shoulders, and people drive insanely.

Back home, we showed Audra and Hayes the local beaches, monkeys, toucans, and lots of mosquitoes. We had picnics, sampled rice and beans at many local restaurants and caught up while hanging out at the house. Audra even joined us for our first surf lesson. It is an awakening to have a fresh set of eyes here to help us appreciate things for what they are. We had a great time with Audra and Hayes and wanted it to last longer.

Life has a way of following you wherever you go. And amidst the lessons that have become salient and challenges we’ve invited into the light, we have stillness and beauty all around us. It is truly a trip to be crabby and surly, to grudgingly take out the trash and look up to find an amber moon rising behind wild black trees in an amethyst sky. Just then I realize, that the cows standing there chewing their cud are in that moment, far more evolved than I.

The Iguanas Won!

The Iguanas Won! That’s right, after weeks of dealing with our noisy and smelly co-tenants, we came to the realization the iguanas weren’t moving out and our landlords weren’t ever coming back. So, we’ve moved again. Third times a charm, we hope! But before we moved we decided it was time for a vacation- a little holiday from house hunting and iguana wrestling. Thus we headed to Nicaragua. (Plus, we have to leave Costa Rica every 90 days for our tourist visa.) Nicaragua was beautiful, friendly, full of culture- cathedrals, plazas, crafts, but also very poor.

We started the journey with a 9 hour bus ride from San Jose, CR to Rivas, Nicaragua. We arrived in Rivas on the night of a pre-Christmas festival- loud fireworks, carnival rides, burning Virgin Mary float. The boys were in heaven!

The next day we headed to Ometepe, an island composed of two volcanoes on Lake Cocibolca. We stayed at Chaco Verde Resort, right next to the Chaco Verde Reserve. It was gorgeous! The whole island is very lush and green, overshadowed by the volcanoes. We spent the days swimming and kayaking in the lake. Soren didn’t get out of the water. At night, we ate fresh fish, sometimes by candlelight due to the rolling electricity blackouts going on in Nicaragua.

Our next stop was Granada, the oldest city on the continent. Granada is full of charm and history. We stayed in a backpacker hostel, all packed together in one room (actually, we all were packed in one room for 12 of the 14 days, often with three of us in one bed- apparently Central America isn’t set up for traveling families of 5!) trying to keep the boys quiet early in the morning and our neighbors quiet late at night. Catherine enjoyed the ‘fast’ internet connection and caught up with her friends in Skype. Late in the afternoon we caught a carriage ride around the city and saw some of the significant landmarks, all narrated in spanglish by the driver. We sought out some different dining fare while we had a chance to take advantage of being in a larger city. We tried to find Mexican of all things, and found a decent place, but it wasn’t cheap. We found that it isn’t as cheap overall in Nicaragua as we thought it might be. We did have exceptional luck on our date night, when Catherine took a bullet for us and watched the boys so we could go out. There was a small Thai place on the corner that turned out to be great, with soft cushioned low couches, throw pillows and little tables. It was very romantic, with dim lights shaded with reds and golds and really cool ambient/trance music in the background. The Phad Thai was close to the best we have ever had, or maybe it was just that we have been steeped in beans & rice.

We took Lucas to have his haircut in a local shop. We had heard that the salons were very
cool here and wanted to have that experience. We walked in and there were about 6 people in the place, most of them old, fat and very much asleep. We assumed that they all either worked there or lived there. Nobody jumped up to greet us, actually they seemed a bit irritated and aloof to us. The man asked who was to get the haircut and assumed it was Soren with his wild, tortured hair. We pointed to Lucas and he sighed and pointed to a woman in the back. Bonnie instructed her to take “un poquito” to match his style now, and she took a mass of his hair and just lopped it off. We were horrified. We looked at each other both thinking how we were going to navigate this one. She butchered him pretty bad and we just had to take it as another bit of local flavor. Lucas didn’t mind so much, he was after the ice cream that was promised as reward.

Next off to Laguna de Apolla ~ This was probably our favorite stop. A half hour from Granada, this laguna is a clear blue lake formed inside the crate of the Apoyo Volcano. The volcano still has some underwater thermal vents, so the water is warm! It had a slight taste of sulfer and was home to two species of fish found nowhere else on earth. The boys were literally in the water from 8 am (Soren started asking at 7) until 5pm. We kayaked, played on inner-tubes and jumped off the dock. Soren took turns towing everyone on the kayak, perfecting his skill as a water taxi.

We headed north to the beaches of Las Penitas next, southwest of Leon, a very rustic beach town, a favorite holiday destination for Nicaraguans. We saw families making little houses on the beach out of dead palms by burying the stalks in the sand and picnicking on the downwind side. Nicaraguans have no regard for cleanliness. They litter and just abandon their debris wherever they are. We played in the estuary and the boys had a blast. Soren took to floating down on the current on his back, only his face above the water. He looked like a corpse floating to sea. Lucas has really lost his fear of the water and is taking new risks every visit to the water. We attribute this to regular exposure to ‘sneaker waves’ and efforts at pure survival in the breaks. He hates the salt water in his eyes and mouth and protests vigorously.

The long journey home- Leon, Managua, San Jose, Cobano. It took 3 days, 5 taxis, 4 busses, a ferry, and a ride in the back of pick-up. Hind-sight is always 20/20, but perhaps we got ourselves a bit too far north. J

Now we are back home- our third and final we hope. …..
We miss you all! The holidays feel a little odd here in the tropics, and despite all the adventure, we find ourselves homesick! Keep the email coming- we love to feel in-touch!

Wishing you lots of holiday joy!! Love- Eric, Bonnie, Catherine, Soren & Lucas

All the right moves!

Hello all,,, Im gonna try to add to this blog. Bonnie is the ‘Techi’ with the internet.

So as I browse the pics we haven’t sent out, which is almost all of them, I feel the need to explain a few.

Soren did a head-plant down the stairway one night, the first night we were at our “beach house”. He surfed down the whole stairway on his luggage, after first bashing his head on the concrete wall. After we were fairly sure he didn’t have a concussion, I took this photo to document it, but freaked out because he looks dead.

Lucas has been hammin’ it up, (especially when he is naked). We have made several trips to beautiful beaches, but always managed to leave our camera behind.

Bonnie and I have determined that we are participants in the amazing race, and sometimes pretend there is a camera in the car. We speculate on who the viewers are most partial to, or who’s side they pick when we are both being crabby.
Soren got a bike for his birthday, and we go two great beach cruisers for under 110 bucks. Cataherine and I tood a ride at 10pm to Montezuma and swam in the moonlite at this awesome little cove. The beach is about 30 feet wide between rocky tidepools.
It was cool to have my eyes at water-level in the dark with the full moon reflecting the waves.
We have had a nightly visitor, a very old raccoon who knows no fear. She walked right up to me eventho I was banging my machete on the bricks to scare her away. Kind of freaky…. I have this nightly routine of taking out the compost, which is typically me walking or half running through the jungle yard wielding my machete. At nite there is the. sound of a million hermit crabs moving underfoot. It is pretty loud and unnerving. I try to imagine actual combat with a machete…. It usually doesn’t comfort me much.

Our current landlords are unexpectedly very flakey and aren’t appearing to fix anything that needs help here at our beach house,,, so we are (could it be???) moving again!! We found a nice place upland a bit for half the money and twice the size. There are children in the hood and basically all the relatives the owner has live on all sides of us. While we toured it soren and lucas played with the neighborhood kids in the yard, it was very cute. The tico kids are very curious about the boys, and are eager to play. Soren has stubbornly refused to speak Spanish claiming that THEY can speak English.
“he knows English dad,,,,, he said ‘uh huh’ and ‘cool’ and ‘my name is…’. Lucas has learned some and his little voice speaking Spanish is sooo cute!
So the plan is to get a lawyer (1 out of 10 people here are lawyers- Brian should move here) to scare our landlady a bit,, get our deposit back, travel in Nicaragua for a week or so by bus, and return to move into our new digs on the 20th.
Oh Boy!

Homeless No Mas!

We have a home!! We are ready for visitors! A little catch up…

Directly following our debacle at the Casa de Ormigas (house of ants), we bit the bullet and rented a cabiña for the next week while our search continued. We celebrated Soren’s 8th birthday at this cabina. We hiked to a nearby island that morning and enjoyed homemade ice cream cake that night. His big surprise was a new bike, which he’s been riding all over.

Here’s how our house search went- we’d go to Saturday market in Montezuma, and talk to just about anyone who could have a lead for us. We established some relations with a few of the regulars who are really fantastic and interesting people. At this point I need to introduce Dennis. Dennis is an expat that lives here with his wife Cassandra and an army of dogs.

This dude is about 50, very intelligent and a hybrid between Kramer and Barney Miller, but way more intense. I haven’t found a topic yet that Dennis isn’t well informed in or at least isn’t willing to take a vigorous stab at. He is very well connected here and has been largely responsible for our success in finding our current digs. He our translator, goto guy, informant and hitman.

During the week at our cabina we explored the nearest ‘bigger’ town of Cobano.
This is where we do our shopping for things beyond eggs, rice, beans and white bread (the white bread is brand named “Bimbo” and we found awesome t-shirts that we gotta get for Potlatch this year!!). By the way, their idea of bread is these baguettes that are all white flour and air and weigh about 5 ounces per loaf. They eat these for breakfast with tons of margarine and fruit. We sampled a few of the sodas (cafes), bakeries, internet cafes and even a so-so iced cappuccino. The internet bandwidth here is better than Montezuma but still dialup speeds. They have two hardware stores called Ferreterias, a little Quick lube (very little) and Pedro the mechanic. I am lining Pedro’s pockets lately.

Our new house-

I had earlier heard of this place owned by a rich gringo lady, who had bought it for Nena, tico woman, to manage and keep the rent because she was so poor. The guy Mike that told me about it said it had a leaky roof, termites and was on the demolition list. Clearly I had written this one off. Well, things getting worrisome being that high-season is just starting to rev-up and the rentals will be gone soon; we decided to take a look anyway.

Nena sells homemade marmalade, jams and coconut oil, and has this crazy outdoor kitchen with a makeshift wood oven. I bludgeoned her with my Spanish and arranged to see the house. Her husband got on his old motorcycle and showed the way to our current home. Very dusty and musty but obviously a diamond in the rough, especially after Ormiga Manor. All almond wood floors and woodwork, decent kitchen, a freeken huge bathroom with walkin two person shower, large master, loft for two and a little area under the loft perfect for my teens. (Bonnie is currently laughing hysterically because I fail to mention the Costa Rican perceptual adjustment situation- as in if its not rotting or full of ants, its GREAT. She thinks maybe I am misrepresenting the place a tad)

After some negotiation with Dennis as our liaison, we got it. A new fridge, stove and washer were included in the deal. But it is way more than we anticipated paying here.

We’ve been here a week and a day now and so far, Soren has plummeted head first down the stairs from the loft in the middle of the night (the loft has no railing- just a hole in the floor for the stairs), getting the gnarliest goose-egg on his forehead. Scared the crap out of us, and I was worried he might look like John Merrick the rest of his life.

THEN has turned out to be our favorite word when telling about our adventures here….. because THEN we discovered a legion of Iguanas living in our ceiling. This was revealed in the middle of the night on evening. It sounded like a bunch of lumber being dragged around by something with very large claws tearing at the roof top.
THEN- the water one day turned to mud, well more like water in a mud puddle. THEN we had a major bug infestation. THEN the shower head started shooting water up at the ceiling where there are open 10 gauge, 40 amp wires sticking out for the disconnected water heater. The water heaters here are at the end of the pipe. They are actually little coffee makers with a shower head on them. The water perks, mixing with the flow of cold and comes out. If you run the shower on drip then the water is ‘warm’. All this is very cool. Except that ours doesn’t work.

I picked up Dennis and went to Nena’s.
They will fix the screens, new showerhead and do something which I couldn’t understand with the Iguanas. (When they will do this, we don’t know). Dennis later told me he had that Iguana problem once and killed them all but one, with great head shot with his pellet gun. I guess the other was a gut shot. He calls the local Argentinean who comes over, harvests the corpses, and has them for dinner! “Chicken of the Jungle”

We do however have an amazing beachfront view, literally fifty feet from the beach. A very cool large yard with outdoor shower, private drive and lots of room for camping. The house has cleaned up nicely and we are adjusting to the foibles of living here, because the ‘here’ clearly isn’t going to change any time soon. It seems like I’m gonna have to do a McGuyver on the Iguanas with Dennis and the Argentinean chef. Bonnie is very eager to chase away the iguanas as they are very hyper around 2 am and also because we heard that they are the favorite food for the BOA CONSTICTORS! Dennis assures me that boa’s bites, however painful, aren’t fatal but the last one he had to wrestle was particularly nasty.

I’m off to pick up our 1990 Montero, which had its rusted frame (that was threatening to drop the rear axel) welded, in addition to a new muffler, rear bushings, transmissions support and spark plugs.

More later as we are able.
We miss you all very much and assure you that it is a must visit here, and absolutely beautiful.

Back Online!

Internet hiatus. Back online now. Lots has happened, then again, not too much. If we had been updating regularly, here’s a brief synopsis of what we would have written:

Montezuma- In a desperate attempt to flee San Jose, the rain, and the non-kid friendly hostels, Bonnie & the kids take the bus to Montezuma while Eric stays in San Jose to (hopefully) buy a car.

Lucas has no shoes!- After a swim in the ocean, we decided to go for a walk down the nearly deserted beach. We returned to discover all of our shoes had been stolen, including Lucas’ little crocs- his only shoes because in Turrialba we found out his new shoes were to small and gave them away to a shoeless boy at the market (one would think we’d have good, not bad, shoe karma after that?) We walked barefoot back to town and bought new flipflops. Lucas hates his!

Baby Turtle- Today on the beach (Eric’s still in San Jose) we saw a lone baby turtle making his way back to the ocean! It was amazing- so beautiful!! The boys named him Flipper-Flapper and we cheered for him all the way to the ocean. (We of course don’t have any photos to share because we don’t take anything but our cheap flip-flops to the beach these days.)

Proud Montero Owners- Yeah!!! All together now: Yeah!!!! We are now the proud owners of a 1990 Mitsubshi Montero! Complete with a glow-in-the-dark Jesus is our Savoir stick shift. No joke! Buying a car here is no easy feat, and it was even harder for us because the guy selling this car is a police officer who apparently never has any time off. The sale was FINALLY completed when Eric and our attorney (yes, you need an attorney to buy a car here) met the police officer on the street corner where he was working to sign the final papers. Learning to go with the flow in Central America.

The House Hunt- This is turning out to be a lot like buying a car. We get some info, follow it around for days in circles, and then start in a whole new direction altogether. We started looking in Cabuya, then we were told we’d have better luck in Manzanillo. So we headed over to Manzanillo, but never even made it there because the roads are soo bad!! And we have 4-wheel drive. Apparently the roads will all be repaired when the rains stop for good (any day now), but since we couldn’t even make it to Manzanillo, we decided we probably shouldn’t live in Manzanillo. Back to Cabuya.

On Sunday the post would have read: We’ve found a house. Actually 2 houses- one green and one purple bungalow right next door to each other. We’ve rented them both and between the two we have 4 bedrooms in Cabuya for $450/month. We move in today!!!

Monday- The bungalows were infested (and I mean INFESTED as in 5000 plus) with ants!! And roaches. And who knows what else. EWWW! :( We moved out this morning. So sad! Back to the house hunt.

And here we are. We are still house hunting. Have a good lead. We should know in the next few days. In the meantime we’ve rented a house on the beach (nice vacation rental, relatively bug free) to have a nice base from which to search. Eric does most of the spanglish conversing, sometimes waiting for people to cook breakfast, eat breakfast, and press coconut oil before they are ready to show him a house.

There is still no urge to hop a plane back to workaholism and school. The people have been great and unbelieveably helpful. There is a sense of community and if your car is stopped by the side of the road, someone always stops with a smile and wants to help.
Lucas’s hair is still the feature attraction and usually the great ice breaker with the language barrior- “ QUE LINDO!” We will elaborate and illustrate when we are sitting at our breakfast table having our coffee, looking at the beach, fifty feet from our porch.
We wish you all were here as our neighbors, and we could have dinner and play Frisbee in the local futbol field at dusk.

Turrialba

Saturday, October 20th:

After spending one night in San Jose, we headed straight to Turrialba to start a one week language intensive program. Que Bueno! Turrialba is about 1 1/2 hours from San Jose, nestled in a lush valley. The Turrialba River runs through here and thus the town is famous with the white water kayaking crowd. We stayed with a host family who have 2 teenage boys and a nine year old daughter, Ruth. Within minutes Soren and Lucas were off playing with Ruth, and that's how its gone most of the week. We all went to school in the morning, Eric and I at Spanish by the River, and the boys at a local international school. The boys did ok, considering how much they both love starting new schools, but by Friday they had had enough and sat in class with us instead. The family were staying with, the teachers and director at our school, and the people in Turrialba in general are incredibly friendly! We feel very safe and welcomed. Everyone stares at the boys, especially Lucas. Occasionally a taxi driver even reaches out to pinch his cheek. We are heading back to San Jose Sunday to pick up Catherine and finish up things with the whole car purchase.

We're Off!

Tuesday, October 9th:

After weeks of craziness (we slightly underestimated the time needed to pack up a family of six & finish our remodel), we're off to Costa Rica to begin this great adventure! Thanks to all who helped us get out of town- finish building, pack up, and to Angel who's catsitting our dear Pumpkin! :) Check back soon- we'll update as soon as we can.