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There are some places where you see quite a bit of trash in CR. They are a third world economy and there is only so much money for clean up. But there are also much cleaner better parts of Costa Rica than the cities.
While most of the streets and highways in the U.S. are pretty clean you should see any rural road leading to a landfill. Trash for miles! Even when there are load cover laws and regular cleanup. The trash is there. There are also private or pirate dumps in the U.S. The advantage the U.S. has is its size and ability to HIDE dumps, trash heaps, landfills. . . Plus the money to constantly pickup the trash from streets and roadsides.
If you want to live somewhere cheap you must expect conditions to be different than places where it costs much more. I suspect that Ticos have much LESS trash deposited on their streets than the U.S. They just cannot afford to have it all cleaned up every day.
OK… It seems to me that nothing is holding you back since it is apparent that you have no desire to be in CR. I will do as the ticos do with regard to your comments and go on with enjoying life as if they (your comments) do not exist.
[quote=”outsource2009″][quote=”DavidCMurray”]Okay, there’s trash ([i]basura[/i]) on the streets of Costa Rica.
So what’s your point? Is the trash in the streets what’s keeping you from coming here?
I haven’t traveled elsewhere in Latin America, but a few folks who have have told me that they’re struck by how clean Costa Rica is in comparison.[/quote]
Not only, i can give a lot more reasons that keep from staying here: almost no pedestrian zones, every web sources claims,including ‘WLCR’ that english is the second – not at any price!!!Property is not that cheap as it claims either and the cost of living, if you realy look at it is not cheaper then in Moscow!There are no amusement places for youn people.And the list goes on…[/quote]
Ahem . . .
First, that’s not an avatar in my profile. For better or worse, it’s me. And the cat hasn’t a thing to hide either.
Second, I hardly spend all day long in that chair. Don’t know where you got that notion because it’s where Marcia spends most of her day.
Third, we spent a few weeks with Marcia’s sister and our brother-in-law at their middle class home ($750k – $1 million property values in those days) south of San Francisco in 2005. I have never, ever seen so much trash on the streets. Even San Jose cannot compare. And while the roadsides in many parts of the U.S. are, indeed, reasonably clean, I invite you to drive the “ditches” in and around Detroit if it’s an eyeful of debris you’re looking for.
An article in the Tico Times or A.M.Costa Rica a couple of years ago revealed that Costa Rica has some twenty-five licensed landfills. Of those, twenty-two or so are under orders to close for environmental reasons. It’s true. There’s a real problem. But there’s a real problem just about everywhere. Costa Rica is hardly unique in this respect.
I will give outsource2009 one piece of rather sound advice regarding his desire to have a young and entertaining night-life. Try Key West, Florida, USA. It has the Costa Rican like climate, carefree attitude, and is very young and alive. I hope you give it a try and find happiness there.
Mike
It sounds like you already have a dream place of your own. “Amusement parks, Night clubs” and city life in general are not even on MY list. In fact, most of the things *I* want I have in the rural U.S. except for the climate. The older I get the less I like cold weather and the more out of shape I get every winter. I despise Florida and Southern California, the closest places without winter in the U.S.
While Costa Rica has ONE big city, San Jose, the country is primarily agricultural, Hispanic and Catholic. Those things color every part of life in Costa Rica. Small town life akin to the 1950’s or earlier is typical.
Costa Rica is NOT a land of WalMarts, Water parks, Nascar or 5 star hotels and restaurants. If you want fine city life you will have to find it elsewhere. The world has some great cities IF that is the life you like. GO to Moscow, NY, Paris, Hong Kong if you like.
While English is not spoken everywhere and even the Spanish has such heavy accents in rural areas that it is hard for Spanish speakers to understand we got along fine traveling for a month in CR speaking English only. There WERE those moments of confusion but nothing that stopped us from having a good time and doing what we needed to do.
NO PLACE is perfect. I love the freedoms and access we have in the U.S. but I cannot afford to retire here. While I enjoy the great University libraries and Museums of nearby cities I do not want to live in the cities with them and I could travel to them just as well from anywhere in the Western Hemisphere or Europe as I can now. While I love a meal at a GOOD restaurant I cannot abide by snooty overpriced restaurants where they pay more attention to the dress code than to the attitude of the wait staff. But to some people, THAT is what they like (snooty over real quality).
AND if trash is REALLY your problem then get out an pick it up OR organize groups to do it. Here in the U.S. we have many volunteer organizations that pick up trash on public road sides. I’ve done it numerous times. We did a much better job cleaning the ditches than the road crews and at no cost to the local government. Maybe if a few gringos started picking up the trash it would embarrass the Ticos into doing it and the problem would go away.
OBTW – Where I live in central Virginia, I hear the same complaints that there is no place (meaning clubs) for young people to go, no bicycle lanes, no Amusement parks. But anyone old enough to pick where they want to live can move the 100 miles to Richmond, or 250 miles to the D.C. area or 450 to Baltimore or Charlotte. AND English is spoken (mostly) in all these places.
Just came back from Cr. We love this beautiful country with friendly, helpful, peacefull people, fantastic fresh aromatic food. Fruits and vegetables to duy for!!!
Our living will be provided by my international networkmarketing business i have been building for 7 years, I can do it on internet and skype from any place.
Instead of worry about trush in some places in CR, you need to start worring about garbage we all eating and drinking in USA. Our elected officials could care less about quality of main source of life and health – good food!
All foods are full of chemicals, hormones, antibiotics… irradiated, genetically altered, water is horrible, stinks… Bad health – we have drugs for you and your kids!!
Economically – it is a momentum time to get out ….
We know that we have to speek Spanish well ,so we take classes while we selling house and traditional business.- Cr is a pleace for us!!!
Some of you can keep thinking/”analysis paralisis”… prices already going up!!! May be it is not for you???
Saludos!Pura vida!I have asked this same question of friends and coworkers. The responses I have received are, fear of the beautiful tica ladies, fear of the unknown, fear of leaving the familiar, family constraints and the lack of knowledge of Costa Rica. In terms of trash on the streets, my current working residence of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; has me wiping my eyes every time there is a wind, because of the trash and dirt in the air. Overall, CR is much cleaner than Philadelphia and many other U.S. cities I have resided and worked in. I will not mention the cleaner air, healthier food and friendy tico/ticas in Costa Rica!
guru, you said “. . in Costa Rica. Small town life akin to the 1950’s or earlier is typical.” It’s uncanny.
I grew up in Washington, DC. My parents were antique collectors and every time I walk the roads in our little barrio outside Grecia, I feel like I’ve returned to the West Virginia I remember as a kid. And those are fond memories indeed.
Sadly, however, I’m afraid we’ll learn to be more Costa Rican-like before they learn to be more us-like. I pick up trash as I go but it seems to make little difference.
soldier, you wrote, “. . not [to] mention the cleaner air, healthier food and friendy tico/ticas in Costa Rica.”
I have to share this story: Some folks staying in our guest house had a guest who lived in downtown San Jose. Our guests were looking to build a home and mentioned that, like us, they would insist on insect-tight screens on the windows. Their guest from San Jose replied that they don’t need screens at all because the air pollution kills all the bugs.
What’s holding me back is that moving to Costa Rica was a dream for my husband and I. I lost him last March. Raising two young children alone in a foreign country is what is now really holding me back.
Well from the perspective of a permanent move I can say that due to having seen both sides; poor and comfortable financially speaking I worry about my money running out before my breathing stops (permanently). I just turned 49 and my wife is 41.
Actually I don’t know if I want to live in CR permanently…We have a plan of the following:
1. Searching the country for a desirable location. (Accomplished this task. Took from 08/2006 until July of 2009).
2. Buying a house and remodeling to our specs. This is being done as I type this response.
3. Making extended stays and acclimate to being away from my business and other differences.
I have a successful business that I have built over the past 21 years and it is hard to become a part-timer for me.
We’ll see how it goes I guess…I do know that I want a slower paced life and CR should give us that..I love the beauty of CR and the only thing that turns me off is all of the theft issues. While my home is being remodeled I am actually PAYING a local family to live there; otherwise I wouldn’t have anything left.
I look at it this way…..A professional baseball player strikes out or otherwise doesn’t get on base 7 out of 10 times and he goes to the Baseball Hall of Fame….He is batting 300. So Costa Rica is one of my at bats…Hopefully it works, but if it doesn’t, I’ll try something else (keep swinging)!
TS
I would agree, “The dream lives.” However I am surprised no one else has commented on this topic..
My better half has her hand firmly on my shoulders stopping us from seriously looking at CR, because she is concerned about the healthcare, and the importance of living in an area far removed from it. I would never live in San Jose, but to live in the far south or Guanacaste region seems far from ready professional healthcare.
Any thoughts?
John
I have visited CR so many times that I long to move there as soon as I can. Unfortunately, I cannot close up my practice (I am a lawyer in a small town in the mountains of California) without some kind of income. I have to wait 5 years before I can collect social security benefits (til I am 66 years old) and I would not have any income to live on until then. I can’t sell my house because of the depressed real estate market. My retirement savings are practically nil. It is not a pretty picture. I don’t speak a whole of Spanish, but I speak French and I’ll learn Spanish. It is not that different from French. I want to buy a small farm in the Talamanca mountains above San Ysidro de El General, and grow my own organic food. I am a single woman, and if I had the money to buy my little farm and be able to make a living for the next 5 years, I would move to CR with my two golden retrievers lock, stock and barrel. I know the area, know really good people there and looking forward to making a lot more friends there. I am dreaming of CR every night. I even bought a CD with the sounds of CR and fall asleep every night with it on. It is just a matter of time, but I know it is going to happen. Maxine de Villefranche, Tehachapi, California
My EX was always concerned about living within close distance to a hospital or health care clinic. But if you worry about this kind of thing all the time then you are going to die of worry.
I’ve found during the last couple emergency visits to these so “important” resources in the U.S. that we spent as long waiting (three to four hours) before been seen, that we could have driven half way across Costa Rica. Costa Rica is a SMALL country. Everywhere is only 3 hours or less from San Jose.
Now, if you expect a 10 minute response from an emergency medical technician then you need to very carefully study where you live in the U.S. as anywhere else (forget it in CR). You also need to look closely into the kind of services and personell you specific locality provides. They are all different and NONE are as high tech and professionally staffed as those on TV (its science fiction). You may get a very quick response but only to be transported to the closest hospital AND this may not be where you really needed to go.
One of these emergency visits was to take a friend to the hospital after an industrial accident. It took him 4 days to die, at a cost of $60,000 to his widow who lives on a very little bit of social security. I do not know what this would have cost in Costa Rica but I am sure it would be less than 10%. Most direct medical costs in Costa Rica are 1/3 or less than in the U.S.
IF you have a heart attack and IF you live in just the right neighborhood in the right city in the U.S. you MIGHT get that 10 minute response from properly trained medical technicians. If not (90% of US citizens do not). . . then you would be no worse off in Costa Rica.
IF you think a hospital with emergency services is important to you then keep a close eye on those you depend on. In the U.S. big medical corps are buying and merging hospitals every day. This often results in closed hospitals or a change in services provided. It has also resulted in less competition, longer waits, higher costs and dictatorial policies (your insurance company may no longer be accepted – it happened to my brother last month). This situation is changing daily all across the U.S. and not for the better.
So, while you worry about lack of medical services others go to Costa Rica for the medical services.
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