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From my terrace I can watch the huge dirt movers on that new road — and yes, I think it is going to be the one to LaFortuna, which means that the other highway that the trucks used to use will just be a two-lane country road through my hood. I’m not sure, but I think it will eliminate having to go through Zarcera, which is pretty time consuming. Have no idea when the finish date is, but they’ve been working fast and furiously, so I hope it’s soon!
“We had a guy who came here from TN . . . . He loves grits and gravey, cornbread mush and many other dishes he said were a very imporant part of his life . . . . They had hoped that in coming here to live they would be able to save on their increasing medical cost”
Oh, boy, these people have no business leaving the US! The reason they have increasing medical costs is because of the junk they are eating. If they don’t want to give up that which is killing them, well, there ain’t nothing that will help them. He could save on his medical bills by coming to Costa Rica and getting healthy, eating all that lovely fresh fruit and vegetables, lots of fish and chicken, and getting out to enjoy the beauty of Costa Rica. I know someone who moved to Costa Rica and for the most part has adjusted, except for his consumption of margarine, which he said was better than butter because it didn’t melt in the heat. Sigh. I hope he sees his next birthday with all the heart problems he has now. I am really lucky because I’m not giving up anything by moving to Costa Rica. In fact, I’ve gained a tremendous amount. I have a house totally paid for, something I could never have in the States, and I have enough income to not have to worry about money and the best part. . .I love most everything about Latin culture. I’ve lived all over the world, and had a jet-setting career in my former life. There’s nothing I wish I’d done. Now I get the privilege of living in Costa Rica, gardening all year long, growing orchids, growing my own food, and soaking up Pura Vida! One of the best books I’ve read about moving to Costa Rica is Erin Van Rheenen’s book “Living Abroad in Costa Rica” because it hammers home the concept that this is a different culture; you ain’t gonna change it, and if you want to live here, you have to embrace it with all its foibles and count your blessings that you’re not living in Baghdad!!
Hey, Jenny — I think you and I are very close to the same age, maybe just a year or two apart. I’ve lived in other countries as you have, so I know things can be very different in other places. In fact, you’ll go crazy trying to replicate life as it is in the US in a Third World country. They ain’t gonna change so we either adapt and learn to live in another culture, or we should just stay in the US where we can get Desperate Housewives and a Dominos Pizza. I haven’t bought a washer and dryer yet, but that’s next on my agenda. I don’t even use a dryer here in the States because I prefer to hang my clothes on a line to dry. If it weren’t so damn humid in Costa Rica, I wouldn’t buy one at all except that I want it to dry out my down pillows and bedding! As it states on The Real Costa Rica website, 40% of all the people who move here leave within the first year or two because they cannot transition to another culture. The culture in Costa Rica is about customs and traditions. It’s so much more than just speaking Spanish. And I have to honestly say that it really rankles my ire when people complain about all the things they CAN’T get in Costa Rica (not referring to you, btw) when if they shifted their focus to what they CAN get, they would have an easier time living there.
Hola Jenny:
Costa Rica will never be cheap, or even cheaper, if people move here and expect to have all the things they had in the States. The key to living in any foreign country is to go local — and that means buying locally made products. I bought a locally made stove and fridge — cost for both was less than $800. I could’ve spent twice that and bought a US brand, but why should I? The best soap I’ve ever used is by Bio-land — it is organic and not laden with carginogens as are all the American brands that most people covet. I think it costs about $.70, or less, a bar. What do the Ticos use when their sink gets stopped up? Surely they have a remedy that doesn’t cost what Draino costs. Cuz on $300 a month salary, they ain’t buying Draino. Toilet paper IS cheap if you buy the local brand that isn’t full of chemicals and perfumes; you know the stuff I mean — that horrid brown paper that is totally degradable and great for your septic tank. You should’ve seen the customs agent when they opened my suitcase and found nothing but toilet paper and coffee! Some of the best meat I’ve ever eaten was in Costa Rica — when I hear people complain about the beef I cringe because I know that what they’re used to eating is corn-fed beef that is highly acid — not grassfed beef which has a whole other flavor, and is 100 times better for you. No, it’s not aged, but then what is aging besides the beginning of decomposition? There’s an American woman near San Jose who raises her own pigs and then makes organic sausage — it is to die for, and very inexpensive. But you won’t find it in Perimercado. I have no idea what sugar-free syrup is — but it’s got to be loaded with chemicals such as aspartame. My first choice would be to use locally made honey. Or make your own syrup from all those fabulous fruits, such as blackberries or strawberries. As for cleaning supplies, there are very few commercial things that I buy here in the States and I doubt that will change when I’m living in Costa Rica full-time. I do buy laundry detergent and dish soap, but for all other cleaning supplies, I usually make my own. I simply won’t spend $4.00 for a bottle of 409 when vinegar and water works just as well and is kinder to the environment. I’ve heard the horror stories about sheets and towels and have therefore stocked up on those items, but surely someplace in Costa Rica, maybe Escazu, there are good linens, or does everyone in Costa Rica bring theirs with them? As for staying in expensive hotels, I can’t even imagine paying $85 a night in Costa Rica — the B& B I usually stay in on my first night of arrival costs $25.00 and it’s a fabulous place to stay — it’s like being at home. I’ve stayed at wonderful places at the beach and never paid more than $30 a night. As for the bad neighborhoods — where I built my house is certainly not a slum, nor is there a slum next to it. The neighboring Tico community is comprised of small, nicely-kept homes with lovely gardens and trees. They obviously have pride of ownership, even if they’re poor. Even the Nica family that tends the cane fields keeps their house neat and tidy. During the month that I rented a house in Costa Rica I had to buy plenty of items to survive, including cooking utensils and some pans. My favorite cooking pan was a cast-iron grill that I bought at the local hardware store — it cost $11.00 — I just saw the exact same thing in a store here in Colorado — the price $23.00. A good part of the reason I’m moving to Costa Rica is to form relationships with people who produce my food — I want to know every farmer I buy from. I want to visit their farms and get to know their farming practices. Even now I buy all my food fresh, nothing in a can, box, or package, so for me, Costa Rica means I can really indulge myself and shop til I drop at the local feria, knowing I can have all those fruits and vegetables for a pittance compared to what they cost here. And here in the States, food is my biggest expense after the mortgage. There is not one food item that I cannot get in Costa Rica that I eat here and I expect to spend 1/4 of what I spend here to eat really really well. I’ve made all kinds of lists for my expenses in Costa Rica, and even with all the indulgences, I have a hard time spending a thousand dollars a month — and if anyone knows about extravagances, c’est moi! So, for me, life in Costa Rica will definitely be cheaper AND cheap compared to where and how I’m living now. Oh, and did I mention the price of coffee? I just spent $9.89 a pound for organic Costa Rican coffee — the very same stuff I pay $3.00 a pound for in Costa Rica. Also turkey costs $2.59 a pound here, so even that isn’t inexpensive. But I’ve found chicken and fish to be dirt cheap in Costa Rica compared to stateside prices. I think the bottom-line is that you can choose to spend as much as you want in Costa Rica but it doesn’t mean your life will be any better than those who spend much less. As for Bill Gates? I live in a neighborhood that’s full of people just like him — people with more money than God (but maybe not more than Bill) — and to be quite honest, I’m trying to get the hell away from those people! So thankfully, they won’t be my neighbors in Costa Rica.
I spent the entire month of February in Costa Rica. I did almost all of my shopping at the feria and one night, out of curiosity, I made a list of everything I bought that day. I’d spent 5100 Colones for the following items — that’s about $10.00. Most of these things were organic, too. I don’t have the individual costs of these items, but next to the item I’m going to list the US price.
1/2 kilo eggs – $3.49
1 head red cabbage – $2.99
2 eggplants – $4.50
1 beet (HUGE) – $1.50
1 head lettuce – $1.79
4 sweet potatoes – $2.50
3 tomatoes – $2.00
1 bunch of basil – $2.50
4 mangos – $8.00
1 big papaya – $5.00+
1 bunch Italian parsley – $1.79
6 bananas – $2.50
2 large plaintains – $4.00
4 carrots – $2.00
2 heads broccoli – $3.50
1 small watermelon – $5.99that’s a total of $55.00+ and I may have underestimated the US cost by about 10%.
But for $10.00 I had all the fruit and vegetables I needed for two people for a whole week in Costa Rica. I also bought some fish and chicken and spent less than $6.00 for both. I buy raw milk at the pulperia and pay $.60 for a two litre bottle. From that I make a small amount of butter, yogurt and kefir. I buy my cheese from the local farmer and that costs about $3.00 for a huge chunk of queso palmito. I also buy a pound of fresh-made butter for less than $2.00. I figure that my total food costs in Costa Rica for two people for one week will be about $35.00. One of the largest ferias in Costa Rica is in the town where I live, and I can buy almost everything I eat there. I buy no packaged food of any kind (not even here in the States), and I don’t use plastic bags or aluminum foil or air fresheners and the only things I buy in the supermercado are olive oil, wine and other condiments, and toilet paper, which is about $.15 a roll if you buy the bio-degradable brown stuff and not the high-end Charmin’!
I realize that everyone has their own level of comfort for living in Costa Rica, but I’m figuring that we can easily live on $1200 a month and that includes the maid and the gardener, and have money left over to save. Our house is totally paid for. Property taxes are $78 a year; utilities run about $15.00 a month or less. I’m shipping as little as possible to Costa Rica and am allocating $8,000 to completely furnish the house. I’m only shipping linens, artwork, cooking pottery, and fine china and crystal. Everything else can be bought or made in Costa Rica for a fraction of the cost of buying furniture here so for me, it doesn’t pay to ship anything other than what I can’t replace. I live the same way here as I do in Costa Rica — the only problem is it costs a FORTUNE to live that way here in Colorado! I personally wouldn’t spend $5.00 for blueberries when you can buy a kilo of moras for a buck or so, and they are just as high in antioxidants as blueberries for a fraction of the cost. I think one of the keys to living cheaply in Costa Rica is to eat like the locals and not be buying Ding-Dongs or Ho-Hos or chips or any of that packaged stuff they charge an arm and a leg for at Perimercado.
Decorative concertina wire — now that’s a new concept! We don’t have any of that stuff in my campo neighborhood, but the next time I’m in town, I’ll check it out. I’ve seen such beautiful ornamental iron work that I was tempted to put them up just for the beauty of it.
Your should see the ornamental iron in MY neighborhood in Colorado. People have 8 foot high spiked fences, an alarm system, and an armed guard who patrols the neighborhood. I don’t mind the ironwork in CR, but I do find the concertina wire to be a little unsightly, but hey, if it keeps the thieves out, that’s great.
I’ve been reading about crime in the States, and I’m getting out of here while I still can. The US is crime central. Just listen to the news and read your local paper. So far in Costa Rica there haven’t been any school shootings, workplace shootings, post office shootings, incidents of a parent shooting all their children and then themselves. You also don’t read about mothers cutting off their baby’s arms, or slitting its throat, or putting the baby into a clothes dryer, or throwing the baby onto a subway track. So there are some armed robberies, lots of petty thefts, and other miscellaneous nuisance crimes — just go to Five Points in Denver, or New York Avenue in D.C., or Alphabet City in NY — if you get out of there alive, I’d be surprised. I’ll take my chances in Costa Rica.
Before you even mentioned living in Bermuda, I’d already guessed. Just saw a documentary on the Travel Channel about Bermuda shorts and they showed all kinds of officials and high powered businessmen walking around with the uniform. It’s definitely a cultural thing!
Nicaragua was on my radar when I first thought about moving to Central America but a dear departed friend of mine, who had spent the 70-80-s in CR and Nica working for an unnamed intelligence agency, discouraged me by telling me the Navy Seals were positioning for an uprising. He told me to go to Costa Rica instead. I had not read anything about any uprising or the US moving in again anywhere, and any referece to political strife or upheaval had been conveniently omitted from the tourist and real estate propaganda. They’ll do the same thing with gangs in other countries. It’ll be downplayed, they’ll sell lots of real estate, expats will move in, and DEMAND(!!!) that those governments protect them and their influx of tourist dollars into their governmental coffers. Look how they touted Colombia as a retirement place. I guess everyone forgot about the Medellin cartel and the bloody shoot-outs in public places and the rampant corruption, and oh yeah, all those people addicted to cocaine, crack, and glue.
I like to think of myself as the Mistress of the Absurd and the more I look around the more absurd I think it is! that’s why I so adore and admire the motto of Pura Vida. Pity those materialistic consumeristic Boomers who won’t be able to afford to move all their useless stuff to Central America and who will be forced to embrace Pura Vida because that’s all they’ll be able to afford to do!
That who they’re marketing CR to! Us Boomers who won’t be able to afford to live in the US after all the corporate corruption wiped out our savings and retirement plans, and then how many people fell for that scam of ARMs and taking out 125% of the equity in your home to pay off credit card and other debts from buying too much stuff they didn’t need and couldn’t afford. Nobody has any equity in their homes anymore. It’s just a place to store all that useless stuff they bought. Nicaragua and Costa Rica are about the only places poor boomers will be able to afford to live on their meager SS payments. Just wait — in a few years they’ll be pushing El Salvador and Guatemala as retirement havens after the first wave of exiles buys up all the good property!
Some of those letters were pretty funny. Some elderly friends of mine went to Costa Rica and when they were in San Jose they left their hotel at night after being warned not to and walked through the park looking for another hotel guest who had gotten drunk and wandered off. The elderly couple got mugged in the park. They weren’t hurt badly but they were soured on Costa Rica. They live outside Chicago, so I asked them would they have walked through a park at night in an unfamiliar area in their home city? Of course not they said, but they thought things were different in Costa Rica. Oh, boy, it harks back to my favorite motto — you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it think.
After I posted that message I started wondering about the people who decide to move to Costa Rica without having been there. Or without having ever lived in a Third World Country. And no, Miami and Los Angeles don’t qualify! For me, I knew immediately I wanted to live there but then I’ve spent lots of time and lived in remote parts of Mexico and the Yucatan — I spent two months once in a little (very very little as in only 5 people) fishing village with no electricity and running water. I was very happy there and didn’t miss anything about the US, even my bed, which had been exchanged for a hammock and a mosquito net. But for the average gringo who picks up and moves out of country to a place where everything is foreign spells future disaster to me. Besides the language one has to have some basic understanding of the culture, it’s mores and attitudes, and I wonder how much prep some of these people really do before taking the plunge? Then when it doesn’t work out, they have negative thoughts about the country they fled — like the woman who said, after two years, she was throwing in the towel for these 3 main reasons: They speak Spanish, it rains a lot, and there are bugs! Where did she move? The JUNGLE!!!!! Well, DUH!! I can only imagine the stories she is telling back in the States about her adventure!
