One week to go

Countdown!  One week left until we move into our own digs.  While it has been an interesting adventure living in this neighborhood, the water shortages, and sleeping on a mattress next to a noisy street somehow has detracted from some of the charms such as the nice people, trails/roads to hike and the fresh citrus from the adjacent orchard.

We had the opportunity to visit the city of Cartago last week which is the second largest city in Costa Rica and locates less than an hour South of San Jose.  We stopped to visit an incredibly beautiful Basilica de Nuesta Señora de Los Angeles, home of the Black Madonna, La Negrita, which is the patron saint of Costa Rica.  Every first week of August, thousands of Ticos make a pilgrimage to Cartago as the saint is attributed with healing powers.  People will walk for even a couple of weeks to make the journey and then make the final portion of the pilgrimage on their knees.

We journeyed just a few kilometers onward to the Lankester Gardens.  The private botanical gardens are immaculately kept and have a collection of over 800 types of orchids and approximately 3,000 species of plants.  The trails were nicely laid out and easy to navigate with our elderly parents who thoroughly enjoyed the trip.  The orchids were a few weeks from being in peak season, but we still managed to see a wonderful variety of the incredibly beautiful flowers along with a wide assortment of bromeliads.

On Saturday morning, Mr M and I ventured over the new bridge from Santa Eulalia to Grecia to the farmer's market.  Naturally, we got lost and did not see any signs to the market so we pulled into a grocery store parking lot and asked the parking attendant for directions.  He replied with amusement, "the feria is right back there by the big, tall tree on the left."  When I asked him if there was a sign anywhere, he laughed and said, "señora, this is Costa Rica, the tree IS the sign!"  The market was three times bigger than the one in Atenas and we found some items there not available in Atenas.  We also noticed some of the fruits were cheaper in Grecia.

Yesterday we made a run to the Coopeatenas grocery store. About midway there we noticed a car stopped alongside the road and the apparent owner standing in the middle of the road with a stick.  As we slowed down to go by him we noticed ther was a large live boa constrictor right beside the stick in his hand.  Wonder if the man was a snake charmer?  Not really sure, but made the trip memorable.  You just never know what you will see around the corners on the roads here.

After the grocery store run we detoured to Barrio Fatima on our way home to search for the ice cream made by the owner of LaCosaRica.com.  We had tried the ice cream at the chili cookoff and decided we must find more of his fabulous  ice cream.  We pulled up to a large wooden gate with a sign indicating we had arrived at the right house.  We called the cell phone number on the sign and found out the ice cream man was out of town until today.  We agreed that we would be back today at 9:00 am to get our fix.  We headed back down this morning and returned home with various containers of strawberry, mango, cappucino, chocolate and coconut ice cream.  Cannot wait to indulge this afternoon! 

Water, please stop the water!

Water, water, water!  We had to have another delivery of water last Saturday, but alas, we started receiving flowing water from the municipality again on Monday.  So, we decided to live on the edge and do a couple of loads of laundry and even turn the automatic sprinkler system back on for a night or two.  Big mistake!  Around midnight, Mr M and I woke up to the strange noise of water bashing against something....definitely not the normal sound of a sprinkler.  Initially, we thought the water was hitting new aluminum fence posts that were installed last weekend.  Just to be safe though, I got up to investigate the spraying sound.  

As I approached the room where my dad sleeps, the noise got louder and louder.  I stepped into his room to discover there was a whole lot of water on the floor near the window.    As I approached the window, it became very evident there was a powerful spray of water coming through the screen and trying to permeate the wood blinds.  Of course, it had to be squarely in the direction of our laptop, mouse, printer, and my husband's important work papers!  I quickly closed the window and yelled for backup with towels.  I opened the back door to discover the sprinkler head was going full blast right toward the bloody window.  Crap!  

So there we are mopping up about 1/2 inch of water off the bedroom floor, drying off the laptop and printer and praying that the equipment is not ruined.

How perverse is it that we have been conserving water so carefully only to have water wasted to spray our valuable electronics in the middle of the night.  Naturally, this morning when we woke up we didn't have any running water.  Double crap!!  

However, the sun came up at 6:00 am and after we assessed the overall situation, we decided to look at the glass half full instead of half empty...excusing the pun.  As it turns out, water started flowing around 7:00 am and we only have one dead mouse to replace.  Mr M's papers are drying outside along with a dozen towels and a myriad of other wet things.

On a high note, we did have good things happen over the course of the last week.  Mr M and I took a nice drive on Feb 15th to Esterillos Este on the coast to visit a dear friend whose husband is in the US due to the passing of his mom. We had a very nice drive, highlighted by seeing a couple of wonderful, majestic, and colorful Red Scarlet Macaws flying above us as we drove near the Tarcoles bridge.  Most tourists stop there to gawk in awe at the big crocodiles that are always sunning on the banks of the river.  Pretty neat that you can look down from the bridge and see these big crocs and then look up in the sky to see the spectacular Macaws!  As it turned out, it was our friend's 21st wedding anniversary.  We shared a laugh at how pitiful we were spending her anniversary and our belated Valentine's Day date together!  

On Saturday we took my mother-in-law and dad to see our first Tope (dancing horse parade) in Sabana Larga, a suburb of Atenas.  We arrived around 3:00 pm to join some friends at a bar named Don Gregos.  The street was pretty lined up already with cars parked on both sides and people jockeying for places to sit and watch the parade.  The parade started about 4:30 pm and was comprised of some impressively beautiful horses that pranced and danced before a very appreciative crowd.  I was struck at how many people we saw dressed in cowboy hats, Wrangler jeans and Justin brand clothing.   Gosh darn, felt like we were in Texas, except for the Mariachi and other great spanish tunes blaring from the speakers of the nearby DJ.  I think someone mentioned there were over 300 horses.  Topez are very popular in Costa Rica and it is easy to see why.  Beautiful horses, people gathering to share food, drinks, and just a fun event for the whole family.

The best news of all though was that Friday after returning from the coast, we had an email from our immigration lawyer with our Comprobante Expedientes attached, which means we are now officially legal to stay past our 90 day tourist visas until while our residency applications are being processed.  Now we just sit back and keep our fingers crossed while we wait for our temporary residency papers.  We have heard approval can take anywhere from a month to a couple of years.  Just like the lottery, there is no way to predict how soon it will be for our papers to be approved.

Chili Cookoff in Costa Rica

Last Sunday my better half and I decided to have a date away from the parents.  We headed off to the annual Atenas Chili Cookoff in a nearby neighborhood.  The event is held to raise monies for a local orphanage.  I was primarily interested in buying some books, and thought the cause was worthy of supporting as well.  

We picked up our neighbor down the street who lives with her 80 something year old father.  She needed a break too....while we love our parents, it is not always a picnic taking care of them full time, especially when one of them suffers from dementia.

We had a wonderful afternoon sampling chili, buying books, and visiting with many new friends we have made since we arrived, including some of our soon to be neighbors when we move into our own home.  The event was very well attended and nicely organized.

Yesterday, Mr M (my hubby) and I went for another hike.  We did a big loop from our rent home to an area known as vainilla over to Santa Eulalia and then back to the house.  The route we took consisted of paved road, then gravel, then road under construction through jungle like area and then back out to civilization.  The best part was that we saw a different species of Toucans, which appeared to be Collared Aracaris.  We also saw a hawk of some type being chased in the air by a smaller bird.

We are still having water delivered every 4 days due to the serious water shortage here.  This morning when I was walking my doggie, I saw one of the neighbors stop a small blue truck from the municipal water authority, AYA, and plead with them to do something about the water.  He told them he had not had a shower in 5 days!  I feel for the people in this neighborhood having to endure the shortages.  Hopefully, the issue will soon be resolved.  We are just thankful to have a landlord willing to pay for water to be delivered as needed.

So this afternoon I came across this interesting "walking stick" bug so I had to share a pic of it...pretty neat...definitely great disguise as a stick.

Duche?

Before heading to the weekly farmer's market early this morning, I took my four legged child for his morning walk.  Imagine my surprise when I see Mr Hernan walking towards me on my way back to the house.  He smiled and came up and gave me a hug...wow, fast friends!  Anyway, he said the doctors suggested doing lab work and run some other tests before finalizing a surgery date within the next two weeks.  He will go back Monday for his lab results.

Before the husband and I headed for the market we drove up the street looking for my 82 year old father who had not returned from his morning walk. To our surprise, we finally found him hoofing up a hill right behind another much elderly gentleman with his walking stick.  We asked dad if he wanted a ride up to the house, but he declined saying that if the older fellow in front on him could make it up the hill, he would do just fine.

After we returned from the market, my dad took a quick shower.  Since he has had dry skin here, I had given him what I thought was a bottle of skin lotion which he has been using for a couple of weeks now.  He commented this morning that the lotion texture and appearance was very odd.  He showed me how when you rub it on the stuff just kind of became like a white matte finish on his skin.  I inspected the bottle label carefully (all in Spanish) and never once saw the words that would indicate skin lotion.  Instead all I could glean was "creme de duche" and "gel de ducha cremoso."  I told my dad I had no idea what "duche" and "ducha" meant.  My husband, who is just learning Español chimed in that he had just learned that duche meant "shower."  My dad then said, "oh, yes, I do remember that when I stayed at a hotel here a couple of months ago, the shower was labeled a "duche!"  Well, dad, I guess you have been using shower gel or soap for the last couple of weeks thinking it was skin lotion.  He said, "well, I guess I am prepped for my next shower."  

Never take water for granted!

After rationing water for over a week, we finally completely ran out Tuesday afternoon.  We just knew we would have some water flowing after seeing the big trucks with potable water en route up the hill, but it was not to be.  I felt so bad for our neighbors who do not have access to a pool or a storage tank on a vacant lot that I decided to haul a few buckets over to them.  From what we have gathered from the neighbors, this is the worst it has been here.  Furthermore, allegedly, one of the neighbors up close to where the trucks dump the water has installed a big ass tank so they are hogging the initial loads of water being delivered.  So wrong!  Those of us down the line get some of the water, only if the neighbors with the big tank filled theirs up completely.

We had made a decision yesterday morning that we, unlike our unfortunate neighbors, could pick up and move to another rental home where the water would be flowing.  So I rapidly typed an email at the crack of dawn advising our landlord that while we loved the rent house, we could not continue without knowing from one day to the next what the water situation would be like.  Doing four loads of laundry by hand was okay as a one time thing, but I did not sign up to do the laundry by hand for four people as a regular thing when I moved here....not to mention rationing showers, using a bucket to flush the barely working toilet, finding creative ways to prepare meals to minimize dirty dishes, and having to purchase drinking water too.

Fortunately, the adjacent vacant lot with the pool has an outdoor shower and my dad figured out how to open the valve to the storage tank so some of us managed to take a shower there yesterday morning.  My hubby had gone almost three days without a shower and the sheets had not been laundered in 12 days so it was time to take drastic measures.  Within a couple of hours of sending the email to the landlord, the property manager called and said a full truck of potable water would be delivered to the house within the next two hours.  We had planned to go look at a rent house in another area if Atenas right at the time the water truck showed up to deliver the precious liquid.  Since we have been promised a regular supply of water until we vacate the house, we have decided to stay put for now.  Naturally, municipal water started flowing into our tank about an hour before the water truck showed up with our delivery.

I know one thing for sure...I will never take water for granted again!

Ups and Downs

The hikes around the hills in the barrio this week have been very nice and interesting.  We have also met some more of the people from the neighborhood.  Hernan, the older gentleman that goes by everyday on his horse and waves stopped yesterday and introduced himself.  He was telling us all about his surgery today to remove a large cyst from his calf and how he was worried about falling behind with all the work he has pending.  He did not know how long he would be convalescing, but hopefully not too long.

We are still dealing with major water shortages.  After going for over a week without being able to do laundry because of low water supply, I decided it was time to get inspired by the ladies in the barrio on my Mexican telenovela that wash laundry by hand in a communal cement sink (batea).  I scrubbed all the clothes with some soap then rinsed them all in a big plastic bin and then threw them into the washer on the spin cycle.  The operation went rather well, and I even managed to get a bit of a workout doing it.  Mother nature can do the rest now that I have three loads of laundry hanging outside in the sunshine.  Even though it was a lot of work to get all of washing done, I realized I am fortunate since I had tunes blasting from my bluetooth speaker in the laundry room and I had the washer spin cycle to extract all the water from the laundry before hanging it to dry.  It is all about seeing the glass half full.

Last night just as my telenovela was getting interesting on my IPad the Internet connection died...what the heck?  Since it was almost 9:00 pm I figured I would just go to sleep so I removed my headphones only to hear one of the neighbors shout out to another that the power was out and we still don't have water!  Ay, caramba!  At least the power went out after bedtime for the rest of the bunch in my house.  By now, though the dog wanted to go out to lift a leg on the grass, so I got up, found a flashlight and my flip flops.  As we arrived at the backdoor, I turned the flashlight toward the floor only to see a monster black scorpion waiting for someone to step on him...tail curled up in the air and big black pinchers.  I quickly proceeded to do my "zapateado dance" (Spanish Flamenco) on the critter...it was not pretty or rythmic, but I accomplished the task of dispatching him to a better place.   I have attached a picture I took of it this morning. About an hour later, I heard the rumblings of the highline truck cruising the street and sure enough, a few minutes later the power was restored.

Oh, yes, how could I forget the toilet problems.  One morning A few days ago, I was reading a disappointing article about the lack of sewage treatment plants in Costa Rica.    The percentage of raw sewage that goes into the rivers and ocean is way too high.  About a half hour after reading the article, my hubby proceeds to inform me that we have a big problem with our one and only toilet.  We have major cloggage going on and we are going to have to plunge some nasty doo doo floating in the bowl down as carefully as possible.  We got the plunger, latex gloves,  and got busy.  I was designated operator of the plunger...nothing like poop flying all over first thing in the morning as an appetite suppresant.  We did, however, manage to get the mess down the drain, but things are still not flowing smoothly so fortunately, the plumber is arriving in the next few minutes to hopefully alleviate the issue.