This one was a really good trip. To start with, the weather was pretty good. The rainy season in Costa Rica is from June to November, with the really bad times in September and October. And we did see a bit of that, including one deluge that was pretty immense. But on the whole, the rain was mild, and only in the afternoons. On the last day, the sun came out and we had a magical day -- some of the weather that was part of the reason we chose Costa Rica in the first place. Add to that that we had another great visit at Casa Laurin, the B&B where we stay when we are on these working trips -- we can't say enough good about the owner Ginette Laurin -- she's just a gem to find.
But the real value of the trip was in how successful it was. We made a lot of progress towards our dream.
To start with, we managed to finally organize a bank account. Katy had opened an account in her own name earlier in the year. But we never had any real way of working with it. It took a couple of visits to the bank, but by the end of the week we had a bank ATM card, some checks, and, best of all, access to the banking system via the internet. [An aside for Paul's cyber friends they have an interesting two-factor authentication system -- when you register on line you get a card with 20 random digits/letters/symbols and when you login they ask you, for example, to give them the third, seventeenth and eighth, in that order ...]. So, now, we have a working bank account -- and our next step is to make sure we can use their inter-bank transfer system ...
The second success was a small one but it made us feel pretty good -- we found a store we were looking for on our own. That doesn't sound that special, does it? But the addressing system in Costa Rica is totally wack and so learning it and managing to use it is a real achievement. Here's the address we found: 200 m este y 75 m norte de la Iglesia de San Martin. In other words you have to know where the Church of San Martin is and then go 200 meters east and 75 meters north ... no street address; no street name. Just a relative direction -- so you ask where the church is and then chase it. And so we did ... and found it!
The store we got to was a Claro -- one of the local telecom companies. So success #3 was the simple one of buying two new cell phones and getting two Costa Rican cell phone numbers for people to call. Small step -- but essential to getting information and staying connected. [Paul even managed to set up his Skype account so that it forwards to his Costa Rican cell number.]
Then on to the next step (and this is all still Monday). In the afternoon we went car shopping. We found a really great dealer, Purdy Motors, and bought ourselves a used 2012 Toyota Rav 4 -- we will probably call him Edgar. Of course, nothing is quite that easy in Costa Rica. We had to arrange to for the funds to be transferred via bank transfer from our bank in the US. It took a couple of days for the transaction to go through. And meanwhile, of course, we had to find an insurance agent and insure the car. One interesting aspect of that was the decision we had to make --- how much insurance? At least in part so that we would be immune from the legal system we got full insurance with no deductible -- a bit expensive but seemed like a decent plan in the end.
And then on to Tuesday ... deep breath. Katy spent all Tuesday morning the architect making some of the very final decisions about the house. We are down to the level of what sinks we might want and things like that. After several hours of effort we are now essentially in the place we need to be -- we can finalize the plan and start taking bids to build the house ..... About the only disappointment in this process (and indeed in the whole week) was the realization that we were going to have to do without the windmill we wanted. It's just too expensive -- our best guess is that even with Costa Rica's high energy costs the payback period was going to be on the order of 40 years or so. We wanted to be green -- but green is really not worth it yet.
Tuesday afternoon we went to visit our lawyer. We started the discussion with him about taking out residence papers. Because Katy is retired, its easy as pie for her and Paul will become a resident as Katy's dependent -- or, as she says, "my boy toy." When we go back in January we'll have all the paperwork together to start the filing process. Again -- it's all details. Notarized and sealed birth certificates and marriage certificate, plus a "police letter" from DC saying we have clean records.
Wednesday was the day to visit Atenas -- the town where we will live. Our first visit was to the property where the road is under construction. You can see, on the left, the footing for the retaining wall. The road to our property runs up and to the right, with the small triangular structure on our property. All is well and the new "Calle Freddy" (Freddy is our construction contractor) should be done in another 3-4 weeks.We then had an opportunity to meet with our property manager, Leticia. She's a Swiss woman living in Atenas who will take care of all our management stuff -- pay the water bills, arrange for the gardener, etc. We spent some time with her and now have a really good sense of how much the operational costs will be on an annual basis. You'd be surprised at all the small items (for example, there is a car tax every December). We also had a chance to chat with one of our neighbors-to-be and get a better feel for our community.
Thursday was catch up day. A quick trip to the bank to get our departure tax paid; and we picked up the car. We've left it with Ivo, our wonderful realtor, who will take care of it for us until we go back in January. [Our plan is two months in Atenas this winter -- Jan-Feb.]. [And, as an aside, more good news -- Southwest is opening up direct flights from BWI to San Jose, daily -- super cheap. Less than $450/person round trip!] The last bit of business was with Adriana, the landscape designer. She showed us some great plans -- we're going to have an orange tree; a mango; and even a tamarind tree on the property, plus lots of flowering plants to bring the birds and butterflies. It will be a few years before they really take root, but when they do, it should be paradise.
And that, in a nutshell, was our week -- several good steps toward paradise! On to January and ground breaking (crossed fingers).
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