Atenas is beautiful, but the twisty roads had us dropping like flies. Even Pietro succumbed to a bout of car sickness. Piper and I spent the day vaguely nauseated. We saw some beautiful land and homes, and a very nice internet cafe. We did have a great meal at an Italian Restaurant that was worth the drive to Atenas all by itself. Once out of the van, our appetites returned and we all enjoyed lunch. [View Full Entry]

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Helloooooooooooo, Here we are....again ! it’s still windy but the sun is shining, we have a lot of blue sky around and the temperature is very nice offcourse. We traded our Mazda for a Toyota 4Runner, no we apply to the slogan of our province: Guanacaste is Toyota Country ! In Grecia, close to San Jose, you have approx. 160 cardealers which means that there are a lot of people selling cars overthere. Some have 5 cars for sale, others 10 or more. It’s very simple, you park your car alongside the road and walk from one place to another [View Full Entry]

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October 10 Yesterday, Tuesday the 9th, the money was wire transferred and the paperwork was finished. I'm not exactly the owner of three lots. What I am is the major (only) shareholder of three different corporations which each own one lot. And I am the president of each corporation. Everything is bought in Costa Rica through corporations. The lawyer did the title searches to make sure the property had no liens or other problems. Then we met at 5 p.m. for the developer (another American) to sign over his shares to me. But, in actuality, most of the transactions were done [View Full Entry]

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I've just had the most peaceful and relaxing experience of my trip so far. In fact, this is the most inner peace I've felt in a very long time. I've had a good time in Costa Rica so far, and I come back from a nice evening and a nice dinner. I get back to my father's house and just walk out to the edge of the hill. I look down into the valley below and just see little twinkling lights of houses and streets. All of them are anonymous, none can be identified from up here. Across the valley, a [View Full Entry]

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Green Valley School was started by two Costa Rican women who felt it was important for students to have bilingual education. They started with just the early grades, then added rooms and grade levels as students progressed. They now have students in grades 1-11 (final grade of high school). Most of the students plan to attend university. Sunia teaches in the elementary school. Students can identify English words in grade 1. By grade three they can converse pretty well. By grade 5 and 6 they are pretty fluent readers. The day we were there, the students were able to hold a [View Full Entry]

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Since doing a third grade project to save the rainforest, Sunia has always dreamed of Costa Rica. Upon completing her student teaching in January, 2006, she launched herself on a 4 1/2 month adventure as a volunteer teacher in Atenas, Costa Rica. Atenas is West of San Jose... for reference, it is located at about the "e" in Caldera on the Costa Rican map referenced at the bottom of the page. She made the arrangements through an organization called World Endeavors. They selected a volunteer placement and a host family and provide logistical support to their volunteers. She was met at [View Full Entry]

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Carlos is understandably proud of his finca. On steep slopes on the ridge above the house, he carries on a long family tradition of raising quality coffee. They are part of a cooperative in Atenas that markets the coffee under the brand name 'Cafe Villa.' Coffee is very labor intensive because it doesn't all mature at the same time. You can have flowers, little green berries, and mature red berries all on the plant at the same time. Thus, it all has to be picked by hand. The plants also need to be kept pruned to a height that people can [View Full Entry]

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