Finding Time to Blog about Life in Costa Rica!

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This is the longest I think I’ve gone between blog entries with my last one being on August 29th! I’m usually a fairly prolific (okay, long-winded!) writer but I’ve just been so busy the past few months that there has been barely enough time to keep in touch with friends and family let alone write my blog.

Tours, tours and more tours….

May through September have been extremely busy running our Boomers in Costa Rica tours—www.boomersincostarica.com. We’ve been really fortunate to have met many terrific people from different parts of the U.S. who are considering retiring in Costa Rica or just looking for a new life or business in this friendly country with a terrific climate.

The biggest benefit of the tour for most people is that they get a real sense of what everyday life is like in Costa Rica. They meet real people, who have already made the move to Costa Rica, and see the things we do here each day. For example, our friends Dave and Marcia in Grecia, and Isabelle and Howard in Atenas open their homes to our tour and help our clients understand how they came to live where they ended up, why they bought the land that they did, and how they went about getting their incredible homes built. They also meet people like Rick who owns an Internet café in Atenas. He knows everyone and everything about life in Atenas! Our clients also eat a lot of great food during their 4-day tour as anyone who knows me knows that food is an important of the tour!

The tour is definitely a lot of fun and it is very easy to become friends with our clients. We’re also very happy to have found Kenneth, our van driver. He lives in San Ramon and has a close knit family, with two terrific children. He’s had us to his home many times and his family is surely the epitome of “family values” (in the good way!).

When things go wrong, shockingly wrong…

They say things come in “threes.” After living here, I’d like to believe things come in “fives” or more. For example, in a two day period my Internet box went bad, my satellite TV box got blown out again in a thunderstorm, and my main computer had to pretty much completely rebuilt, and both of the pipes on one of my water heaters burst—once and then again two days later! Oh, and my washer had a leak—so I guess things come in “sixes” for me (I’m counting the water heater pipes bursting as two separate incidents)!

After all of this happening in just two days I think for the first time since I moved here in 2005, I was ready to pack it in and call it day! I either was going to sell all of my earthly possessions and just go live in a shack on the beach or do what normal people do, just get another regular job again, back in the U.S! Fear not, though, once you start working for yourself, even with all of the hassles that come with it, you don’t want to go back to working for someone else. While it can be harrowing at times, it is an amazing feeling to have your destiny (and ability to earn income) in your own hands, especially when you do well!

Things have not been completely terrible though. I finally gave in and decided to get the road leading to my house repaired. Of course, it took a lot longer than I had hoped it would take and they are still not quite done yet, but at least the road is now passable—almost in time for the dry season when it doesn’t matter as much.

Out of the rain and into the high season….

My guess is that we have another six weeks or so of rain. Some people like the rainy season. I definitely don’t like it. Maybe I should really be living in the desert (I love Palm Springs!)? I don’t think this has been a particularly bad rainy season but we’ve had more intense thunderstorms than I’ve ever seen here and much of them have battered my old home electrically, leading to many of our problems! Hopefully, we are beyond that now but it would be nice to have a full week when everything works, including my trusty old 1991 Trooper!

It’s amazing though that like clockwork our bookings start to increase dramatically at the B&B this time of year. When I start getting worried about bookings, they just seem to come in! This year, we have a couple of long term guests for December and January as well as many short term guests so it’s going to be a busy season!

Thanks for reading and for your comments.

Pura Vida!

Andrew
andrew4cr@gmail.com
www.CRCommunities.com (real estate and more!)
www.BoomersInCostaRica.com (4-day/3 night relocation/retirement/real estate tour!)
www.CostaRicaRealEstate.typepad.com (Boomers’ Real Estate & More Blog!)
www.AngelValleyFarmBandB.com (the B&B!)

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