In Atenas and my search for a rental

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My friend Kat met us at the Atenas Bus Stop where we got off the bus about noon. The first thing we noticed was how much warmer it was there! Ahhhhh....well into the 80's I think! I started peeling off a couple of layers. We had our nice greetings & hugs and I introduced Margie. Then we took a taxi to take us up to a house where I had scheduled to check out a possible room to rent. It was in a gated community called La Roca Verde, The Green Rock. I will try to upload photos the owner sent me after I finish this blog. It's a very nice, new & modern American-type house. I was getting a bit desperate to move into Atenas for the warmer weather and smaller community so the possibility of renting a room was worth considering. The main drawback with this house was that it was up a very steep hill & driveway and a fairly long walk to downtown Atenas. The house had a fantastic view of the surrounding hills and valley as well as a pool. Just beautiful. The owner takes in renters to supplement her social security from the U.S. Right after her and her husband moved to CR from the US he suffered a stroke and never recovered, passing away a few months later. She chose to stay in CR.

After spending some time chatting with the current renters, the owner is currently in Miami, a taxi was called to take us to Kay's Gringo Cafe for their Sunday brunch. Quite a place...I'll be eventually uploading photos. There were a number of white-haired gringos there that we met. I had time to network with them concerning finding a rental. We had pretty much an American breakfast along with the usual Tico black beans & rice. While we were there I checked out their board to post things for sale and such and copied down one possible rental...an apartment. Since I've been in CR, especially the past several days I've spent a lot of time online looking for rentals through every web site I could find. I emailed a couple of inquiries but hadn't heard back anything before we left. I only took my backpack for this one overnite trip so I didn't take my laptop and had to rely on Kat's computer when we were there.

We must have left Kay's about 2pm, taking a taxi to go to Kat & Layne's apartment. They live in the los angeles neighborhood of Atenas...which of course doesn't mean anything to you. It's a ways out of town and up a steep driveway. Hills and steep driveways are very common in Atenas and her environs since it is comprised of many rolling hills with palm trees and many other trees, bushes & plants. Kat & Layne are California transplants. There seem to be a number of expats from there. But we also met a number of expats from Texas at Kay's earlier.

At Kay's I changed into capri pants and we sat around and relaxed and visited for a couple hours or so. I also spent time contacting real estate people and others about possible rentals. We soon met the upstairs neighbor of Kat & Layne's, Linda. She's also from California and has lived in CR for some time. She is part owner in what sounds like a decent sized winery in Nappa Valley.

Around 6pm we headed to a restaurant, frequented by local Ticos and expats. Just a side note...it gets light here around 6:30am and dark about the same time, year-round. I don't remember the name of the restaurant but the entire front was open to the street. Quite common in CR with the mild year-round weather. I enjoyed the lively conversation with our friends and we met another expat couple that stopped by the restaurant. I believe they were from Chicago. I believe we left there around 8pm.

We took a taxi back to Kat & Layne's and visited a bit longer. You might be curious how much taxis cost here. We paid around $2 or a bit less for a short taxi ride of just a couple miles or so. Many people, Ticos & expats, here don't have cars and rely on buses & taxis. They are all over the place and quite reasonable.

After getting our make-shift beds ready in the living room for the night we probably went to bed around 10pm.

Both Margie & I slept quite well. Even though it can be quite warm/hot during the day in Atenas at night it cools down to the 50's or 60's. Air conditioning is rare but many people have ceiling fans as well as other fans to keep the air circulating. There was a nice warm breeze today there before we left.

The next blog will cover today in Atenas, my new "home" and our trip home.

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Comments

[sis]

I haven't read your second blog but I am guessing that you found a place in Atenas! Yea! Warmth!