Eyes on Costa Rica and Weather Records - August 2025

During August, visits to this blog were received from the following 22 countries:

Each country is followed in brackets by the total number of visits received since records first started to be kept in November 2012.

From the time I started to keep track, the total number of countries and non-independent jurisdictions from which visits have been received has risen to 138. Of this number, 13 are non-independent jurisdictions - for example the U.S. Virgin Islands - an unincorporated territory of the United States from which 1 visit has been received.

The latest country is Mongolia, a country in East Asia bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south:

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The following is a summary of the weather for August in the area where we live in Costa Rica:

The average daytime high and overnight low temperatures were close to those measured in August last year. But, the amount of rainfall was significantly higher (about 40% higher).

The rainy or green season carries on. But, it appears that the "little or mini summer" (veranito in Spanish) interruption which began prematurely in early July ended in July and that we should now expect significantly more rainfall in September (all of which may be subject to worldwide climate change issues).

ARCR (Association of Residents of Costa Rica) has recently published the 2025 September-October issue of its EL RESIDENTE magazine. The headline article in this issue is focused on the rainy season in Costa Rica:

From that article, it may be discerned that the timing and nature of the rainy season in the Central Valley of Costa Rica (where Lance and I live) differs from that on the Caribbean side of the country.

The ARCR magazine contains many other articles and references which may be of general interest or to those planning a visit or move to Costa Rica.

Information on current and recent weather conditions, climate change and more in various parts of Costa Rica can be obtained from the website of IMN: Instituto Meteorológico Nacional de Costa Rica (Spanish) or National Institute of Meteorology (English). IMN also has a Facebook page which may be of interest.

Sourdough Bread, El Residente and Heavy Rain Storms, Costa Rica

Recently I had the urge to make sourdough bread. I used the recipe provided by Gemma at her website Bigger Bolder Baking. The recipe is for sourdough beginner bakers and wasn’t too complicated. Watching the sourdough starter bubble and grow is fun. Here is what mine looked like at day 3:

Today I baked a loaf and here it is:

We haven’t tried it yet but will have some slices with dinner tonight. I found out that when you feed the starter every day and have to discard half of the starter, the discard can still be used for baking. King Arthur Flour has some good ideas - I made their cracker recipe and the results were excellent.

Here is the latest edition of El Residente magazine, published by the Association of Residents of Costa Rica (ARCR). As usual, it is full of interesting articles and useful information.

Lance had a dentist appointment yesterday at 4:00 pm in Grecia. By the time we arrived in town, the rain was coming down in torrents. We found a parking spot very close to our dentist’s office which just happened to be situated under a pipe spewing out rain water. The rear end of our vehicle is super clean! The building in the background is the Grecia municipal building.

Headed home after Lance’s appointment. As we arrived at the gates to our complex, we noticed the resident rooster has an interés amoroso (love interest). He was flapping his wings as if to say, “look, look!”. Beside him was a sweet little hen. I’ll try to get a photo of them together.

It was starting to get dark when we arrived home. We sat outside to enjoy the rain and the storm and eat some Pop’s ice cream. Here is a video I made of the storm. Our Cat likes to lie on the roof of our vehicle when it is raining.

Impromptu Road Trip and ARCR El Residente - Costa Rica

Recently, we took a little impromptu road trip around the area where we live. There are so many winding and hilly roads leading who knows where that it’s always fun to explore them. You never know where you will end up and what you will see. If we get lost, we just punch our home address into Waze. Waze is the best navigation system around as routes are constantly updated by actual drivers and it lets you know of congestion, police road stops, accidents, etc.

So we started out from our house at Hacienda El Paseo, headed to ruta 1, then to ruta 715 and drove as far as we were comfortable with and then turned around and went back on ruta 715 and onto ruta 710. This led us back to ruta 1 until a turnoff which took us back to our house (follow the red arrows).

The following enlarged portion of our route shows where we turned around on 715 near the Rio Grande River because the road suddenly became unpaved and very rough - it was already quite narrow. We speculated that it probably led to a deep river canyon and a Bailey bridge which we were not inclined to check out. Lance did an excellent job of turning our vehicle around in a very tight space.


The scenery all around us was, as usual, beautiful. This is the way to see the real Costa Rica. We drove through lots of small communities, waving to people and they would wave back.

Horses in a field:

I’m not sure what was growing here and the purpose of the white markers - perhaps vegetables.

Hectares and hectares of coffee plants - all neatly planted in rows.

Young coffee plants:

We have been members of ARCR - Association of Residents of Costa Rica - since 2010. Their lawyer, Romulo Pacheco, and his staff have done all our legal residency work for us from the beginning. They produce an excellent magazine - El Residente - that can be read on line. The magazine provides so much useful information as well as interesting and well written stories.

Here’s the front cover of the latest issue - the photos are amazing:

And here’s the link to this latest issue - July/August 2020.

We Now Have Permanent Residency in Costa Rica

Just over a year ago, we finally applied for permanent residency status. We could have done it after living here for three years with legal residency - either pensionado, rentista or investor. We had pensionado status. We were just lazy in getting it started.

As is our custom, we always use a lawyer for anything relating to our residency and we have always used Romulo Pacheco at the Association of Residents of Costa Rica (ARCR). It was very easy - we initially met with Romulo, signed some documents, paid all the necessary fees then went home and let his staff deal with everything. Just over a year later, we were contacted by ARCR -  both of us had been approved. An appointment was set up to meet with one of the legal staff and he took us to the main post office in San José. This is where the last of the processing was completed. A small fee paid for the actual cedulas (ID cards), stamping of documents, photos taken and so on and we were done!

On April 27 of this year, we picked up our new cards.

Why have permanent residency? Here are some reasons:

•  you only have to be in Costa Rica one day a year to maintain this residency
•  you can now work in Costa Rica
•  you can own a company and receive income from it 
•  renewing your status is easy compared to renewing temporary status (not as much paperwork involved and not as expensive)

But I think the best reason is that it demonstrates a commitment to this country that so graciously permits us to live here.

Association of Residents of Costa Rica / El Residente Magazine

I often get questions about visiting and/or living in Costa Rica. Sometimes, I know the answer. Other times, I do not. However, if a question relates to rules, regulations, laws, procedures. etc., I have to express caution. There are frequent changes. What was true at one time, might not be true today - and I might not be aware of any changes.

The Association of Residents of Costa Rica (ARCR) is a first class source of more up to date information on a wide range of topics including residency requirements, dealing with government agencies and departments, real estate concerns, medical concerns, banking, insurance, medical plans, professional service recommendations, and many more.

A substantial amount of practical information and information of general interest appears in ARCR's El Residente magazine. It features articles on immigration, residency and the laws of Costa Rica and includes regular articles on learning Spanish, living in Costa Rica, retirement, and items of interest to foreigners in the country. The magazine is published six times a year both in hard copy and in digital form. The cover page of the current issue (January - February 2019) appears below.

Normally, the digital version of El Residente is emailed freely to ARCR members. Non-members can only gain digital access to past issues by going to ARCR's website. However, I was particularly impressed by the presentation and content of the current issue and obtained permission from ARCR to provide a link to the issue.

To view a downloadable PDF copy of the current issue click HERE.

Living in Costa Rica Without a Car

I think that every newly arrived expat to Costa Rica should be required to be without a vehicle for two years. This will force them to use the taxis and buses and therefore interact with the Costa Ricans and pick up a lot of Spanish, not to mention Tico friends.

Well, that's what we have been doing for the almost two years we have been living here and I would not have missed this for anything. We have amassed an amazing network of taxi drivers who know us and look after us. In Atenas, our first call is to Mario/Jorge - one or the other might be driving their taxi at any time. If they are busy, they call somebody for us (probably Diego), or we call Diego ourselves. If Diego cannot make it, he calls his friend and so on. Somebody always shows up at our gate to pick us up, even if I haven't quite understood what they are saying.

I try to organize as many appointments as possible on one day when using a taxi. Recently, our schedule was as follows: depart Atenas, take our cat to her vet in Santa Ana (Ticos call it "Santana") for blood work and leave her there overnight; stop at ARCR (Association of Residents of Costa Rica) in San José to get our mail; go to my doctor's appointment at CIMA (North American style hospital) in Escazu; have a nice lunch in the same area; go to PriceSmart (similar to Costco and next to CIMA) and stock up on meat, etc., so I can make slow cooker meals that then go into the freezer for meals later in the month. We don't shop that often at PriceSmart as I prefer to shop locally and support our town but, if we are close to one, then I will take advantage and buy a few things in bulk.

So, to begin with, I phoned Diego and asked him to pick us up (in my Spanglish) to take our cat (gata = female cat) to the vet in Santa Ana. Since he has done this run for us numerous times in the past, this was fairly easy. I just had to indicate the day and time of pickup. And that worked out as Diego showed up at our gate at the appointed time. His taxi is immaculate with the air conditioning on and he provides Spanish newspapers for us to try and read. I can read the grocery ads.

Then Lance did a stellar job directing Diego to the ARCR office in San José. I wish I could always remember the Spanish words for "left" and "right" ... I think "straight ahead" is "directo". Picked up our mail, then onwards to CIMA for my doctor's appointment, where Diego dropped us off.

When we go to Escazu, we have another taxi driver in San José who knows us and will drive us back to Atenas.

If we had our own vehicle, it would probably sit unused a good deal of the time. We're no longer commuting back and forth to jobs in the big city. We can always rent a car if we want to take some trips around the country. With taxis, we can go out for dinner, have a bottle of wine or a couple of drinks and not worry about having to drive home in the dark, and possibly in the rain, on poorly marked roads.

Then there is the cost factor in owning a vehicle. We estimate our vehicle and operating expenses in Vancouver, B.C., were about $700 CAD per month. Our taxi usage expense here in Costa Rica is about half that amount.

Will we ever purchase a vehicle here? Perhaps, perhaps not.

 

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Milestone - We Have Our Cédulas!

Friday was an important day - the day we received our cédulas, or cédula de identidad.

The cédula itself is a credit card sized ID card with our photos, a personal identification number, personal information and our signatures. The reverse includes additional information.

Every citizen and every legal resident of Costa Rica is issued a cédula - it is the legal identification instrument here. There are different ways for foreigners to become legal residents of Costa Rica, the most common being pensionado, rentista, and investor. I won't go into all the details here - one good source of residency information is ARCR (Association of Residents of Costa Rica).

One thing I want to stress in this post is the importance of getting yourself a good lawyer in Costa Rica to handle your residency application. I have mentioned our lawyer, Romulo Pacheco in San José, in previous posts and highly recommend him. We received our cédulas in just a little over a year. We know people who have spent three years or more and who are still slogging through the process. There were no snags. For example, when we had to make visits to government offices, Mr. Pacheco provided us with an English speaking attendant who smoothed the way every time.

Visit to Archivo Nacional

On Thursday of this week, we bused our way to San Jose to pick up our mail at ARCR (Association of Residents of Costa Rica). We decided that every time we do this, we will also combine it with visiting some landmark in San Jose.

This trip, we decided on going to the Archivo Nacional (National Archives) in Zapote because they had an exhibit on of early photos and documents of Costa Rica, dating from as early as perhaps 1853. We took a taxi from Casa Canada to the Archives.  AM Costa Rica, a daily English language news source on line, featured an article on this exhibit and that's how we found out about it.

 It took us a while to get in the door, because we were trying to explain why we were there in terrible Spanish and get past the guard with his Magic Wand. Eventually, they let us in and sent a lovely curator who explained the exhibit to us in English. Embarrassing ....  she apologized for her English which was very good and here we are with just a few words of this country's native language. We tried to apologize to her.

Then we took another taxi to PriceSmart, which is like Costco, only the yearly membership is $30 US, not $50 CAD which is what we paid for our Costco membership in Canada.  I decided to sign us up for this thinking that maybe once a month I would take the bus to the PriceSmart in Alajuela and stock up on basics. Then if I go to the feria in Atenas most Fridays, I could get the perishables (fruit, vegetables, meat, cheese). I think I need to get a wheelie cart though.

This particular PriceSmart in Zapote is huge. We got there just before noon so decided to have lunch at their fast food counter. We both got the two pieces of chicken, fries and drink combo - huge portions - we could easily have split one order. Then off to shop - then I realized they don't provide bags - so whatever we bought had to fit in my small fabric shopping bag.

I was particularly looking for gel ice packs - didn't see them. We did stock up on razor blades, found some local Gouda cheese, saw Hebrew National hot dogs which are supposed to be the best, but decided against them because we had a long ride home and what if they went off.

I found shorts! yahoo! for six dollars U.S. and they fit, only bought one pair but now wish I had bought all the colors offered.

This shocked me: a display of lighted Christmas trees for sale along with kids' gifts. I know Christmas is a big holiday here, but this does seem early.

Then, taxi to the Coco Cola bus depot, bought two bottles of water from our now well known snack vender who recognizes us, and seems to be able to speak Spanish, English and French (he said to us "comment allez vous?") so we think he recognized that we are Canucks.

Here are some photos of the fruit drinks we had in San Jose and of the Archives building.

Last Night in San Jose

Today we finished up our residency business in Costa Rica. Went to the Canadian Embassy to get one last piece of paper which we took to our lawyer, and now we are free to roam around the country - no need to leave after 90 days. It might take up to a year to get our pensionado status.

Our lawyer is in the same office building as the Association of Residents of Costa Rica (ARCR).  Joining ARCR was one of the first things we did when we decided to move to CR. Their members have been a great source of information and help to us over this process. Today we arranged to have mail forwarding from Canada to their mail drop in Miami and then to ARCR in San Jose.

I want to stress that the best thing any Canadians thinking of immigrating to Costa Rica can do is hire a CR  lawyer who knows the process to handle their paperwork. If you think you can do it all yourself and save money, think again. You will just end up in that same lawyer's office at the end of all your aborted efforts.

Tomorrow morning, we check out of our San Jose hotel. We've hired a car and driver at the very reasonable price of $100 to drive us to Santa Ana to pick up Genny, stop at a pet shop to buy a litter box and litter, one stop at an Apple store to get a new mouse and battery for my computer, then on to Atenas.

My next post tomorrow should be interesting!

A Great Day Becomes a Perfect Day

Why? Because of a terrific lady named Becky. I met her on the Association of Costa Rica Residents forums. ARCR is an organization of ex-pats living in Costa Rica and we joined a year ago. It's a terrific source of information on living in Costa Rica.

Becky recommended Veterinarios Asociados in Santa Ana as a good place for Genny to stay until we found a home to rent. She has boarded both her dog and cat there and would do it again. Their website showed very attractive condos for each cat. So I communicated with Veterinarios Asociados and World Pet Travel arranged to have Genny delivered there when she arrived on June 1st.

I phoned them today to see how she was coping and was told the vet wanted to talk to me, but was not in. So I got worried that something was wrong. Becky lives in Santa Ana and offered to go see Genny for me and send me a report.

As Becky said, Genny seemed muy tranquilo, was affectionate, and played with the toys Becky took to her. They were going to let her out of her condo for a while to get some exercise. She is eating well too. It seems there is now no rush for us to go see her, as Becky has offered to drop in again in a few more days. And this is a big help to us, as we are going to see our lawyer tomorrow to start the pensionado process and not sure how much of the day we will need and if we will have to stay on in San Jose for a few more days.

We can't thank you enough, Becky - you are a wonderful person and you can't imagine how relieved we were. Here are some photos Becky took of Genny today:

Oh, and Genny has a message for Tuffy: "Ha ha, I am in Costa Rica and you are not!"

August 7, 2010

Still waiting for that last piece of paperwork ..... hurry up, c'mon, get here ...

For those of you contemplating a move to Costa Rica, I strongly urge you to join the Association of Residents of Costa Rica (ARCR) http://www.arcr.net. They also have a forum site http://forums.arcr.net that is free to join. Membership in ARCR is a mere U.S. $100 per year for a couple. They are a non-profit association serving foreign residents in Costa Rica and people abroad who want to become residents of CR. They can help with legal, moving, language and cultural issues. As an ARCR member, you can take advantage of a large range of bilingual services and benefits.

I have lots of useful links and will post them as this blog moves along.