Another Move!

Part 1 .... Our planned move from Vista Atenas, Atenas, to Hacienda el Paseo, Grecia is finally complete. We made the almost final move on Saturday, March 31 - which meant we moved our Cat and his litter box to our new house. I borrowed a cat carrier from our neighbours and Cat was very unhappy to be put into it. Cat owners know what that sounds like. It was only about a 45 minute drive from old house to new house but he didn’t like some of the twisty turns and uphill climbs. For the most part, he tolerated the trip very well. 

He disembarked in our bedroom, and promptly went under our bed. We put his litter box, water and food out in the same room and shut the door to give him some peace and quiet. 

We ended up deciding to rent a storage locker for ten days because we didn’t know precisely when we would receive the keys to our new house. This turned out to be a good idea. We used Lion Share Storage Mini-Bodegas, not far from Grecia. Larry and Nancy Rusin are really nice people and very helpful. Having the locker meant we could ferry stuff from our Atenas house to the lockup at our own pace. As it turned out, we received the keys to the Grecia house on March 27th, so then we started taking our stuff there. This included my orchid collection.

Then we cleared out the storage locker. We still had nine of my easels at the Atenas house so we hired Anibal and his friend to pick them up and take them to the Grecia house. Moving them in our SUV would have meant two trips. We don’t own furniture and I thought that we didn’t have much stuff .... wrong. We have a lot of small things, my paintings, small kitchen appliances .... you would be surprised at what ties you down.

Weather Report, Vista Atenas, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica - March 2018

When measured by average overnight lows and average daytime highs, March was the hottest month so far this year in Vista Atenas (near Atenas). Not uncomfortable in the mornings, but approaching uncomfortable later in the day unless you have a shaded, well ventilated house.

Currently, the season is the "dry season". A lot of the greenery has turned brown and many leaves have fallen. This will change in a month or two when the "green season" begins. Then, because of changing weather patterns bringing more clouds and rain, average overnight lows will be higher and average daytime highs will be lower.

This will be the last weather report from Vista Atenas. The next will be from our new home in Hacienda El Paseo (near Grecia). We do not expect much difference because the new home is virtually at the same altitude as the old home in Vista Atenas. Altitude is a critical factor when deciding where to live in Costa Rica.

A Tale of Two Shoes

I have a pair of sandals that I really like. I think I ordered them from Lands End and then a friend muled them down to me.

The soles eventually started wearing out so I took then to our local shoemaker. I thought I said I just wanted new soles put on. He asked me to pay what I thought was a kind of hefty deposit (10 mil). But I paid and kept checking back every week to see if my shoes had been resoled.

What was really going on was that he was building me a new pair of shoes. His wife didn’t like the the new soles he had selected, so she prevailed and I got my new higher heeled sandals! She gave me the thumbs up. Here are the new sandals.

Quick Update

I haven’t posted much lately because we have been quite busy. We are getting ready for our move to Grecia from Atenas next week. 

On May 31, 2011, we arrived in Costa Rica, spent a week in the capital city of San José seeing our lawyer for residency matters and then moved on to the lovely mountain town of Atenas, Alajuela province. We have been living in a Tico house since then (read: small). Atenas is wonderful ... we have so many friends here (both Costa Rican and expats).

Now it is time to move on. We are moving to Grecia, Alajuela province at the end of this month (March) ... not that far from Atenas. Our new rental house is much larger. 

Continuing Eyes on Costa Rica

Visits to this blog have now been recorded from over 3600 towns, cities and other places located in 121 countries throughout the world. Since my latest post on this topic, the added countries are Antigua and Barbuda in the Caribbean and Albania in Europe highlighted on the map below.

All the red dots indicate places from where visits have occurred since September 29, 2016. Visits recorded before this date are not shown on the map.

Antigua and Barbuda are two islands in the Caribbean which together constitute a sovereign country. It might be noted that Barbuda suffered devastating damage from hurricane Irma a few months ago and that many residents had to be evacuated to Antigua. Costa Rica is mostly out of the range of Caribbean hurricanes, but the northern part did get sideswiped by hurricane Irma. There was a significant amount of damage but nothing like that suffered by the island of Barbuda.

Side note: In my blog on August 26, 2017, I posted a video of "Landing in CostaRica". This was on a return trip from Canada to Costa Rica via Houston, Texas. The post was done using YouTube. According to YouTube, the video has now been viewed 1100 times. At least in part, this number of views has to be attributed to people searching for information about Costa Rica on YouTube. It cannot be attributed my blog.

Weather Report, Vista Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica - February, 2018

Compared to January, temperatures were a bit cooler overnight and a bit warmer during the day. In the early mornings, sweaters or jackets were the norm. There were two days when rainfall was high - more like the "green season" in Costa Rica (May to November) as opposed to the "dry season" (November to April). According to many locals, the February rainfall was abnormally high.

Warmer daytime temperatures were mitigated by low humidities. For example there were 3 days when the daytime high reached 88° F (31.1° C). Corresponding humidities ranged between 23% and 32%. Resulting "feels like" or heat index temperatures ranged between 84.8 °F (29.3 °C) and 86.1 °F (30.1 °C). In our current house in Vista Atenas indoor high temperatures (though not measured) were quite a bit cooler than outdoor "feels like" temperatures because the house has a tile roof and is shaded by a number of trees.

The result is that we never felt any need for heating or air conditioning in Vista Atenas. We are expectant that the same will be true in our new house near Grecia. Like the current house, the new house is distant from the coast and at about the same altitude. Altitude can be critical. It should not be too low or too high. If you are too low, then you may be uncomfortable without air conditioning. If you are too high, then you may be uncomfortable with cold morning temperatures.

Cirque du Soleil Soda Stereo

On February 18, 2018, we went to see the Cirque du Soleil Soda Stereo show at Hacienda Espinal in Alajuela. This was our first time at a Cirque du Soleil show. If you haven’t yet been to one, I highly recommend that you go. There are different shows all over the world.

The Atenas Mens Club organized this outing. There were 32 of us and we had a very comfortable air conditioned bus to take us there and back. A big thank you to all those who helped buy the tickets (this was not an easy task apparently) and arrange for the bus.

An area was set up outside the venue for food trucks so we enjoyed fresh made fish and chips before the show.

We were not familiar with the Argentine rock band Soda Stereo, but the young people in the audience certainly were. They were singing and clapping along to all the songs. We were warned that the music would be very loud and so it certainly was. Earplugs would have come in handy. 

The aerialists and acrobats were simply incredible, as were the props.