Happy Anniversary to Us!

Today, April 1, 2010, is a big day for us.  One year ago today we moved to Costa Rica full time.  The year has gone by quickly, and has been so full of marvelous surprises.  We have met many wonderful people – both Expats and Ticos (Costa Ricans) – and count many of them among our dear friends.  We have explored different parts of this beautiful country, including Lake Arenal, Esterillos Este on the Pacific Coast, Tortuguera on the Caribbean coast, the Peace Lodge at La Paz Waterfall Gardens, and Zarcero (to visit some new Tico friends), just to name a few.  We spent a cultural weekend in San Jose and discovered that it, too, has much to offer.

We have thoroughly enjoyed “living outside.” Today is sunny, about 82 degrees, and a little breezy…just perfect for us.  We spend a lot of time on our porch.  It overlooks the green all around us and is a private get-away just outside our front door.  Almost every evening (totaling over 200 nights over this last year) we have dinner by candlelight on our porch, with some Jazz music floating out from the cabina.  Sometimes we have guests, sometimes it’s just us, but there’s always candlelight and music.

We have become legal residents of Costa Rica, and have joined (and made use of) the national health care system.  There is an incredible freedom knowing that you have affordable health care coverage and that you don’t have to fear losing everything if you get sick.  We have a doctor and a dentist, both who speak English, and an Urologist and Gynecologist (who only speak Spanish but we manage to communicate).  And living in the culture helps a lot when you are trying to learn the language – for us, it makes it fun.

Our home has been full of kitties this last year.  We lost our dear Cleo early on, but a few months later adopted Rica and Tori.  Now, Rica is gone, but about 10 days ago a little kitten showed up on our doorstep and adopted us.  Each of these little animals has brought something special into our lives in her own unique way.

We have discovered the joys of renting and having a caring and responsible property manager to call if and when there is a problem. We have missed out on the painful process of buying land and building a house, with all of the decisions and the worries about quality of construction.  Security is a big concern here in Costa Rica, with Gringos sometimes targeted because we’re all “rich.”  We have less to worry about when we leave for the evening or even several days, because someone is here on the property 24/7.

We have also found that we like living simply, not that we were ever what I would call “conspicuous consumers.”  Most of our belongings are in storage back in Baltimore, but to be honest, we really don’t miss anything.  My china and crystal may be packed away in a crate, but we’re getting along just fine with what we have. And granted, we have Sky TV, high-speed Internet, our computer, and our car, but we still live pretty simply.  What does that mean exactly?  Paul is working on a blog post on just that topic, so stay tuned.

One of the reasons that we have decided to stay in San Ramon, instead of living for a few months in different parts of the country, is the sense of community we have found here.  Perhaps that is the best surprise of all.  We have made more friends here, in one year, than we have in the U.S.  It’s partly because we all share this Expat experience.  We all packed up our lives in the States and moved to a foreign country. We left behind the familiar and found ourselves living in another culture, with different values, a different language, and different ideas about how to do things.  But we have been welcomed by the Ticos we have met and, as a people, find them friendly and warm, always willing to stop and help or answer your questions.

People often ask what we do all day here in Costa Rica, especially as my telecommuting job is coming to an end.  We lie in the hammock and read, we write for our website, study Spanish, play with our cats and watch TV.  I cook and bake and Paul does the dishes and the laundry.   We have friends to our house for dinner and have dinner at their houses.  We go to the beach for the day and feed the monkeys in the trees.  We go into town to run errands which can sometimes take all day.  Every Friday we go to the Feria – the farmers’ market – and buy fresh fruit, vegetables, ham, chicken, and flowers.  We visit friends in other parts of the country and take weekend trips to explore some place we’ve haven’t been.  We play dominoes and Skip-Bo, sometimes alone and sometimes with friends. We talk to each other.  We do other things with each other.  We sit on our porch, watching the hummingbirds at our feeders and the blue morpho butterflies floating by.  We walk through the parque central and people-watch.  We take a bus into San Jose to see a play and go to a nice restaurant.

All in all, we live life and we do it leisurely.  Some days, we even look at each other and have to ask what day of the week it is.  Are we bored??  Heck no!  Are we happy and fulfilled?  You better believe it!  Don’t we ever want to come home?  We ARE home, right here in our little cabina in Costa Rica.  Moving here was the best decision we’ve ever made.

One of the reasons that so many of us come to Costa Rica is for its abounding natural beauty.  There are hundreds, maybe thousands of different specials of plants, butterflies, birds, and wildlife, not to mention lakes, rivers, volcanoes and beaches.  I have greatly enjoyed seeing, hearing, and taking photos of all of the beauty around me. 

But sometimes I forget that there are very real dangers associated with this beauty. It’s not a controlled environment like a ride at Disneyland.  There can be snakes in the brush, scorpions in our shoes, and coyotes in the hills.  There may be strong rip currents at our favorite beach.  Lightening can and does strike just yards away.  And those monkeys up in the trees aren’t tame pets; they have teeth and aren’t afraid to use them if provoked.  While we as humans are far up on the food chain, we have to remember that we are not invincible.  We are still vulnerable to the wildness around us and can be bitten, broken, or even killed.

It’s New Year’s Eve — ¡Próspero Año Nuevo to all! — and I have a few hours of quiet time.  The cats are outside being cats.  Paul is in town buying some rope to hang our new hammock and some ground beef for the meatballs I will make later today.  We are going to a New Year’s Eve Party later tonight, but now I find myself with some time to think and to write.

We have been in Costa Rica for nine months now, and so much has happened.

For one thing, we are now legal residents – Pensionados – in Costa Rica.  We submitted our applications last March, were approved in August, and finalized all of the paperwork on Thanksgiving Day, just one of many things for which we are thankful.  We are happy here in our new home.  We have fallen more in love with this country and its people.  We are still living in our little cabin in the woods and we and our cats are thriving.

A reader, and new friend, asked me yesterday how much time I spend each week to maintain this website.  I have to admit, not as much time as I had planned.  Back in the U.S., I would come home from working all day, fix and eat dinner, and then get to work on our website, either writing or figuring out how to do something new.  Sometimes I would work until 11pm, and just about every weekend.

But here in Costa Rica, somehow everything is slower.  There isn’t a sense of urgency to do much of anything.  I’m only working 20 hours a week at my job, but have been doing less work on the website and lately spending less time studying Spanish.  Here, whenever you are rushed or stressed about anything around a Tico, you will almost always hear them say, “tranquilo,” in other words, be at peace, don’t worry, it’s not that important.

I recently returned from a 10 day trip back to Baltimore, partially for business but also to visit friends and family and to bring back some specific items.  As the time for my outbound flight grew near, I have to admit that I was apprehensive.  I didn’t want to be away from Paul for such a long time, as he would stay here in Costa Rica.  I also knew that I would be really busy and working hard while in the States.  But in the back of my mind, I was also concerned about how I would feel about our move to Costa Rica, once back in the good old USA.  Would Costa Rica, and our little town of San Ramon, look shabby in comparison?  Would I realize that we had made a mistake; that we were giving up too much by leaving the States? 

My first day or two back in Baltimore was fun…I went to stores and restaurants that Paul and I always enjoyed going to when we lived there – oh, how I wish there was a Trader Joe’s in Costa Rica!  And it was really good to see some of our family and close friends.  But I found that the novelty of visiting all of our favorite haunts wore off after the first few days, especially since Paul wasn’t with me. 

I was back to working eight-hour days, not including the commute, and I was surprised at how TIRED I was.  In Costa Rica, I work four five-hour days, sitting out on our front porch, and afterwards I still have both the time and energy to go into town, prepare dinner, study Spanish, do whatever I like.  But here, back to the “grind” of a 40-hour work week, all I wanted to do was go home and go to bed!  How spoiled I had become! I had forgotten how it feels to work in an office all day with florescent lights and the steady hum of busyness and stress.

So much has happened since the last time we wrote!  We are much more settled into our new lives in Costa Rica.  Five weeks ago we had no phone, no Internet, no car, and no TV.  All of that has changed.  

Friday, April 3, 2009

These first days in our adopted home of Costa Rica have been both relaxing and challenging. Paul and I were completely exhausted after the frantic pace of packing, throwing away, giving away, and recycling just prior to our travel on April 1st.  Our first night here, we slept about 11 hours, and last night about 10 hours.  This is the more sleep than Paul has had in many years!  We fell asleep to torrential downpours on our tin roof – no quiet rain drops like we are used to.  This rain is furious and loud.  But we slept so deeply that we barely noticed.

It is peaceful here -- we woke up to a hazy morning, roosters crowing, and a cow grazing on the hill behind our little rental house.  There is a gentle breeze blowing the wind chimes, and the sound of birds everywhere.  This morning, we are starting slowly.  Our housekeeper came by around 8 a.m., so we started moving around then, but both Paul and Cleo (our cat) are already napping.  I was tempted to nap as well, but wanted even more to capture some thoughts about our transition to life here.

It has been a while since I’ve posted anything about our goal to retire in Costa Rica.  But I am excited to say that we have made the move!!  My desire was to write daily during the month of March to chronicle the preparations and big move, but there was no time…I mean NO TIME.  I was still working full-time and coming home to pack in the evenings and on weekends.  We worked non-stop to cull through all of our possessions and make a decision about each one:  take it with us on the plane (and pay the exorbitant baggage fees), store it until we ship our belongings at some time in the future, throw it away, recycle it, give it away to friends or family who might like it, or donate it. An ocean of decisions that was exhausting.  Paul spent his daylight hours running around town to sell his car, drive eight carfuls of donations to the Purple Heart Thrift Center, and take multiple trips to Annapolis to get all of our documents certified, authorized, endorsed, or otherwise blessed.  

We at Retire for Less in Costa Rica would advise everyone to rent for one year, six months, or even just one month before buying any property. We know it’s tempting to buy when you are on a tour, or just going around the country looking for places to live. It’s so alluring, this beautiful land. One gets all hyped up; you feel you are losing out and that you need to get your piece of heaven. Believe me, we have felt this way ourselves. I guess it’s alright to buy quickly if a piece of land calls to you -- it is difficult to resist. But rent if you can; it is better to slow down the process to give you time to experience this country and decide what you really want.

With both stock prices and real estate values declining, more and more baby boomers approaching retirement age are finding out that their savings aren’t adequate for them to stop working.  Add to that the high cost of health care, and the fear of a serious illness wiping out everything, many sixty-somethings are returning to the workforce.