October 2005

CR Update October 2005
We went to San Jose earlier in the month. It was good to get off the mountain but good to come back to Paradise. The main reason for our visit to San Jose was for Joe to have a routine medical procedure. We had a referral from Yahoo group “Costa Rica Living” and the physician was very competent, thorough, spoke perfect English, and had a good manner. While in San Jose we took care of other business and had our usual encounter of things being done differently. I paid the phone bill one day late and they shut off my service until the payment, which was made in a supermarket, caught up with my account. (Actually the account belongs to somebody named Maria—I don’t know who she is but I pay every month and hope my phone continues to work.)

We took our car to Nicoya for its annual inspection. We finally found a mechanic we trust and we had all kinds of work done. The roads in Nosara are very hard on cars. Both the mechanic and his wife speak English and the garage was the cleanest garage I have ever seen. We are finding that until our Spanish improves that we will have to look for English speaking people for the important services. It is too confusing otherwise.

It is a splendid pastime here on the mountain to watch the weather. Often there is mist over the valley and we can hear the sound of rain approaching minutes before it begins. The clouds are always fabulous especially at sunset. The weather is always changing and the seasons bring variation in the plant and animal life. I think the vibrant air quality is probably due both to the abundant foliage and to the nearby Pacific Ocean. It is very alive here. And there are stories about our drinking water having healing properties and Costa Rica being the site of the fountain of youth!!

When you have a chance go see my pictures. www.snapfish.com Email address is: hgreaney@gmail.com and the password is trink. There are some new pictures of Eric and Lenore on the bulldozer in the October 2005 album. These were taken when the road down our mountain was being repaired and on their way back from town, John brought them up to us so we could drive them the 2 km to their house. There are always new experiences here. I will post pictures on this website because it is difficult to send attachments-even in Nicoya the computers are slow but at least the prices are reasonable.

Just as Joe and I were marveling about how the weather is the worse it will be, we had another flood. It rained heavily for 3 days and the river overflowed and we were not able to go to town for 2 days. We had plenty of food, books and movies. We watched Children of Paradise on a big screen projector we bought in Panama. There are frustrations and challenges here and there is also abundant natural beauty with the time to do things like walk, Yoga, meditate, read and enjoy being here.

Construction is pushed back a bit because of the flooding. Target date for completion is now early December. We welcome visitors and we do have a guest room but there is construction going on during the day. The in-house pub will be beautiful and my pool in front of the pub is phenomenal. Check out the photos. While in San Jose we met with our brewer and tasted some of his new batches of beer. It was good—one batch was hoppy, like an ale . He is going to help us have an under the bar refrigerator built and will come to Nosara for our opening party.

I am working on a presentation. I met with the rotating physician to get some ideas of things I can do. We decided to give a talk at the high school on drug addiction—I will do the talk, he will translate and we will facilitate a discussion. I want to do something with the Tico community and this feels like a good beginning. I have not gone to the Yoga center yet because with our Spanish lessons and all our business, we focus on the town. And the roads are horrible. I expect the Yoga group will be my other community once I get in a routine around going to classes since I have been interested in Yoga for a long time.

And yet one more new experience before I close. Joe was stranded in town overnight because of some recent flooding. He got stuck in a ditch and a local Spanish-speaking guy (who looked like Juan Valdez ) on horseback cqam up and said “Problema” The surreal part was when the guy pulled out his cell phone to get help. Joe hated being stuck in town-he stayed in a room above the Beatle Bar (Disco Hell, he called it) and I didn’t like being alone up here but at least I was reading Hemingway. Anyway, these things don’t happen in the dry season so come visit then or come in the rainy season if you want challenges—it is cooler now and forever beautiful. Write to us when you can. We are always glad to hear from family and friends. Love Helena (and Joe)