Back to Paradise

Back to Paradise September 2013

We had 15 people up last night for a beer tasting.  Joe joined me in the states and picked up several bottles of  craft beers and he was eager to share.  It was a great evening.  Beer samples and Irish car bombs and the occasional mixed drink or draft beer.  I was well able to bartend. The group who came up were mostly locals—people who own property or people who work here.  Andres, our lawyer friend organized the group.  It is the rainy season here. No tourists. Tourists come when it is sunny with blue skies.  Now it is lush foliage with more shades of green than Ireland, and wispy clouds which come down over  the mountains across the valley.   For those who live here the rainy season is the best..not October when we have floods and landslides..but the other 5 months.  The area is deserted which makes for a pleasant communion with nature and the on and off rain keeps the temperatures in the 80’s, and there is no dust which makes it all seem so clean.

I worked in New Hampshire for 9 weeks when Joe came over.  We did a road trip to upstate NY to see his family stopping by Brattleboro VT to visit with our friend beer legend Ray McNeill.  I was only in Nosara for 10 days before going off to my current assignment in Minnesota.  It sounds hectic and in some ways it is but it bring in the money and the work is interesting.  Since I had been in Minnesota before and felt somewhat acclimated, I was hoping to make some day trips to “the cities”, as they call Minneapolis and Saint Paul, but now that I am here, it is just too cold and I don’t have anyone to hang out with this time.

 Joe is getting on well on his own.  We have discovered Facetime andVsee so we have the video and it is free.  The video is amazing—like being there in person.  

We have more neighbors on the hill now.  I went walking, actually hiking, with Lena, our Swedish neighbor with the spectacular round house with 360 degree view up a ways from us.  We hiked on the finca roads which are like trails and we looked at people’s houses who are away. Besides being an interesting person, she brings us her business skills, helping us organize the collection of money to pay the water bill.  We have one well for the families.  And we all need water.  Down in the project (the tourist area on the beach), they used so much water during the high season that  water had to be rationed.  It was shut off several hours per day by rotation.  We have had some problems up here with leaks and finding the leaks which can be under the concrete.   So paradise has its own set of issues.

Now it is almost November and I am back to paradise in four weeks.  Yay.. My Minnesota job is terrific and I am lucky to have it.  This is the forensic hospital.  I treat patients on two units and I am learning a lot.  And I cant wait to be back to tropical Nosara..with Joe and the dogs and Ainsely and the pub.Pura vida.  Love Joe and Helena