Overall I don’t find getting around in Puerto Viejo to be all that intimidating. I’m comfy on my bike, the roads are bumpy but flat, and it’s impossible to get lost unless someone blindfolds you and spins you around. Even then, I think you’d find your way eventually. No one stops at stop signs, but there are so few intersections that it hasn’t been an issue. And for the most part, cars don’t drive insanely fast or close to bikes. (There are exceptions to those last two, and I may or may not have muttered a word or two in Dean’s hearing that I ought not to have.)
I do have one complaint. Lanes mean almost nothing here. People pass like it’s the national sport, and sometimes, just for kicks, they stay on the other side of the road for a loooong time. On a two-lane dirt road, that means anyone coming in the opposite direction is in for a little suspense as to whether the passer is going to get out of their way in a timely fashion. Usually they do, at least for other motorized vehicles. I have yet to witness any accidents or be plowed down by oncoming traffic (knocks furiously on wood), so I guess these drivers know what they’re doing.
The disdain for lanes extends itself to bikers and pedestrians as well. Most cyclists stick to the right side of the road, but just enough do not to keep me on my toes. I confess, it can make me a little cranky when I have to dodge a biker riding down his/her left side of the road, or a group of three or four pedestrians taking up a full half of the road oblivious to the traffic behind them. FYI, the wrong-sided bikers tend to be Ticos, but the walkers are usually death-courting tourists. [People of North America, please stop doing this. It really isn't safe -- I guarantee that the not everyone is looking out for you. They are too busy looking for an opportunity to pass other motorists. Thank you.]
Really this isn’t a big deal. However, I think it’s going to be thrilling to return to the States and have cars staying in their own lanes, stopping at stop signs, and being somewhat orderly. Ah, sweet order! Who knew I was so uptight? Actually, don’t answer that!
We’ve noticed something really random about the diapers we’ve bought here.
See it? How about a closer look?
All the diapers have one tab stuck to the inside of the diaper, rather than folded over neatly as we would expect. It’s odd. Of course, it doesn’t bother Dean! But does anyone have any theories about this? It’s a mystery!
Can I be honest? I’ve spent the past week or so desperately looking forward to going home. Paradise has felt especially un-paradise-like lately.
Nothing has really changed or happened to make me feel this way. It’s just the cumulative effect of a lot of factors that have been in place the whole time. Specifically:
The bugs. Oh my word, if I could change one thing about this summer, it would be the &$(@#!! bugs. Mosquitos, no see-ums, ants, and the occasional mystery biting bug have been competing for my attention and wrath every single day we’ve been here. We cannot escape them, as we are outside even when we’re in the house. Mosquito nets help, but I can’t realistically keep myself and both children sequestered under them all day. Insect repellents, both natural and nuclear, help somewhat, but nothing stops the ants, and their bites hurt the worst. Last night I tried to count my bites. I stopped at 40, because I couldn’t decide if I should only count the ones that still itch (40), or if I should include the older ones that aren’t actively torturing me anymore. I am taking a mega B vitamin supplement, using repellent religiously, trying a variety of natural remedies to deal with the itching, and trying not to scratch the bites into open sores. Graham is also pretty afflicted, and there is no keeping him from mad scratching. To keep him healthy, I sneakily apply salves and antibiotic creams to his bites after he falls asleep at night. Dean and Zach are faring better, though they are by no means free from itch.
Lack of privacy. Our open living room means that other guests, the owners, and their employees can all look right in as they pass on the nearby path. Also, there’s no sound privacy, so our children’s frequent wails are very audible to everyone around. I find myself thinking that everyone is a one-kilometer radius must think I’m a terrible mother. I have to be fully dressed to get up for some water at night. I worry that we’re infringing on other people’s vacations. No one is trying to spy or eavesdrop on us, but I can’t help being self-conscious about how exposed we are. The property as a whole feels very private from the rest of the world, but I am pretty ready for enclosed walls. Blessed, blessed doors and walls.
Loneliness. I miss my friends and family so, so much. That means you.
Insane children. The kids are on top of each other all day long, and are much harder to entertain here. I miss the structure of school, having a plethora of toys, having play dates, and BABYSITTING. Oh boy do I miss having a little childcare in my life.
Unsafe children. It’s hard to babyproof a home that your one-year-old can literally climb out of. Dean is so adventurous. I miss being able to lock up a cabinet, outlet covers, etc.
Street harassment. I had read about catcalling on the streets here, but I hadn’t really experienced it, because apparently the perverts leave you alone when you have a husband or child with you. As I’ve started making some more solo trips to town, I’ve had some nasty encounters/comments that I was simply not prepared for.
The smallness of my world here. It’s a small town, not much to do (at least that is kid friendly), and getting to other places is difficult/expensive. I am unused to feeling stuck, and I think of my regular travel radius in Texas with awe and envy.
We talked about relocating for the last month. It’s just not practical. We may be able to travel somewhere else for the last 10 days or so, and I am crossing my fingers for that. I’d like to see the Monteverde area. We are also going to rent a car for a couple more weekends and do some mini-trips around this coast.
All that said, I am feeling better today. I don’t want to give the impression that this summer has been a disaster, and I feel whiney complaining about this amazing trip. The things I was bracing myself for — no car, few consumer goods/groceries available, heat, etc. — I have dealt with well. The things I’ve listed above I either didn’t anticipate or didn’t realize would affect me so much. I am trying to focus as much as possible on the things I do like. So as not to be make this post a total downer, allow me to list a few:
The surplus of beauty. Costa Rica’s every plant, butterfly, vista, and birdsong are all trying to out-gorgeous each other. We are the lucky beneficiaries of that competition. I see dozens of beautiful things every day, from hummingbirds to ocean. I’ve stopped remarking on it because I sound so redundant. “Oh, look how gorgeous!” I mean, come on, tell us something we don’t know, Elizabeth!
Puerto Viejo is charming, it really is. This is a cool area of the world. I may not want to come here for three months again, but I am happy to have gotten to know it.
Perspective. My sufferings (and yes, that is tongue-in-cheek) here make me realize how amazingly luxurious our life in Texas is. More than that, getting to know how people live here makes me realize how lucky Americans are. The minimum wage in Costa Rica is $2/hour, and while housing is pretty cheap, food and various goods are really not. People here not only have less in the way of material goods, but also less education (schools in the area being, according to everyone we’ve talked to, pretty bad and sometimes inaccessible) and fewer job opportunities beyond the service sector. Being in a different world is enlightening, even if it’s hard.
I don’t regret that we’re here. But it’s not paradise. It’s hard, fun, interesting, different, expanding, exhausting, educational… And itchy.
Here are three things that we were surprised we miss:
Local Phone
“Who would call us?” we thought. “We don’t need no stinkin’ local phone!” This has turned out to be a big mistake. We live on a gated property, and the fact we don’t have a phone means no one can stop by without pre-arranging an exact time to meet them at the gate. This has caused problems with the taxi, the Tofu Man, our rental car, and our new friends. We would never attempt another long-ish stay overseas without a phone.
Washer/Dryer
We thought we would “go simple” and wash our own clothes. This would be fine except when it takes more than 48 hours for them to dry. If you’ve never let clothes stay damp for two straight days, let me tell you what they smell like: a cross between a wet dog and a locker room. Mmmm, fresh! Our landlords have a washer and dryer that they charge us around $10 per load for. Hey, at least we’re not buying gasoline!
An Oven
We knew when we came down here that we would only have a two-burner gas range and no oven. No big deal, right? When do we use an oven, anyway? We really miss being able to roast/bake/broil/warm whatever. There are those days when all you want for your life is to cook a frozen pizza. We have been in several homes here with an oven, and we get jealous.
In our time here in Puerto Viejo, I’ve noticed something interesting about the energy parents put into keeping their kids safe. Kids here seem to have a lot more freedom than children the same age in the States. You see little kids riding adult bikes by themselves, or playing in the street together (the quiet side streets — they’re not dodging traffic or anything), or walking through town. You also see a lot of parents biking with their kids perched any which way on the handlebars. I saw a mom riding down the main street one day with a small boy standing behind her holding on with one hand. He looked blissfully confident. I’ve seen one baby carried in a carseat bucket, and that was a tourist family. Overall, I don’t think carseats are widely used here, though I haven’t researched it. The playground in town has really overgrown grass (snakes!), broken swings, rusted ladder rungs, etc.
I’m enjoying this in certain small ways. I love that on the property here Graham can be out of my sight and I feel comfortable that he’s safe as long as I know where he is. He’s not a huge risk taker, so he always comes back into my line off vision shortly. Even Dean can wander way more freely here than at home. The couple of times we’ve had a ride into town with the kids, there was no question that we’d bring the carseats. We did have them strapped in on the way from San Jose — my heart would never have been able to take the lane changes otherwise! — but they’re currently gathering dust upstairs.
Certain things are different here that make these safety things palatable. The drives have been short and slow. It’s a TINY town (I see the same people all the time) and people know each other and their kids. Cars are very accustomed to sharing the road with bikes and pedestrians and are generally very courteous. But it definitely puts an interesting perspective on things. I spent hours researching car seats when it was time to switch Graham into something bigger. I wouldn’t dream of leaving Dean unsupervised in our front yard in Texas. Yet maybe when we get back I’ll a slightly less paranoid mama? Who knows…
In an interesting twist, apparently Americans are much more cavalier about babysitters than the Ticos. I thought it would be easy to find some part-time babysitting here, but the idea was met with… well, not horror by our hostess, but no recommendations either. “I don’t know who I could trust — I mean, it’s your children!” were her exact words, if I recall correctly. Pretty different from the “Hey, that kid down the street looks old enough to dial 9-1-1,” approach to hiring sitters that a lot of Americans have. (For the record, our sitters in TX have all come from trusted recommendations or with references, but I haven’t been running their prints or anything.) The only lead on a babysitter I’ve been able to get down here was from a woman who looked suspiciously like a “lady of the evening” who solicited me as I biked through town with Dean one day. Hmmm.
I just have to get this off my chest. What you don’t see in our beautiful photos of “paradise” is that we are antagonized, harassed, molested, plagued by insects. Elizabeth said before that she thinks the plants rule the jungle. I think the insects rule the jungle, and they use the plants for housing and the human beings for convenient snacks. I have been reduced to a bag of blood and other precious fluids for bugs to enjoy.
In the nine months we spent researching Costa Rica and preparing for the trip, nothing made mention of the fact that insect repellent is not much more than a feeble joke to the local mosquitoes. Nobody told me my wife and four-year-old son were going to look like victims of the pox, and both want to rip their skins off. Weirdly, I am almost unaffected. I guess I don’t taste good, and Dean seems to have some of my tolerance. But I would rather they would come for me than my Elizabeth and my Graham. Especially Graham, who has around three-score welts on his arms and legs and scratches them until they become weeping sores. I want this to be a fun summer for him. I certainly didn’t set all this up to subject my little boy to an exotic form of torture.
It’s not all bad news. The situation seems to be improving, so I think we’re all developing a better resistance. We learned that we can secure Graham’s mosquito net to his bed with clothespins so he doesn’t kick it off during the night. Some days are much better than others. We’ll get mosquitoes one day, and gnats the next. Always ants, but at least they’re only after our provisions, not us. The jungle doesn’t need a weather forecast, it needs a bug forecast.
I hope I’m not being too negative. There are plenty of things to love about our setting, this just doesn’t happen to be one of them. This is going to go on the record as one of the prices to pay for the experiences we’re enjoying.
Until yesterday, that is. I went out by myself to meet the director of Birth Without Boundaries at her home in Cocles (more on that later). It’s about a 30-minute bike ride, which is pretty easy going aside from the insane potholes. One can bike over some pretty darn deep craters and large rocks without unseating oneself, thank goodness.
On the way home, my bike’s chain popped off the gears. I pulled it over to the side of the road and started trying to slip it back on. That’s when Roberto arrived on the scene!
Ticos are a friendly and helpful people, and I suppose I pretty much screamed “gringa in distress.” He immediately took charge of the repair, and I got to have my first full conversation in my (pathetic) Spanish. He succeeded in fixing the bike and then invited me to go to the discotech with him. I told him I was married with two children. He reacted with surprise… and then I think he might have suggested that I could still go out with him despite being married… I decided not to try and understand that part.
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The jungle has its ups and downs. I continue to feel like a wilty flower from 11-3 every day. Texas has nothing on this place for humidity. The first thing Graham said this morning was, “I don’t want to stay here!!!!” Dean is somewhat easier to please, but he’s also having a lot of meltdowns. I am covered in bug bites and have been warned to treat even a paper cut with neosporin, etc., so that we don’t get flesh eating bacterial infections, YIKES.
On the other hand, it’s beautiful. The flora is incredible. It feels like plants rule this place and we just try to stay out of their way. There are tons of hummingbirds and butterflies and other pretty creatures. And every day we’re seeing or doing something new. Today is Zach’s 33rd birthday; we shall celebrate with going out for homemade ice cream, dinner at the Loco Natural Restaurant, and perhaps some family bike riding.
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One more note: This morning I had my first encounter with a scary jungle creature. I unknowingly squished a scorpion under my cutting board when I was making breakfast. EW.
We’re here in our jungle home! But first, here are a few pictures from our Saturday at the Hotel Bougainvillea. Highlights of the day were a family adventure around the grounds, including a leisurely jaunt in the hotel’s very own maze(!), and a bug hunt in the hotel room with Graham (pictures are dark because Dean was asleep).
On Sunday morning, we took a 3 1/2 hour van ride to the eastern coast — our home for the summer. It was a little sad to leave behind the perfect weather of San Jose (75 and sunny, with an afternoon shower each day) for the hotter, intensely humid Puerto Viejo. The roads were surprisingly good almost the entire way. Except for the occasional (but impressive) pothole, it was a smooth ride until we got to the last 10 km or so, which is unpaved.
Upon our arrival I felt about 60% excited and 40% freaked out. It was so wet and sticky yesterday afternoon I felt like I was one of Tennessee Williams’ more tawdry characters, but when a brief thunderstorm finally brought some relief. The house is completely open, so we are truly living outdoors — there aren’t even screens on the windows. A series of things that I knew intellectually (the bugs, the no a/c, the two-burner stove and no oven, etc) hit me all at once, and I imagine there will be some adjustments for all of us. I was so focused on the transition for Graham that I forgot I, too, was having an adventure! I’m now only about 10% freaked, so progress has been made.
Back to yesterday. We settled in, explored the property a little, and then Zach walked to town while I unpacked us. There’s a small supermarket here that carries all the basics (including diapers, making the insane amount that I packed seem a little silly). After a late lunch, we walked to Playa Negra for some late afternoon sand castle building. The beach is beautiful. The black sand is super fine and soft. Graham dipped his toes in the ocean, but Zach and I each had a quick swim. Dean fell asleep on the way, so he just snoozed through the whole thing. I think he’ll really like it when he’s conscious.
After the beach we all walked to the supermarket. As I said, it’s small — I can only imagine how lavish our local HEB will seem at the end of the summer. Zach says the Ticos don’t understand the power of passionate shopping (that’s the slogan of the San Marcos outlet malls, not just something scary he came up with). I say Bueno! The walk home with a couple of heavy bags and heavy children felt long, but we managed it ok. We will be looking into bicycles very soon.
Last night we all slept in the downstairs bedroom, which I think will be the norm while we’re here. It’s very dark, and the jungle is musical all night long. The sun came up starting around 5, I think (no clock), at which time the bug song gives way to birds.
One more note on jungle living: the bugs are a huge fact of life. The walls here are nominal, and the ants come marching in for even the smallest crumb. I sweep a lot. There are myriad other bugs, too, including the biggest grasshopper I’ve ever seen and other mysterious creatures. No monkey or sloth sightings yet!
I’m blogging this on our teeny tiny computer, so I’ll have to upload pictures to Picasa later. Hasta pronto!
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