What are we doing in Costa Rica?

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.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008 at 1:12 pm and is filed under Culture Shock, Gear, Puerto Viejo.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.