The South comes to Costa Rica

The past two weeks have been rather exciting (aka super busy) but wonderful. First we had 180 people from Georgia come to Costa Rica for this Leadership Georgia conference. They were staying at the nearby resort listening to speakers ranging from alumni of the program to the President of Costa Rica. They also wanted to volunteer in nearby schools and see how our Habitat projects were coming along. While they were here, Jane and Daniel were also coming to visit, but their original flight got canceled and the trip was pushed back a day. Unfortunately that means their flight arrived at the same time that we were supposed to be taking the Leadership Georgia people around to our worksite and the other Habitat neighborhood.As usual, it all worked out in the end though, the Leadership Georgia people were two hours late arriving for the tour so we had plenty of time to pick up our visitors and drag them around on our tour to the Habitat houses as well. They also got a taste of our weekly English class to the first graders in 27 de Abril. The cutest students ever, but with little understanding of order in a classroom which is typical for many students here. A few games of duck, duck goose managed to get some of their energy out though and at the same time, drain all of ours.

Jane and Daniel got the full Costa Rican experience, from monsoons to sunburns, but it was a great trip. We started with a Sabenero show, which is the typical dancing and horseback riding of the Guanacaste region. Afterward there was dinner and drinks on the beach, where we began a proper celebration. Over the weeekend we went hiking at a nearby volcano (Blair, does Rincon de laVieja ring a bell?), whose crater is no longer active, but there are tons of bubbling mud pits, hot water pools, fumaroles, and waterfalls around the mountain. It was a beautiful hike through an amazing forest with the largest leaf-cutter ant mounds that we've ever seen. Those ants were always focused on their task and left people alone, but as we found out the hard way some others do not. We were swimming (well the boys were swimming, and the girls were wading) in this crystal clear, freezing-cold river when we noticed a black army swarming all over our stuff on the rocks. We quickly hopped out to grab our stuff and move it away, but the ants just kept coming and coming and apparently could follow our scent wherever we took our stuff. Yikes! For the more relaxing vacation type of things, we also went sailing/snorkeling, ziplining through the jungle, golfing, laying on the beach, etc. Even better we ate tons of good food, probably topped by our homemade sushi that was swimming just hours before we ate it.

During all the fun we were also trying to get the construction crews everything they needed to start building. As always there are last minute fees and complications trying to hinder progress, but we managed to overcome all of them (that we know of). The foundations have been dug and you can see the outline of each room of the house. The construction crew is amazing - after 30 minutes of being on the worksite we're tired and drenched in sweat, and they are out there 10 hours a day in the ridiculous heat, digging the foundations, mixing concrete, etc. We can't describe how fantastic it is to finally be building though. Even better, the crew is also working to clear the second lot so we can begin the permit process on that land and hopefully build there as soon as this neighborhood is done.

Hope everyone had a great Father's Day weekend. Huge hugs to all you dads out there.

Love,
Team Wander

Éxito!

A foreigner who has been working in Costa Rica for many years gave us some advice this week. In order to get anything done here, it requires ¨slight but constant pressure.¨ We think that is the best description we’ve heard yet. We’re walking this tightrope between trying to accomplish things in a reasonable amount of time and not bugging people to the point they won’t help us again. We’re slowly learning how to keep this delicate balance and it is paying off....we’re picking up our construction permits TOMORROW!!!! Yes, six months later, we have success. Tomorrow the construction crew will be out there cleaning the lots, marking the houses, and building a shed for the materials. Next week, we’ll have our materials and they can start building.

This morning we had to tie up the last loose ends and the process was comical to say the least. We went to the main offices in Santa Cruz because they were missing one piece of paper to approve the permits. A quick description, this building is divided into little windows, almost like bank tellers, where you can apply for all types of permits, pay taxes, declare land, etc. The final papers we needed for the permits were all in this one building, mere feet from each other. Apparently, plastic dividers are enough to cease all (work-related) conversations between these offices so we had to run between each one to obtain the last requirement. The person at the permit window told us to go to the next window to get a stamp on another piece of paper so she could give us what we needed. Well, the lady at the second window asked us to go to a third window for yet another sheet of paper. The third lady needed us to go upstairs to pick up another piece of paper so she could give us the other paper to take to the second window to get another paper to take to the first window and so on. Absolutely ridiculous. It’s no wonder people get so confused here, keeping up with so many pieces of paper for the same thing. While waiting at each window, we amused ourselves by people watching. A personal favorite, the man who walked in carrying a pigeon on a leash and each time he needed to talk to someone he would step on the leash and the bird would try to pull free. Pigeons? As pets? In government buildings? Like we said, extremely amusing.

All that matters now though is that we’ve made it through our first set of permits and learned a lot in navigating the Costa Rican legal system. Hopefully the subsequent permits will be quicker and easier now that we know where to get each of the requirements (and the five requirements needed for each of those). Two more visitors were supposed to fly in today, but their flight was cancelled, so well have more fun stories to tell next week of our adventures with them.

Huge hugs,
Team Wander

El Hermano y la Llanta

The first day of Eric and Trevor´s visit to Costa Rica, started out innocently enough. A day at the beach, cooking a great dinner, etc. Then, rumor spread of a Bingo night at a nearby bar that was a fundraiser for the beach clean-up crew. Always willing to do our part to help, we quickly rushed over to Bingo night and threw our money down for a lucky card. There were 9 prizes to be won that night, and somehow our group managed to win five of them. It was absolutely ridiculous and more than one of the more experienced Bingo players was ready to take us out at the knees. We ended the night with two sailing trips, dinner for two, a month membership at the tennis club, a 30 minute massage, and two whole pies from Nogui´s. Needless to say, we had our work cut out for us to add all this fun into an already fun-packed week, but we somehow managed.


The rest of the week included golfing, a trip to a nearby village that specializes in traditional pottery making, lots of game playing, and of course great food. Our boat trip was rained out the first day, but we came back the following day to perfect blue skies and more coconut daiquiris than anyone should ever drink. While snorkeling we once again found a blowfish (this time an extremely spiky one that we couldn´t hold on to), starfish, eels, and lots of fish. The sunset was beautiful and after dinner, we stayed on the beach for hours.

For the weekend, we decided to head to Tenorio Volcano National Park. We had heard great things about Rio Celeste, a river in the park that is a spectacular blue color due to the volcanic minerals. The only problem is no one could tell us how to get there besides look for the dirt road near Bijagua. The drive started out easy enough, but soon the car started shaking violently. We made it to the next gas station only to find 3 large holes in our tire where you could see the metal weave of the tire breaking. They didn´t have any tires that were the right size so they sent us to the next tire place down the road. We stopped at three or four more places who all said they didn´t have any tires to fit, but by this time we were being told that if we kept driving on the tire we were going to die. Problem was, our spare tire also had a few holes (in true Costa Rica style, it was patched again and again without ever being replaced) and was almost entirely deflated. At the sixth stop, we refused to go any farther and said they had to help us figure out something. He blew up the spare tire as much as he could and said we could make it about 5 miles and hope for the best at the next shop. Thankfully, we were lucky at the next stop and he had a new tire to sell us, although the spare is still deflated in the back.

We made it to the tiny town of Bijagua and drove around forever looking for a place to stay. Unfortunately, our little low-riding Hyundai hatchback was no match for the dirt roads full of potholes and boulders. When we finally found a place to stay, they informed us that there was no way our car could make it the 11km to the National Park entrance. As always, he knew a guy who knew a guy who could give us a ride the next day. The trip out there was exciting to say the least, and our driver stopped along the way for us to try water apples. They are a bell-shaped fruit that have the texture of a pear, but taste like a flower (have you ever tried that fruit, Jessica?). We were greeted at the park office by an entire wall of jars full of the dangerous species of snakes, lizards, scorpions, and bugs that you might encounter in the park. We signed in and began our hike into a Jurassic Park like jungle, surrounded only by the sounds of the bugs, and a heavy mist that had settled in the trees. The first view of the river was at a spectacular waterfall ending in a bright turquoise pool, unlike anything we had seen before. There were no people anywhere and we felt as if we had discovered our own private paradise. We continued our hike, finding the point where the two rivers meet and the water turns blue, and ending up at a set of hot springs. Careful placement of rocks had made a perfect pool that allowed enough cold river water in to mix with the hot springs to make a great place to sit. We stayed there for awhile and had a picnic lunch before hiking back.

A great week overall and now back to the office to finish the quest for our construction permits. Looks like we can have them by the end of the week and if the construction crew is ready, begin the houses next week! Very exciting news for us. We hope all is well in the US and we miss you all!

Hugs,
Team Wander