Moving to Costa Rica – Welcome to the Jungle

We have begun this new chapter in Costa Rica.

Life here is simultaneously simpler and more complicated than we were used to in Canada. Our cabinas were open to the elements, moldy, full of insects and the evidence of the bats and lizards that had been hanging out here before us. We still have house geckos of course, all of which our 3-year-old calls Little Buddy and chases after. We spent the first few days scrubbing walls and floors with bleach and brushes, then painting the interior walls white, filling in the gaps at floor and ceiling to try to minimize the bugs. Two of the three cabins are sorta livable right now, we haven’t really gone into the third one yet – it’s too scary. My mom would faint if I told her she had to sleep in it. We had commissioned a Jack-of-all-trades construction guy and all-round amazing neighbor at the advice of the previous owner of our cabins to close in some of the open spaces with windows before we got here, but we are still at the mercy of the outdoors and, on a day like this when there is a torrential downpour, it feels like the rain clouds are inside the living room.

The first week seemed more like camping than living in our new home. After our things arrived from Canada (we had sent a shipping container six weeks ahead of ourselves with what we considered to be the necessities), we were all very happy to suddenly have plates, real cutlery, clean clothes, etc. It made it feel more like home.

Every morning at roughly 5:00am the howler monkeys start announcing the dawn. I’m sure there are more unpleasant ways to wake up than a howler monkey outside your window, but I can’t think of any right now. It is a family of five, including a very cute baby who live here on the property, led by a male named Jeffery by the previous owners for some inscrutable reason. The name makes me think of a monkey butler with a little bow tie, not the proud patriarch of a group, but whatever. We see them hanging out most days. Jeffery is less than thrilled with all of the construction going on around here; not because he is afraid from the looks of it, but (I assume) because he is used to being the loudest thing around and has serious issues with competition. Every time the tools are turned off for a minute he voices his opinion.

We thought that we would have our high speed internet all set up before we got here, but alas, that too is under construction. We are getting online by creating a hotspot with one of our old cell phones which is also hooked up to a Vonage system, so rings if you dial our old special number, but can’t call out. Really. Aidan’s cell phone rings when the Vonage phone rings and can call out on a different, local number, but we’re on a prepaid thing that isn’t great. My phone has basically become a clock/camera as it has decided that all these systems are ridiculous and refuses to acknowledge the existence of any of them. So be it.

Stay tuned for more of us attempting to tame our bit of jungle.

Be Amazing!

Alexis