rainy season – Ex-pats in Mexico

Gardens finished just before rainy season

Yes, we’re still here and going strong. You just haven’t heard anything from Mexico since January, and there are some good reasons. The biggest is health issues — first for Leslie, then for me. I won’t bore you with details but we both spent some time in a hospital. Leslie was very sick in January and February. In mid-March — about the time she got significantly better — I got sicker than I’ve been in my life, and that lasted until early June. Now we’re both doing very well. We have some terrific doctors. Some are not-so-terrific, but you get that in the States too.

The other big reason I haven’t posted anything is because there was nothing to report! Nothing happened in the first few months because we were dealing with other issues. Now, however, I can show you our new landscaping, which includes a super little herb garden.

We hired Enrique and his crew to renovate the gardens, front and back. They put in a variety of flowering plants that should provide color all year ’round. He also reworked our front courtyard and it looks great. We wanted to replace the fountain in front because it was directly in front of the door and a few people almost fell into it when walking away from the door. Plus, it didn’t work anymore.

We thought about moving it and replacing all the tiles in the courtyard. Enrique had a better idea. His crew removed the fountain and replaced it with a tile medallion that gives the courtyard a whole new look while retaining the original tile and saving a lot of money. Enrique also moved a palm tree from the back yard to the front courtyard and added lots of color in the two north corners.

The herb garden includes rosemary, basil, thyme, parsley and tons of cilantro. There’s also some green leaf lettuce and two zucchini plants. I plan to add some jalapeño plants soon.

Here are some videos to show you what the new landscaping looks like. Turn your sound on because I’ve tried to provide some explanation, although I don’t know the names of all the plants. First is the front courtyard:

The new front courtyard. We hope to put some planters on the low walls on either side of the gate.

Next, here are two videos of the back yard. First is the new plantings, and second is a look at the new herb garden and our three fruit trees.

The back yard, including the newly painted fountain that looks MUCH better.

The herb garden and fruit trees.

Leslie and I are enjoying all the color. We’re especially excited that we’ll probably never have to buy cilantro again! We tried to grow it when we lived in San Antonio — too hot. We also tried when we lived in Illinois. No luck there either. It’s going great guns here — but you would expect that, wouldn’t you?

Our timing was excellent on this installation. Enrique’s crew finished just a few weeks before the rainy season began. We get rain here at Lakeside generally from mid-June through the end of October. Most of the time the rains come at night, but this past week we’ve had a few days when it rained all morning. Highly unusual. I actually turned our sprinklers off because we don’t need them right now. It may not rain every night, but there’s rarely a gap of three days between storms.

Some of the big rains come from feeder bands of Pacific hurricanes. Most hurricanes make landfall farther south or they stay out in the Pacific. Some drift north and hit the Baja peninsula. I’m very happy that Fabian and his crew finished sealing the roof before the rains came. We won’t have to do that work again for at least eight to 10 years.

And finally, a picture of Ziggy and Marley:

They’re all grown up now. Just hitting their first birthdays and they can’t share the kitty bed anymore!

I’ll close with some “before” photos of the landscaping so you can see the difference. I hope it won’t be six more months before a new post!

Hasta luego!

The front courtyard as it used to look, with a non-working fountain that was in the way.

You can’t see the old fountain. It had horses on it, and didn’t look Mexican at all. Enrique’s guys painted it and now it looks great. Many of the plantings were overgrown and well over 10 years old.

Living overseas, Mexico, Retirement

Kitten update, painting update, and Halloween fun

*The front of the house looks great in blue, but we have more work to do before it’s finished. At least there’s no more purple*!

Lots of pictures and videos this time, not much text.

Leslie and I have a freshly painted house — inside and out! The painting crew, led by Enrique and Fabian, did a fantastic job. We were most impressed with the cleanup, both during the project and at the end. They even painted the propane tank blue to match the house!

So the outside is finished but the inside is a different story. Now we have to figure out where all the artwork goes. We may need to supplement our collection with a few works by excellent local artists. I’ll post interior photos when we get some of that work done. Hopefully it won’t be too long, but these are tough decisions!

We’re taking a short break from renovation now. Phase 3 should begin in the spring. That’s going to be upgrading the landscaping, much of which is overgrown, and renovating the front courtyard. Any large-scale planting will probably be done in May or June, closer to the beginning of rainy season.

*A reminder of how the house looked when we bought it a little over a year ago.*

Ziggy and Marley continue to grow and cause more problems every day. Ziggy loves to chew on our newspapers and on paper towels his fishes out of bathroom trash receptacles. And they both insist on playing with the laces on my hiking boots, which are on the floor in my closet. Do they have real kitty toys? Yes, we bought several! Oh, well.

Marley is definitely a lap cat, and Ziggy is learning as he gets older. They are still just three and four months old.

More next time! Hasta luego!

*They just keep getting cuter every day.*

Ziggy and Marley love to play-fight with each other. Of course, they’re kittens so they are easily distracted.

Some neighbors up the hill threw a party Oct. 31 for Halloween. Several people got their faces painted in the “catrina” style popular here on the Day of the Dead. Here’s Leslie — who got a “glamorous” catrina — with our dear friend Esther.

*Our neighbors Stephanie (left) and Kate enjoy the Halloween party.*

And finally, a whole-sky sunset from a few nights ago, panning from east to west from our “mirador,” a sitting area on the roof designed for exactly this.

Living overseas, Mexico, Retirement

Rainy season ending, and we have kittens!

We’ve missed sunsets like this one from a few nights ago. They are rare during rainy season, so this may indicate rainy season is over for 2021. Soon, the mountainsides will be turning brown.

The painting on our house is almost done, and soon we’ll have great things to show you. But the big news from here is the two kittens — los gatitos — Leslie and I have adopted! Both males, Ziggy is only about two months old, while Marley is three months.

They came to us as Ziggy and Azafrán — not litter-mates but “best buddies” according to their foster caregivers, Kimrey and Juan. We really liked the name Ziggy, and it fits him! Azafrán is Spanish for “saffron.” It’s a pretty name, but it’s a mouthful so we needed to make a change for him. Many thanks to those who offered lots of great options. Our dear friend Jo-Jo suggested Marley so we would have Ziggy Marley! Thanks, Jo-Jo!

Ziggy (right) and Marley pose in a rare quiet moment.

They are rescues and seem to love their new home. Of course, they’re kittens so everything is a toy! They come from the Lake Chapala Society, which has lush, beautiful grounds and a number of feral cats. These two are from litters born to those cats. Several other kittens were placed, and at least one of the feral cats has now been spayed.

Leslie saw photos of these two on Facebook and just couldn’t wait any longer to have cats in the house again. Marley reminds us both of our dear Max and Sam, our companions in Illinois. It’s going to be a lot of fun watching these two grow up, as we did with Max and Sam.

These little guys are constantly playing and wrestling with each other. Of course, that’s what kittens do! They take turns being the aggressor. I shot some video of them play-fighting, but it wouldn’t load properly on the Word Press image gallery.

I hope we can share photos soon of the house transformation. Then Leslie and I will live for several months (we hope) without any renovation going on. There’s still work to do done, but we need a break! We think landscaping will be next, but probably not until spring.

More good news. I have taken on a new volunteer role that’s interesting and doesn’t take a lot of time. I am translating Spanish news articles into English for local weekly newspaper Seminario Laguna. Okay, not really “translating,” more like “editing,” which is what I do best.

The Spanish-language paper has two pages in English. Along with several other volunteers, I take assigned articles in Spanish, translate them into English using DeepL (which is an outstanding online translation tool), then edit the result so it’s more understandable to ex-pats and other English-speakers. I may get a chance to do some writing also.

Finally, a shout-out to the Chicago Sky, who just won their first Women’s NBA championship! It’s a great day for Chicago sports!

More photos next time! Hasta luego!

Living overseas, Mexico, Retirement

Phase 2 is underway

New front entrance. The doors are made of perota wood, which is beautiful and resistant to termites.

The second phase of our home renovation has begun. All doors and windows have been replaced and the front entrance has been transformed from black metal sliding glass doors to a standard double door with side panels that open to let the breezes through. The fixed panels are now etched glass with a pattern that matches the windows in the new master bathroom.

Here’s the old front entrance. Sliding glass doors. A friend came to see us once and said, “You don’t have a proper front door.” Now we do.

Now we can start painting the house inside and outside, which is the second half of Phase 2.

Interior painting should begin by early September. We have chosen a nice neutral color that looks great with our artwork and rugs. The guest suite will be a nice light teal color with darker teal trim. We’re still debating about a color for the master bedroom.

Exterior painting, a nice light blue with white trim, will have to wait until rainy season is over. That’s probably early November. So we hope Phase 2 will be over by Christmas.

We had several of these around the house, trying to decide which color to use. We went with the big square on the right for the living/dining area and the office. The exterior will be very similar to the small blue square, upper right.

What’s next? Probably landscaping. We have a lot to do in the front because all the large plants were removed for the addition of the new bathroom. We also need to redesign the front patio and move the fountain, which right now is in an awkward place directly in front of the main door. Plants in the back are badly overgrown, so we need to look at that too. At some point, I’m hoping to renovate the office area, which doubles as the family room, or TV room. Phase 3 certainly won’t happen until 2022.

More photos below. Hasta luego!

The guys had trouble getting the old doors removed, so they ended up working pretty late to get everything installed for us.

New front entrance from the inside. More privacy, classier look.

Living overseas, Mexico, Retirement

Bienvenido a nuestra hogar!

*Although daytime rain is rare during rainy season, we often see interesting cloud formations, like this one right over the lake. Sometimes the clouds make Mount Garcia look like a volcano. It’s not.*

The title of today’s post uses the Spanish word hogar (home) rather than casa (house) because Leslie and I are gradually trying to turn this house in México into our home. We spent three weeks in San Diego recently, and it felt great to come back to familiar surroundings instead of moving on to another new city or country. We did that for a little over two years as “vagabonds.” Now we’re settling in. And we like it.

We’re fairly confident the leaks in the roof have been fixed — for now, at least. We haven’t had a torrential downpour like those that brought this problem to light in the first place, but one is coming! There are still a number of “issues” with this place but now we have Eddie, the best handyman in México, on our side. Eddie spent many years in the U.S. and is fully bilingual. In addition to fixing a toilet and other repairs, he hung up most of our art work for us. Builders don’t use lumber and drywall here, they put up brick walls and cover the brick with concrete — for interior as well as exterior walls. Bricks and concrete cost less than lumber and drywall here, and no wood in the house means fewer termite problems.

Hanging artwork here is not as simple as nailing a hook in the wall. We marked spots where we wanted to hang something, and Eddie drilled a hole in that spot. Then he inserted an anchor into the hole and put a screw into the anchor, left it sticking out a bit, and hung the picture on the screw. Having our art on the walls makes the place seem more comfortable — more familiar. Eddie admired some of them, as did Salvador, our bottled-water delivery guy.

And here’s a surprise. We have roommates! Sort of. A pair of barn swallows has built a nest on the wall of the house, just outside the master bedroom. We’ve seen at least three baby birds in the nest, but there may be four. There are lots of swallows in this area right now. Leslie and I enjoy watching them dart and dive around as we have a meal on our patio. Lots of hummingbirds here, too, but they tend to be camera-shy.

As promised, here are some photos of how the house is turning out, all full-size so you can see better:

LR-0515 — *The living room, with our furniture from the Westmont house and the treasured rug from Pakistan’s tribal areas.*

LR-DR-0521 — *Living/dining area, and you can see the English antique hall tree in the back.*

DR-0519 — *The dining room, familiar to some of you. We eat outside a lot, though.*

BR-0531 — *Master bedroom. We have a spot for you, too, when you visit!*

kitchen-0534 — *Big kitchen. Really needs an island. Sorry about the light coming in the south-facing window!*

*The back yard was pretty barren when we moved in. Blah!*

With advice from our neighbor Margaret, we’ve started on a new garden. This shot is from June 1, and the lawn has improved dramatically since then. But leaf-cutter ants damaged most of the new plants while we were in the U.S. last month. They are bouncing back now, all except the five rose bushes, which are just gone. I’ll post another photo when it’s more colorful.

Finally, in the last post I left out something important. With the rainy season comes higher humidities and lower temperatures. You may recall that when we moved into this house three months ago, temperatures were high (90° F.-plus) but low humidity and a nice breeze off the lake made it more comfortable. In rainy season it still gets into the low 80s during the day, low 60s at night. But now the humidity can be as high as 70 percent. We still think this is a nearly perfect climate. After all, it has never snowed here!

That’s it for now.

Hasta luego!

swallow chair-0499 — *While one swallow sits on the eggs in the nest, the other stands guard from his perch on our “zero-gravity” chairs.*

Living overseas, Mexico, Retirement

Rainy season has its ups and downs

A few weeks ago I posted about the beginning of rainy season here in the Lake Chapala area. It’s mostly a good thing, but not so much when there are cracks in your roof. Leslie and I returned from three weeks in San Diego to find the roof of this brand new house had leaked and damaged one of our rugs. Then we experienced two nights of torrential rain that forced us to put towels down to soak up the rain and prevent further damage.

The good news is the damaged rug is not one of the prized oriental rugs, and the leak did not extend into the living room. The bricks in the boveda ceiling got wet, and still show dampness nearly two weeks later. But a leak in the living room could’ve been much worse. We think it’s fixed now.

*You can see the wetness in the ceiling caused by a leaky roof. It may take more than month to dry.*

And we have rosemary, thyme and basil planted in neat containers on the terrace, but they seem to be dying. The owner of the local garden store — who gets rave reviews from our friends — said “too much water.” Not much we can do about the amount of lluvia (rain) God sends us, so we may have to replant those herbs.

The rain comes mostly at night, although I got slightly damp last week walking home from my Spanish class at 11 a.m.! And the storms really light up the night sky. Here’s what it looks like from our back door, looking south across Lake Chapala:

On the positive side, nobody waters their lawns at this time of year. Rain comes almost every night — sometimes in torrents, sometimes in soft showers, and often at 3 a.m.!

This is when things get really, really green. When you look north out our front door, you see part of the Sierra de San Juan Cosalá mountain range. When we moved in, there was nothing but brown on the mountains. Now, it’s lush and green, and it will stay that way until the end of the year.

*This was taken June 23. Lots of brown in the mountains.*

*This was taken a month later. Rainy season makes a big difference!*

Rainy season continues until the end of October. There’s a webcam that looks south from Ajijic toward Mount Garcia on the other side of Lake Chapala. Click on the link if you want to see what we see every day from our patio. The webcam is in a different location, of course.

Next post will be long-promised photos of our house in the Riviera Alta neighborhood of Ajijic, Jalisco, México. You’re invited to come see it in person!

Hasta luego!

Living overseas, Mexico, Retirement, Travel

Rainy season is here!

In a previous post I noted that May is the hottest month in the Lake Chapala area. It got up to 90° F. or more several times during May, but low humidity and cooling breezes off the lake or the mountains made it feel comfortable. Now “rainy season” has begun. That means lower temps, higher humidities and lots of much-needed rain.

rain-0441 — *During “rainy season,” rain usually comes late in the afternoon, as in this photo, or during the night. We’ve been awakened a few times by thunder at 3 a.m.!*

One storm sent driving rain out of the north, and it came in under our front door. I mopped up a full bucket of rainwater!

*I mopped as long as the rain rushed in under the door. Just one of several reasons the door is being replaced. Hopefully by the end of July.*

A few days later, our new best friend Eddie came and installed some weather stripping on the front door and two other doors that were problematic. Eddie lived in California for many years and is fully bilingual. We hope he’s going to do lots more in coming months.

We’ve been told that as the season progresses, the storms come more frequently out of the south. We’re not sure that’s true, but it would be great because the two doors on the south side are sliding glass doors and rain won’t come in if they’re closed.

Rainy season runs until September or October. The mountainsides outside our front door are already getting a bit greener. I have a “before” photo. As soon as it gets to peak, I’ll snap an “after” shot and post them.

*Leslie’s winning pimento-cheese sandwiches. They were VERY good!*

On another note, Leslie won another prize at the June meeting of CASA — Culinary Arts Society of Ajijic. The theme was “picnic” entrees and desserts. Leslie’s “open-faced spicy pimento-cheese sandwiches” took the People’s Choice Award. She got lots of comments from CASA members saying those sandwiches took them back in time to family picnics where pimento-cheese sandwiches were a staple. I, too, have fond memories of those sandwiches. But my grandmother never put jalapeño peppers in them!

Finally, still no photos of the inside of the house. Sorry! Hopefully, Eddie will come tomorrow to help us hang art on the walls and the place will be more photogenic. But we still need to locate some necessary items of furniture. First priority, however, is for me to decide on a new grill.

*At least the wine fridge is full! Some Mexican wines are very, very good. Come down for a visit and we’ll let you try some.*

Leslie and I are headed back to the States this week. While daughter Stephanie is taking a well-deserved vacation to Italy, we’re going to be house-sitting and cat-sitting for her. So we’ll be back in San Diego for about three weeks. Looking forward to seeing friends at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church on Coronado Island. I’ll try to post from there, since this is sort of a vacation for us.

Hasta luego!

*On the patio just outside the kitchen, we have rosemary, basil and thyme growing in pots!*

At our front door, which is soon to be replaced by something that will let light and air in, we have some terrific Talavera pots with Gerbera daisies (left) and geraniums. We’re working on making this place look better.

food, Living overseas, Mexico, Retirement

This is sure to make you hungry!

Leslie and I are still settling into our new digs with challenges on a near-daily basis, mostly due to poor workmanship or cheapest-possible materials used in construction (e.g., broken toilet seats, broken shower head). We’ve harbored thoughts of bailing out and trying to find something better. But that would mean moving all our stuff again, so we’ve decided to do what we can to make the place habitable. So no photos yet. Please be patient. We still have work to do.

There is news, though. Last week, Leslie did a “presentation” at the monthly meeting of the Culinary Arts Society of Ajijic — better known as CASA. Members must present a dish at least three times a year but are encouraged to do more. Presentations are judged by three local food service professionals — chefs, restaurant owners, etc. Attendees get to sample everything and vote on the People’s Choice award.

There are two categories: entrees and desserts. For May the entree category was cold soups or salads, and the dessert category was bar cookies. Leslie presented “Ajo Blanco (AH-hoe BLAHN-koh),” or white gazpacho. It’s a Spanish dish with Moorish influences. Ingredients include almonds, cucumbers, garlic and grapes. Her soup was one of 10 entree entries…and the professional panel awarded her third place!

*Ajo blanco soup with almonds and cucumbers as garnish. A winner at the May meeting of CASA.*

I’ve never been a big gazpacho fan, but this was an outstanding soup. Fortunately, there was some leftover to bring home.

May is Lakeside’s hottest month. Daytime highs have been in the upper 80s to lower 90s F., but humidity is usually less than 20 percent. That’s why most of the white pelicans have migrated north. The dry air and the constant breeze keep things fairly comfortable, even without air conditioning. But rainy season is coming, and we’re looking forward to watching the mountainside turn from brown to lush green.

More to come…

Hasta luego!

*Our lease says “no pets,” so this little guy is part of our pest and weed control program. We see him often on the planters at the back of the property.*

Costa Rica, Living overseas, Retirement, Travel

Costa Rica misses the cut

While Costa Rica has a lot going for it, the downsides overshadow the positives for Leslie and me. The land of Pura Vida is no longer on the list of places we’ll consider living. It’s a close call, but we think Mexico is still in the lead.

On the plus side, Costa Rica is a beautiful country. The mountains are lush and green, and there’s an incredible diversity of flora and fauna. We didn’t get to see much of it because we didn’t do any of the touristy things, such as jungle treks and zip lines. Areas like the Central Valley and Lake Arenal have a nice climate with warm days and cool nights. The humidity in those places is relatively low. Beach towns are definitely out. Too hot, too humid.

There are a number of things we like about Costa Rica in general. It’s a politically stable country that just elected, by a fairly large margin, a center-left president who has great plans for his country. There has been no standing army since 1948, the 90 percent literacy rate is one of the highest in the world, there’s a growing middle class, and Costa Rica takes care of the environment. For example, almost 100 percent of the electricity generated in Costa Rica comes from five renewable sources: hydropower, wind, geothermal, biomass and solar.

But electricity is expensive, and the overall cost of living is only slightly lower than in the U.S., In some cases it’s on a par with North American and European countries. We’re looking for a place where our money goes a little farther.

Other downsides include:

There are no street addresses. We talked with a Canadian who rents a box at the post office to get mail. If he knows a package is coming, he calls the UPS or DHL delivery driver to meet them somewhere. Crazy.
And you get directions that assume you know where you are: “We’re 200 meters south of Pops Ice Cream.” Thanks — now where the heck is Pops?!?!
Even the highways are not very well marked. We used Waze and Google Maps on our two trips around the country and still got lost in places.
Driving is hideous. In cities and towns, you have to avoid hitting pedestrians and cyclists who just dart into traffic. In rural hilly areas, the twists and turns force me to slow down while the locals just barrel ahead. We saw several near-accidents from drivers passing against a double-yellow line.

Finally, we just don’t have good feelings for Costa Rica like we have for Spain and Mexico. The people are friendly, and there are a lot of ex-pats in the area to socialize with. But neither of us has developed warm fuzzies for this country.

So Costa Rica is off the list as a place to retire. But we would like to come back someday as tourists to do some of those things we passed on while we were here. Also, Horizon Church — the nondenominational we’ve been attending in Jacó — is building a new church. The walls are up already and the plans look terrific. We would love to see it after they have moved in, and reconnect with our new friends there.

*Our last look at Costa Rica — a Pacific sunset. Hasta luego!*

Now we’re taking a short break to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary, which was back on Feb. 6. Has it really been 25 years? Doesn’t seem like it. We are marking this auspicious occasion by taking a two-week cruise from Fort Lauderdale to Rome. While Italy is not really on our list of places to live in retirement, we’re taking this opportunity to visit Naples, Rome and Florence to see the historical sites and museums — places like Pompeii and Herculaneum, and the coliseum in Rome.

After Italy, we’ll move on to France, the last place (maybe) on our list of possible places to live. We’ve rented an apartment in the historic center of Montpelier, capital of the Languedoc-Roussillon area, for six weeks. Leslie is looking forward to finding a French cooking class, and I relish the idea of sipping cafe au lait at little French bistros.

We’ll be back in Chicago’s western suburbs by July 12. Then we have a decision to make.

Next post will be from the middle of the Atlantic Ocean — IF we have decent wi-fi on the ship!

Ciao!

Costa Rica, Living overseas, Retirement, Travel

The Central Valley

Costa Rica advertises its Central Valley as having “the best climate in the world.” We’ve heard that about other places, too, so we had to check it out. The valley encompasses most of the country’s interior, and includes several national parks. This week, Leslie and I visited the Central Valley towns of Atenas, Grecia and Sarchi. We spent most of our time in Atenas (ah-TAY-nahs), which — you guessed it — is named for Athens, Greece.

IMG_2140-1 — *One of the main streets in Atenas.*

Best climate? Depends on how you define “best.” One definition is a place where temperature and humidity are relatively constant throughout the year. However, it was unseasonably hot the few days we were there — in the low 90s F. with overnight lows in the upper 60s. Our Canadian host at the bed and breakfast where we stayed told us many North Americans leave Costa Rica at this time of year because it is hotter. Humidity is lower in the valley than at the beach, of course, but it still felt humid. So maybe it’s not “the best” climate.

Another thing that changes very little is sunrise and sunset. This area is so close to the equator, these events happen at roughly the same time every day. And there is no daylight saving time.

We also heard horror stories about Costa Rica’s rainy season, which is in the fall and is not limited to the Central Valley. Apparently there are deluges almost every day, and while they don’t last long they cause brief flooding in some places. Areas without paved roads have bigger problems. We noticed that streets in Costa Rican towns have drainage gutters built into the roadsides. They are made of concrete and some are at least six to eight inches wide and eight or nine inches deep. You’ve got to be careful when walking or you might break an ankle if you step into one, and very careful when parking or your car will drop off into the ditch.

*The drainage on this Atenas street is sloping toward the curb, and you can see the yellow walkway just to the right of the white car. Some drainage ditches are more squared-off.*

We found Atenas to be fairly small (5,000 population, I think), with some very nice homes near the center of town. We talked with a young woman from the U.S. who lives with her husband and daughter on a nearby mountaintop. They can actually see the Pacific Ocean from their 6,000-foot perch. There’s a sizable gringo population, but it’s not as obvious as some Mexican towns, particularly Ajijic. We met some other ex-pats at a small cafe and learned there are men’s and women’s groups that meet weekly, so a new resident would have to get connected through those two social groups. A downside for us is the lack of a faith community. The closest English-speaking Protestant church is in a San Jose suburb.

Atenas sits at about 2,200 feet, while Grecia (GREH-see-ah), the largest of the three cities we visited, is slightly higher at 3,270 feet. That makes sense, because we thought it was just a bit cooler in Grecia. Sarchi is only 1,000 feet above sea level, and is a center for Costa Rican crafts. Furniture manufacturing is huge in Sarchi. We saw lots of places selling furniture.

So the Central Valley has some good things going for it, and a few things not so good. Leslie and I might consider coming back to spend more time here. To be continued.

A common sight in the Central Valley is clouds hugging the mountaintops in the distance. I took this from the car window just outside Sarchi.

Finally, some fun facts about Costa Rica in general:

This country has no standing army. There are local and national police, of course, but Costa Rica abolished its army in 1948.
Life expectancy in Costa Rica is about 79 years. That’s among the highest in the world. The Nicoya Peninsula on the Pacific coast is one of the world’s seven Blue Zones, where people often live past 100 years.
The World Health Organization ranks Costa Rica’s health care system as the 36th best in the world. That’s one notch ahead of the United States (France and Italy top the list).
Costa Rica is the world’s unofficial hummingbird capital — home to 52 species of hummers.
There are five active volcanos in Costa Rica.

That’s it for now. Last post from Costa Rica coming soon, then it’s time to return to Europe. Time flies!

Happy Easter, and Pura Vida!

bus-2145 — *This bus in Grecia is typical of Costa Rican public transportation. The buses here are much newer and nicer than those in the Mexican towns where we lived.*