Why Costa Rica?

Dear Family & Friends,

This blog is going to  jump around quite a bit, but I would like to primarily deal with the issue of why lots of people are choosing Costa Rica as a place to settle in retirement or as a home away from the United States.

First just let me say...Costa Rica is one beautiful place.  In my limited travel around CR I have found it to be a place of amazing beauty.  The easy part about writing of CR's beauty revolves around the fact that I am writing this from a table on our patio.  I simply have to lift my  eyes from the computer screen and I see an amazing array of jungle in front of me.  Here is my exact view.

Taken this morning while I was writing this blog.  That's my pool girl (Jamie) on the other side of the pool.

People pay huge bucks to vacation in such a spot as this!  Here is some information about our expenses so far.  Since we are splitting the cost of this home & setting with Josh and Jamie, our costs are very low.  Let me give you some specifics.  Our (Wes & Colleen's) monthly expenses: Rent ($600); Food ($200); Utilities ($125); Car Gas ($200); Taxes/Insur/Med ($300).  And, we have set aside a certain amount for tithes/giving.  I will keep you posted on this as I suspect the amounts will change as time goes by.

Back to the beauty subject.  It is difficult to view any area of CR and not see beauty.  One disclaimer...on our trip to the Panamanian border last week, we did see lots of potholes.  They were not pretty.  But, in general, this is an amazing place.  Costa Ricans and their government have a reputation for preserving natural beauty.  In the development of our property, we had to get permission to remove a specified number of trees!

Blue Morpho Butterfly picture...Taken by Josh this past Saturday.

We've seen howler monkeys in the wild, lots of parrots, lots of hummingbirds and lots of butterflies.  As a sidenote...and, lots of biting bugs. A few days ago, 21 scarlet macaws flew across the view I showed you above.  They were gorgeous.  We've seen lots of yellow-billed toucans and one white-billed.  This morning on our walk, Josh and I saw two blue morpho butterflys and one that was as big, but the wings were black except for a splotch of bright blue on both wings.  Every day brings some new discovery!

This just happened this afternoon as I was choosing pics to insert in this blog.  These two Yellow-billed Toucans showed up for their photo session!  Hard to know which pic to post!  One toucan has now flown away.  The one on the left is still up there by him/herself!  Like I say...always someting going on!

We've had time near and in the Pacific Ocean.  The water is simply amazing.  Both beaches we have visited were clean and the water was very warm.  I'm hoping to learn some things about fishing from the various jetties.  They tell me that the ocean offers a few different kinds of lobsters.  There is some annual festival down here where the lobster is served up in a variety of ways, but during the rest of the year people don't seem to pay any attention to it.  I would like to pay attention to it!!!

Mind you, I've only been here for just about three weeks, so consider this blog an installment.  I will have more and better information as we go along.  But, it's safe to say that lots of people come here for the beauty.  Other people come here for the the reduced cost of living.  And, I need to say pretty early on that the cost of living here is in many regards the same as it is in the United States. 

With conservation, we expect our utility bill this month to be in the $250.00 range.  Food prices seem to be about what they are in the States.  There are some exceptions, but in general, everything that has to be imported is as expensive, or more expensive, than it is in the States.  Gas at this point is about $5.00 per gallon.  We haven't looked much at clothing prices, but I'm told that quality is generally lower and prices are generally higher.  If you are tall and/or large, you (we!) are petty much out of luck  And no shoes in our size, at least for Josh and me.

These are just some things I'm learning as I settle in.

Another motivation I'm finding for people moving to CR is they simply want to get out of the rat race.  That is a good one.  It is nearly impossible to spend a day in the States without multiple reminders of the perilous times and the frailty of the system.  Life is just different here.  People tend to live their day to day lives without the hoopla of politics.  The information is available, but it just isn't given a high priority.  We spent some time last evening checking in on a recent edition of Survivor and the X-Factor.  It was fun, but not anywhere near the high point of our day.  The high point here revolves around relationships and the surrounding beauty.

One more thing.  Several people asked us if our motivation for moving to Costa Rica had anything to do with "end times."  The straight answer is...not really, but kind of.  We are not big on "end time" studies and scenarios.  On the other hand, something is obviously going on in this world that is different than anything I've ever seen or experienced.  It seems rational to give some thought to what to do in case of some world wide crisis, doesn't it?  My neighbor in Castle Rock was a Mormon and he was clear that they had an area of their home dedicated to emergency supplies.  Our family has and is giving consideration to being more prepared in this regard.

I've wondered what it would be like to be in a large population center and have a crisis hit.  Just think about it.  This isn't the main point of this blog, but it just seems to me to be something thoughtful people should consider.  If you have any control over where you would live in a time of national crisis, you may want to take some time to think about a...better location.  In some ways I think it is good to at least consider having some emergency supplies.

In future blogs, my promise is to keep you up-to-date on my thoughts as well as with what I'm hearing from other people.  My plan is to share information about opportunities here and in other locations that you may want to take a look at.

Have a great day.  As Hannity says, "Let not your heart be troubled!"  Oh, wait, that wasn't Hannity, that was Jesus.!
Peace,

Wes