Costa Rica House

The 6.2 earthquake did no damage to Butterfly Dances. Tonio said that everything shook for a while, though. I was in my car driving, and didn't even know it happened, although everyone else in San Ramon felt that it wouldn't end. Gary was in his apartment in Alajuela, and the quake knocked him to the floor.

But here's an account from my sister's friend, who was on a nature tour right at the epicenter.

I don't know if you heard about the earthquake here. 6.2 and we were at the epicenter and down a ravine looking at a waterfall. (We were on a day tour of a bunch of places). We're lucky to be alive. Cindy (the other Cindy) broke her leg. Earl has a bruised or broken rib. Dan has a nasty gash from a falling boulder. We are happy to be alive. Heard that 3 people died (not for sure) downstream from us. We spent the night at the place where we were doing the falls, etc. trip out of...in the rain with 280 other stranded people. Major road washouts on both sides of us. A nearby village got covered in a landslide.

I have heard about 40 dead and more missing. Tons of aftershocks overnight - not so many now. Our bus was totaled when it slid down a hill in the quake. Fortunately our driver was able to walk away. Did not sleep at all. A few were helicoptered out. The rest of us hiked out this a.m. and spent the next few hours making our way back to our hotel. People here are over the top helpful and the emergency response was really good.. Totally epic. We leave for the boat tomorrow a.m....a day late but we are all alive. I'm fine but tired, as we did not sleep last night. Just stood/sat in the rain/ dark under dirty plastic. At least we were together.

I am fine. We all feel like we just got off of a boat...still rocking from the quake and aftershocks. We were at the peace lodge for the expedition. It is now totaled. Our hotel in San Jose is fine. I am okay but will need to shower in my shoes to get the red mud off.

Cindy

Working on Vince and Terry's House (click to enlarge)

Meager Tales

Well, it's hard to top that incident with meager tales of spiders and scorpions, but I haven't even seen a scorpion so far this stay except the dead one that Gary left on my patio. (I guess he's a trophy hunter.) I was very busy the first few days buying a refrigerator and stove and some furniture. For the refrigerator and stove, I went to five stores that I had been going to during my house construction, and compared products and prices and delivery charges. One funny thing is that every store either had or came down to the exact same price for the same stove. I guess Atlas, the manufacturer, has the same deal with all the stores, and I guess all the stores have the same overhead. Or something like that. I don't know. It's best not to try to figure things out sometimes in CR.

Furnishing

Anyway, I bought the fridge and stove at Muebles San Ramon for a total of $1,000. They're both stainless steel (looking), and they're both small. So prices are no bargain down here. But now I'm living in style. I even have ice. AND, I finally got a cell phone, and it wasn't even that hard. I took my corporation papers to an attorney that I had used before, and, while he talked all about the U.S. economy and Costa Rica, he typed me up a personaria for $16. I bought a TDMA cell phone (old style because there are no available lines for GSM) for about $44 at a store across from ICE, the government entity that seems to handle utilities and just about everything else in CR. At ICE, I took a number, waited about 10 minutes, then was called to the front where I paid them about $24, and they activated my phone, and, voila, "I'm Somebody." (from The Jerk) It took over an hour because no one was answering the phone at the other end of the activation line. It was lunchtime. Sabes?

The next day was furniture day. There are about 8 stores on the highway near Palmares and San Ramon, so I drove to all of them, and almost made a deal at one before I found a place that sold rattan and wicker furniture. I bargained the lad down from $472 to $463 for a set of a sofa, two chairs and a coffee table. This is not one of my greatest bargaining feats, but I really just wanted to see if I was getting a good deal or not. He even had to call the duena (woman owner). So they delivered those the next day. I think I made a lot of progress in a short time considering I'm in Costa Rica, and have I told you that things take a long time to get done around here?

What else? Some days it's gotten up to 90 degrees, but I watch (and feel) the temperature drop from 90 to 70 degrees in two hours. Then it gets a little below 70 for the evening for a nice sleep. I brought down a sprinkler, and now my grass is getting a lot of watering. I also brought down a new keyboard, so I'm practicing piano a lot. And I brought down a pair of binoculars.

Speaking of binoculars, we saw HUGE sloth in a tree up the road from Vince's house. And I mean huge. It looks like a massive orangutan all spread out in the upper branches. I'll post a pic but it's not very good.

Click to enlarge pics