Our First Boarder Run - Nicaragua

 Last weekend we made our first boarder run. We need to do this every 90 days till we are able to put in for residency (which is another blog post in and of itself)

We heard about a great tour to Rio Indo Lodge (http://www.therioindiolodge.com) 

It was an incredible adventure and one we will not forget, if ever. Yea, that memorable.

I want to share what Tracye wrote about our trip, she does a great job of nailing it. 

 =-=-=-=-=-=-=

I am posting pictures of the beautiful very remote jungle lodge we flew to today, had lunch, returned home and are good to go for another 90.

Let's just say it was an adventure! I have never ridden in a plane that small, a lot of praying there and back was going on. 

We landed deep in the jungles of Nicaragua on a remote air strip about a mile off the Caribbean coast.

This is the lobby of the Rio Indio Lodge. This place is nice!

There are raised walkways all over because the lodge is in the middle of a rain forest.

 

 The Rio Indio Lodge

When we arrived we were greeted by military with armed machine guns; the guys were nice though, (thankfully). Once we were stamped in, we walked a nice trail to our waiting boat to be taken to the lodge up river. The only way in our out was by plane or boat. I am not kidding when I say reeeemote.

We arrived at the lodge after the short boat ride and it truly was an oasis in the midst of some of the wildest habitat I have ever been in. Beautiful just does not quite describe it. We were served coffee and a light snack then walked around the property...amazing. We saw poison dart frogs sitting on stumps; walk on the water lizards, a howler monkey sleeping way up in the canopy, and gorgeous birds.

A poison arrow frog, there were a lot of them on the forest floor.

This is a lizard that when it is scared, it can run across the water. 

We did not get to see the 19 foot gator that hangs out at the dock waiting for fish to be thrown to him...maybe next time.

After our tour of the lodge we were served an amazing lunch of fish, rice, veggies and salads. We had to hurry a tad as the weather was becoming questionable, so after lunch we loaded up on the boat and headed back to the airport.

We get back to the airport (a strip of pavement in the middle of dense jungle and a small building). We go into to get our passports stamped and pay our fees) uh ..oops somebody changed the rules and it is going to cost everyone an extra $20.00 US to leave (NO ONE had it) … It was a tad unnerving as we stood there watching the armed guys shaking their head no, they will not take CR money…only dollars and no one has any. At this point I am wondering…how deep the doo doo is gonna get … I was a tad nervous.

Fortunately the owner of the lodge had ridden back with us to see us off and was able to convince the guards after about 20 minutes if discussion to accept our CR money as payment since no one was informed about this “increase” in fees….oh and FYI Saturday and Sunday’s will cost you a dollar to get into Nicaragua and 70 to get out.

We were finally done and began boarding the tiny plane. I was relieved to be on the plane and not standing in a remote airstrip wondering how I was going get out. The ride home was a tad bumpy (storm clouds) but all in all it was a fun trip…quite the adventure and we now have this 90 days done!

Pura Vida

The Wet Season is Here

From around April 15 to Nov 15 is the rainy season here in Costa Rica.

See, Costa Rica's weather is kind of on the backwards side than that of the US. When it is our "summer" it is Costa Rica's "winter" and the US Winter is Costa Rica's Summer.

But here in Costa Rica they really do not call it winter and summer, it is wet season and dry season.

So we are now officially in the wet season and everyday around 2:00 PM the clouds roll in and it starts to rain. And when it rains, boy does it rain. I thought that Texas thunderstorms were bad, but not like here, especially when the thunder and lightning kicks in.

 

 The rain coming down as we are standing in our
car port area. Got your ark ready?

 

When it rains it dumps here

 Now when it starts raining, it gets pretty loud on our metal roof. Our little yourkie Onni, does not like the rain storms at all. The noise on the roof bothers her, but it is the thunder that really freaks here out.

She gets all shakey and starts panting as she stresses out. 

I was reading about something called the "Thunder Jacket" and how it works. It calms the dog down because they are being held really tight by the jacket. 

I have noticed that when it starts to rain, I hold Onni tight and she calms down. 

Now that I know that, I have come up with a thunder jacket of my own... "The Onni Roll"

I have a thin blanket that I roll Onni up like you would a new born baby. She loves it and instantly calms down once she is in it all snug as a bug. 

Onni in her "Onni Roll"

We love hearing the rain on the roof. It is a peaceful sound. We are also glad that it just lasts a few hours a day too. Otherwise we would have to build an ark of our own. 

The Stomach Crud

Yep, I have been down and out with stomach crud. I have not been able to do much except feel cruddy.

MONDAY - For the past few days I have not been up to snuff. I went to the doctor and she has me on meds for stomach flu of sorts.

I am not feeling nauseous or anything, just bad gas / abdominal cramps.  And yes, I have had my appendix out a long time ago.

It does not hurt, but I have some major gurgling going on.

It is hard sitting in my chair and working. I also find it hard to concentrate on what I need to do because it is rumbling so bad.

WEDNESDAY - Sorry there was no communication yesterday, I was down and out for the count in bed. Seems the stomach crud had gotten me big time.

To be honest I have been expecting something like this. New country, new food, new diseases, etc. The body just has to get used to things and build up immunities. From what I understand a lot of the expats who move here experience some sort of stomach crud one time or another within the first year of being in country.

I slept most of the day even though I tried to work from bed, exhaustion won out and I just crashed most of the day.

This morning I am doing better. Made some rice portage and some herbal tea. Although I am not a huge fan of rice portage, I am eating it.

Hmmmmm... I wonder if this would be better if I put it through the blender and made something like a rice milk smoothie. I am not into "eating" right now and this first spoonful just sat in my mouth.

I will keep folks posted on my Facebook...   https://www.facebook.com/RayGano

KEEP ALERT - SUPER BIG ANNOUNCEMENT THIS FRIDAY!

This Friday I hope to have a HUGE announcement. That is if this stupid crud has not gotten the best of me and still kicks my rear end.

Yesterday I was trying to work in bed with the laptop, but I was to exhausted to do anything but sleep. I am feeling a little better today and I hope that this feeling better lasts. For the past few days I have felt good in the morning and then around 1:00ish I start winding down really fast.

So I am trying to get this PZ News Watch done here quickly so that I can attend to the other work that is pressing so that I can make a big announcement this Friday.

Please keep me in prayer so that I kick this bug here quickly. I hate being sick, it's a drag.

Thanks for being there for us and thank you for all the prayers and notes of encouragement.

The Atenas Ox Cart Parade

Many years ago the President of Costa Rica ruled that to get with the times and to give Costa Rica a place in the world, Costa Rica needed to have some sort of cash crop. He decided that it was going to be Coffee. But not just any coffee, Arabica coffee was the only thing that Costa Rica could grow.

He gave land grants to people willing to grow coffee, tax breaks, etc. For a dictator, this was a pretty forward thinking thing to do.

If you do not know,Costa Rica is a mountainous country. and I means some pretty big mountains.  The only way for the farmers to get their coffee beans to the local markets was to go over these mountains and then down to the coast.

How did they do this? Yep, you probably guessed by the title of the blog, by oxcart.

The oxcart has a long history here in Costa Rica and has evolved into a  National Labor Symbol. In fact it became official when it was designated the National Labor Symbol on March 22, 1988.

Living in Atenas there are coffee growers all over.

My neighbor across the street last year alone harvested about 2500 lbs of coffee.

My friend Gabriel and his family is blazing the organic trail out at El Toledo Coffee plantation.

And everywhere you go, you see people growing coffee in their own yards. Talk about a prolific plant.

Ever year the people of Atenas holds their Ox Cart Parade. Some of these are sponsored, but a lot are truly working ox carts that still go up and down the mountains here to haul the coffee down the mountains.

So this is a tradition that is embedded in the culture. You see the pride in the ox cart drivers. They work hard at painting their carts, taking care of the oxen and proudly walk in the parade every year.

This is Costa Rica and it was so neat to be part of this event and see it first hand.

Friday is Feria Day!

It is Friday and Friday means Feria!

What is the Feria?

Feria is Spanish for Fair, but in this case it stands for the market or farmers market,

It is on Fridays where all the farmers, produce people, bakers, cheese makers, fish mongers and butchers come and sell their goods. AT a very reasonable price I might add.

If you are someone who loves fresh fruits and vegitables, then this is the place for you.

What Makes Atenas Different?

Atenas, the city where we live,  was named the most friendliest climate in all the world by National Geographic. We literally live in perpetual springtime 365 days of the year.

Because it is perpetual spring, we have a LOT of fruits and veggitables that grow year around, where in the U.S. they only grow during the spring time.

We have papaya, pineapple, mango, passion fruit and many sorts of citrus. Interestingly enough, we do not have the comon yellow lemon down here. For some reason, it does not grow here.

Here I am checking out some Star Fruit - yea, it grows here.

One of the neat things about feria day is that you get to see friends. Today we ran into John & Pat. In fact we pulled up the same time they did. We caught up on how each other are doing checked some things out together, then we got to business of shopping for that coming week's food.

 

Here we have apple bananas, yep, they have a apple taste. I personally think they have more of a berry taste. No matter what, they are great tasting. Once you have tried a tree ripened banana, you will never eat a store ripened again.

 El Toledo Coffee - I have to say some of the best coffee in the world. I just opened a bag of light roast and the flavors are out of this world. I never knew coffee could be this good. IF you come down for a visit, we will take you to El Toledo. You will fall in love with the coffee as well.

 These long brown things are Yucca. You eat them like you would potatoes. The are really good and in most restaurants, when you think you have potatoes, you are actually eating yucca.

Yes, the watermelon is that red. In fact a deep ruby red and they are really sweet to.

This is the stall where I buy my mangos. They have a pretty good selection. The key is to buy some fully ripe, some not so ripe and then some that need time to mature. This way you can have mango everyday like Tracye and I do for our breakfast fruit salad. 

Yep, one of the advantages of living where it is always springtime. Incredible fruit and veggies.

 

Visited the El Toledo Coffee Farm

We had some mutal friends that were visiting John Price and Gary Kah and they had the time and wanted to come up and visit with Tracye and I.

Over the weekend we showed them around Atenas and took them out to lunch at the Guanecaste Cafe.

While they were here, we mentioned the incredible coffee tour up at El Toledo. So they jumped on it and made plans to go visit and asked me to come along as well.

Teresa & Terry our wonderful friends from the states

It was a blast to go up to El Toledo again. See when we were doing our recon, our friends took us there and it was an incredible time. This is a place that everytime you go, you learn something new.

Gabriel is third generation coffee farmer on their families farm.

 

Gabriel really takes the time to educate the visitors about what it takes to grow organic coffee. The family are still learning daily little tips and tricks to grow a better healthier coffee bean. But not only that, to allow nature to really be part of the process.

 

Here Gabriel is talking about how they extract the bean with using less water and doing it in a more environmentaly friendly way. because they see their farm as an investment in the future, they are taking the time to care about the farm's health as well as their own health as well.

 

Gabriel's Wife is telling the visitors about the differnt roast types as well as educating us about the different flavors each roast will give. This was amazing to taste side by side the different roasts that the El Toledo Coffee Farm has. The lighter roast has more of a citrus flavor where the dark roast has a more earthy flavor. 

Here she is using a typical Costa Rican "Sock" to make coffee. They put coffee in the sock an pour hot water over the grounds and catch it in the pitcher.

 

Pedro The Rooster being photogenic.

I highly recomend coming to El Toledo. 

Check out their facebook at 

https://www.facebook.com/toledocoffeetour 

The Costa Rican Medical

Well we made it our first three days in our new home. We are loving Costa Rica.

It started Monday.

Tracye started to develop gas cramps. They were not bad at first but they were persistent.

Hmmmm... weird.

I gave her gas medicine and that did not work very much. I then gave her Alka Selzer.

That seemed to work for a bit and the bloaty feeling went away.

But then it came back again.

We tried different things though out the day. Some would help, some wouldn't.

The next day we were out shopping at Price Club, which is owned by Costco.

Let me say  this, it is just like shopping in the states. Pretty much the same layout, same stuff. Prices tend to be about the same on some stuff, some items more expensive and some stuff cheaper. Again, a typical Costco experience.

Like back home, there is a pharmacy in the store, except here it is called "Farmacia" (far-mah-see-ya).

So Tracye went and got some gas pills from there. She took a couple and it seemed to subside.

But it didn't last long.

Around 9:30 PM, Tracye started throwing up and getting bad stomach cramps.

About every 20 minutes to an hour she started throwing up and the stomach cramps were getting worse. She was in horrible pain.

We honestly thought that she caught some typical jungle bug because we are new to the country. You know, not used to the water or used to the food, that sort of thing. It is pretty common for "newbies" in country to go through this and this is what we really thought was going on.

Come morning time I loaded her up in the car and we went to the local doctor. Here in Atenas all the expats go to a doctor named "Dr Candy."

Yes, that is her real name and she is a great doctor too.

Tracye is in bad pain by now and Dr Candy is telling Tracye to calm down. She understands she is in pain, but she needs here to relax so that she can conduct a proper exam.

Dr Candy is poking her, asking if it hurts here or hurts there and if it does how bad on a scale from 1-10.

She is gently pushing on here and then she gets to the area where the appendix is located. She pushes down and Tracye kind of jerks. But then she releases quickly and Tracye really reacts.

Oh no.... I think to myself. This is not a good thing. See, I had my appendix out when I was in second grade and I got the huge ol' incision to show for it.

Dr Candy says " I think it is the appendix, but we can't be sure without an ultrasound and blood test. I need to send you to the hospital."

Dread.

This can not be happening, we are only in the country 6 days now.

She goes off and then comes back. She has written a referral and she is sending us off to CIMA, a hospital in Escazu. (Es-cah-zoo)

Now the positive.

CIMA is a brand new hospital and one of the most technically advanced hospitals in Costa Rica if not the world. Everyone speaks English and from what I understand, they are associated with the Houston Hospital system as well as  getting doctor interns from Baylor University.

We have heard a lot of positive things about CIMA from some of the other Americans living here and they all love it.

A Little About Costa Rican Medical

For those of you who do not know, Costa Rica is a neutral country like Switzerland. They got rid of their standing army back in the late 1930's early 1940's. They took that money and invested it into education and medical.

Today Costa Rica has a 96% literacy rate and some of the best medical in the world. They are on par and in a lot of cases even better than medical treatment in America.

It is also 2/3s cheaper.

What would have cost approximately $33,000.00 in the US, only cost $9500.00. We did not have the $$$ to do this and we thank God immensely for some friends down here who helped us get it paid. We need to pay them back ASAP for this, but we are very grateful that they were able

Now, you need to have cash or credit card or travelers insurance.

Here doctors and nurses salaries are capped. They make good money, but not on the same par as with doctors in America. The reason they do this is that they want people who are "called" to be doctors and nurses, not people just in it for the money.

If one goes into the medical profession, the state will pay for the schooling and I believe that the student pays it back by serving the country of Costa Rica. So you have to have a love for medicine and want to serve to be part of the medical field.

Remember when we were kids and one wanted to be a doctor or a nurse? Back then it was a prestigious job and one people looked up to. What happened to that ideal?

That is how the medical field is viewed down here. People are involved because they love it and it is their calling.

It makes a difference and it was noticed in how Tracye was treated and cared for.

Over all we were very impressed with the medical down here. We have heard from others as well they like it also.

Costa Rica is gaining in popularity in the "medical tourism" industry because their medical is so affordable and the technology is cutting edge.

We are going to be meeting with some insurance people in the near future so that if something like this happens, we are covered.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me.

Finally, with our move and all our expenses we were not expecting this operation. If you would like to help with some of the cost, it would be hugely appreciated. We want to pay back our friends as quickly as possible and working hard to do so.

To help, please use the following URL ... http://tinyurl.com/Donate-to-Prophezine

Thank for being there and helping us.