Costa Rica House

Good thing my computer tells me the date, because I often lose track of what day it is. Right now I'm sitting in my hotel room at the Costa Paraiso in Dominical looking out my window through the palm trees and multitudes of flower plants to the rocks and the ocean. I'll be going surfing in about 30 minutes or so (when I finish a little of this). I've been gone since Monday, and my cell phone doesn't get service here. Hey, by the way, did the inauguration go okay? I bet the stock market soared that day, eh?

Butterfly Update

What's going on at Butterfly? Vince's house is going up steadily. It's got the metal trusses, the wrap-around porch is poured, and the rafters in the front should be up soon. Gary's house is morphing into a strong and well-built house. They should be putting up the rafters next week, also. I don't know why they're not up already. It looks like it's been ready for them. It's been dry here, so I've had to water my zacate (sod) a lot. I'm rethinking the sod situation. It's good for a fast protection against erosion, but it may take too much maintenance at Butterfly during the dry season. I visited a friend in Atenas who had beautiful landscaping using plants and those crunchy red rocks. I get ideas wherever I go. It's good to get out of Dodge and see how the rest of the country operates.

What else? I went over to Kurt's house, and the rafters were up, and it looks like Jairo is turning that house into a well-built house, too, after taking over from Victor a while ago. It will be nice to see some more houses finished, but right now I am savoring being the only one out at Butterfly. Sometimes Gary stays in Jose's trailer, but, so far, he's only spent one night while I've been at Butterfly, and that was back in November. He spends a lot of days there, but seems to spend the night when I'm gone.

Ann, Gary, Dee and Bob

One step in the right direction is that Paul S. put up a chain at the top of the access road. There's no lock right now, but the chain is supposed to dissuade trucks and un-Butterfly vehicles from using the road. The main purpose of that chain is to keep the trucks from tearing up the cement road, which Paul says has been occurring. He told me that if they pay $50 a year for maintenance, they can use it. The chain will also give us the beginning of security at Butterfly. Omar, one of the workers who live in the bodega, has put up a cable at both Butterfly access roads, too. It's a beginning. Gary is supposed to play troll at the chained entrance. He's here a lot during the day. While I was watching, a small truck was driving down the Calle Publica, and Gary wouldn't let him remove the chain so he could drive down our access road to the main pista. The driver spun his tires and drove off toward Rio Jesus on the Calle Publica. And Gary's not even from New York! But afterward, I talked to Paul S. and he said that when someone first encounters the chain, the plan is to inform them of the policy, and let them of the new policy.

Jose hasn't officially turned over the place to the association, and I ran into him at the grocery store. And we're supposed to meet out at Butterfly and drive around and discuss the takeover and who's responsibility is whose regarding the road conditions, etc. The roads aren't great, but I am able to drive around on almost all of them in my two-wheel Toyota Yaris. I'm no road expert, and I asked Jose what the difference is between required maintenance and fixing problems that should have been fixed by the 'developer.' This is one of the things we will discuss, I hope. Jairo is supposed to drive around with us, too. I have some questions regarding drainage, especially since water is being directed onto the future driveways of two of my other lots. I mentioned this to Jose, and he said if there was a problem, then he would take care of it.

I don't think there's much market for real estate now. In my beach travels, tourism is way down. I've got the list of lots for sale, and am handing the lists to different people. I asked Jose if he also would market re-sales of our lots without giving bias to the few lots he has left, and he said he would, so I hope to get him to put them on his Solo Bueno website. We'll see. Gary told me that Greg (some of you may have met him when he worked for Jose) is also creating a nice website to market the lots. I mentioned to Jose that, since his sign on the bottom of the road was destroyed by the wind, that he move the sign on Vince's property to the road to at least get people up to view the properties. He agreed. But then I was told that the sign at the bottom of the hill had already blown down twice, so maybe several smaller signs along the road would be a better idea. There's no exclusivity for real estate agents here, but I suggest that everyone keep the exact same 5% commission fee so that a possible marketer won't be upstaged by someone else, thereby losing incentive to sell other lots.

Franklin and my Future Dining Room Table

Off Butterfly Dance

So, back to the real world. Dominical is great. It's still very natural even though real estate has cut into some of the cliffs overlooking the ocean. It's kind of incongruous when you're out surfing in the pale green water watching formations of a hundred pelicans (I counted them) fly between you and the steep green jungle hills. You follow the pelicans along the hills, then (way down the beach thankfully) your eyes get to feast on a 10,000 ft. palace a few hundred feet up into the jungle. I was talking to Bill (fellow surfer out in the water) who has a smaller house in that same development, and he called it a shrine to the owner. That's also how I know it's 10,000 sq. ft. Bill also told me that last week there were a hundred manta rays jumping out of the ocean while they were surfing. This is the place where two porpoises surfed with me last year, crossing under my board while I was on a wave. Like I said, there's a lot of nature here. There are formations after formations of pelicans riding the air currents formed by the lifting waves. Today, I was catching a wave while a formation of about 30 pelicans flew low right over me. It was a big swell, and they didn't want to forfeit the thermal just because of a pinche surfer.

Sunset at Costa Paraiso Hotel in Dominical

Building Slow Down

And regarding construction activity here, Bill makes his living building houses and eco-buildings (not sure what that is), and he told me his work has completely stopped. He said that he was supposed to start on two new projects, but that the owners (from the states), just called and cancelled for now. Later, I drove up to one of the condo developments that a real estate agent took me to a year ago, and it looked like a ghost town. I could be wrong, but it looked like many of the units were finished, and were now neglected, with leaves and branches on the ceramic roofs, and un-maintained landscaping. These are cool looking condos; small and individual and kind of built into the landscape overlooking the ocean. I do remember that they were very expensive - like $300K or more or something like that. I'll try to find a web link. It was IKEA group or something similar.

Another surfer I met out in the water was a 56-year-old guy named Bob. He has a house somewhere around here where he lives several months out the year. He's from New Jersey. An interesting story about him is that he covered the cost of building his $101K house by selling old, collectible surfboards. 15 years ago he started buying old longboards at garage sales for a few hundred bucks or less each. I asked him what the most he sold one for, and he told me $30K. A little better than the stock market?

The waves have been overhead but somewhat closed out, so the rides aren't long at all. Most of the time, it's just a drop in, move along the face for about seven seconds, then kick out if (you get a chance). But if you waste time dropping down to the bottom of the wave before you turn, you're dead. You need to turn immediately at the top to even have a fighting chance. And as far as the kick out, well, most of the time I just have time to get back to the top, where I then get smashed by the lip (and sometimes go over the falls - yeehaw). But if you were to wait for the one wave that peels off, you'd never catch a wave. Every once in a while a wave will peel off, and I get a longer ride. But it's still fun. (And buen ejercicio.) I'll be going out in a few minutes to wake up and get my morning pummeling. My 8 ft board stays in my car, and I drive the 3 minutes to Dominical centro to surf.

Jennifer talking to French Trekker Cyril

Corcovado National Park

Two guys from France stayed here at the Costa Paraiso Hotel last night. We ended up drinking beer and chatting with Jennifer until about 10 p.m. Those guys left this morning at 5:30 to go to Corcovado National Park to do a three-day trek in probably the most undisturbed area in Costa Rica. Today, Regis and Cyril are going to hike 10 hours, after which they will camp in a designated campground. They will be going with a guide, and will be carrying 18-lb backpacks (not too heavy). Tomorrow they will hike 8 hours. I don't know about the following day. Their timing has to be good, because today they have to cross a certain tidal river near the ocean before the river rises. Then they will sit on the other side as the tide rises into the river and watch crocodiles swim upriver, and sharks swim downriver, at the same time on opposite sides of the river. They told me this was a guaranteed viewing. And the guide told them that they would likely see wildlife every 15 to 20 minutes during their hiking. They said that all the wildlife in Costa Rica is represented in Corcovado; jaguars, panthers, sloths, you name it (and even if you can't name it). The only apprehension they had is that Cyril was afraid of having to walk 32 kilometers in a single day, and Regis was afraid of snakes. C'est la vie. They're supposed to email me with the story when they get back to France.

You can click on the pics to enlarge