March 30, 2016 / Robert & Peggy Townsend
Blog #9 – Santiago Springs – Road Refinement all the Rage –
The excitement level in Santiago, La Nueva Hortencia and La Colonia is electric. These are the three communities that make up our general neighborhood in Costa Rica. The community joyfulness is well earned. After six long years and exhaustive efforts, the residents will be blessed with a much improved road system by May.
Bob and I cannot describe vividly enough for our readers the condition of many of these mountain roads where a surprisingly considerable number of folks reside. On certain community roads, particularly during the rainy season, four wheel drive is the order of the day.
In addition to Tico residences, there are small grocery stores, schools, and churches in these communities. In fact, our particular area is an active bus route that runs between La Colonia to San Isidro de General. There is also plenty of delivery and service truck activity. In other words, a well-traveled road. Bob and I are bewildered that it has taken so long for this improvement to be authorized and underway. The perseverance of the community council in processing through the red-tape is admirable.
It is a massive undertaking. Culverts must be dug out, enormous rocks excavated, and much grading accomplished to smooth the terrain and widen the road. Consider, that this terrain is mountainous. Over 800 dump truck loads of road gravel will be placed to create a ten-inch bed on the entire route. We also understand that once this is accomplished, within a short-time (by Costa Rica standards that may be 2 years down the road) asphalt will be poured giving the road pavement. We expect there will be dancing in the streets. If it were up to me, there would be a parade and a night of fireworks to celebrate.
Before I continue expounding about the road, I need to have a sidebar with you blog readers. In previous postings, you've read about Amanda Arias and family. Amanda is the daughter of Romain (Romay) and Leila our musician friends and the niece of Bel our casa and Santiago Springs/Monte Verde development caretaker. Amanda is a sweetheart who is one of the young Costa Ricans who help us keep our grand-parenting skills sharp. She is the same age as our grandson Charlie and in the same grade - 7th.
On one of her visits with us, Amanda confided that in addition to considering dentistry as a career she is also interested in journalism and teaching English. With that in mind, we decided to give Amanda a little taste of journalism and some language experience as a contributor to our blog. We asked Amanda to interview various members of the community for their thoughts about this long-awaited road improvement project. She was quite excited and did a terrific job on the assignment. First, she came in way ahead of deadline; second, she, along with help from one of the former Mennonite teachers Anita, translated her text from Spanish to English; third, Amanda hand printed beautifully over 3 full pages containing her interviews; and, fourth, she presented the paper as a keepsake for us and read it to us in English. Bob and I were so impressed. Her parents should be very proud, indeed.
Amanda titled her paper, “Our Little Survey.” The first portion, concerning the benefits, I generally typed verbatim as translated. I didn't want to impact the specialness of Amanda's survey recording process. Amanda posed the following questions:
1. “What benefits do you think it will bring to fix this road?”
2. “When do you think the road was in its worse condition?”
3. “How long do you think it will take to fix the road?”
First the replies from the residents concerning benefits:
Mr. Richard Kropf, Mennonite Pastor and Teacher at the Mennonite Christian School:
“It will make communication and business easier. It will bring benefits for easier transportation to other important places, for example: Hospitals.”
Luis Cascante, Member of the Municipality Council:
“It will bring direct and indirect benefits. Direct: The entire community will benefit as it helps tourism, being easier to promote mountain tourism. Indirect: More people will want to live in the community and the project of selling properties will prosper.”
Luis added: “The project was presented in the administration of Chinchilla Miranda 6 years ago and with the congress of Xinia Espinoza. The project was approved in the administration of Solis Rivera while Rosibel Ramos Madrigal was in congress.”
And his final comment for Amanda was: “The road always deteriorates in the rainy season.”
Other residents commented as follows:
Maria Elena, Church Pastor - “Land price may go up and vehicles less damaged.”
Andrea Camacho, Amanda's classmate -“The community will look better.”
Monica, local high school student -“It is a benefit because if there is an accident, the ambulance will arrive quicker.”
Xinia, Local School Lunch Administrator/Chef -“Because of tourism in the community, properties for sale will be worth more.”
Oscar Gamboa, resident - “It will help for tourism as it makes access to our community easier.”
Gioconda, Spanish Teacher at High School - “Probably more people want to come to Santiago. The trip will be shorter and the cars and buses will have less damage.”
Lauren Rodriguez, Amanda's friend and fellow student - “There will be less accidents.”
Romain Arias, Amanda's father - “Less damage to the vehicles and transportation will be safer.”
Daniel Granados, Amanda's classmate - “There will be more security because if the road is fixed, the police will come more often.”
Generally, most expect it to take approximately 3 months with some indicating 2 months. The contract is for completion by May, as we understand it. It is a long stretch of road.
The work commenced in La Colonia, the highest point and the worst portion, and will end where the road meets up with Pan American 2, a major highway in Costa Rica. Our rental casa in Santiago Springs is just before a steep incline to La Colonia. Actually much of the road to our casa from the community building in Santiago and beyond is an incline.
Concerning the question of “When do you think the road was in its worse condition?” Hands down, the answer is the “RAINY SEASON.” Truly, when the rains are at full throttle the mountain roads take a tremendous beating and suffer from erosion. Residents work at the height of the rainy season cobbling together repairs of deep ruts. It is a shared-community concern requiring back-breaking effort. It appears the infrastructure improvement design allows for appropriate flow and drainage which should greatly diminish road erosion.
The last respondent in Amanda's survey was Belsides Arias (our friend Bel you've met in previous entries). As mentioned, Bel is Amanda's uncle and is her father's brother. Bel is the “president” of the local municipality council and, along with several others including our landlord Nat, invested many hours petitioning for the approval and commencement of this infrastructure improvement. This is not an easy task in Costa Rica. We North Americans would not manage well dealing with Costa Rican governmental red-tape and the snail-like pace to bring a project application to reality. It has taken this community six long years to get this upgrade.
Bel responded to Amanda's inquiry as follows:
“This project will benefit the three communities: Santiago, La Nueva Hortencia and La Colonia. Also, it will make them beautiful. The vehicles will last longer on account of being less damaged. The properties will have more value. At present, the project is in its first stage, the goal is to finalize it with pavement.”
In closing, I'd like to record a few excerpts from a brochure that the community council published a few years ago. I used Google Translate and I've taken a bit of license with the wording so it is less awkward in English. I've also shorten to capture just the highlights. It gives you a sense of the vision and attitudes of the people living in our particular area.
We give thanks to whom we owe everything God who has given us such a beautiful place....
What will stand out in our communities and become an attraction is the focus on quality of life. Quality of life is paramount in the world. Where there is quality of life, the rest comes easily.....”
The basic elements to understand that quality of life are:
Spiritual, and this is primarily a relationship with God.
Social, for this we must be good neighbors, we must apply the Golden Rule in our dealings with each other. The social part includes the development of our families and the education of our children and youth. For this tireless work with the goal of achieving our own school in Santiago for this 2013. (Note: The community is enjoying their second year in the beautiful, new school beginning with seventh and up through high school.)
Quality of life includes social security. Security is a social value that everyone can and should contribute. For this we are working to implement organized community safety. Security is to take care of each other, take care of our resources, our assets, our forests, our water, our wildlife and all that God has given us.
Quality of social life, including hygiene, so we work on a project called Clean Santiago. We are working with the support of Minaet and Sinac and the Municipality. They give lectures to our students about the importance of recycling of waste in our communities. We are also organizing groups (schoolchildren) to collect these wastes for recycling.
Quality of life includes our economy. For this project we are working together for road improvement. Good water is a resource required for quality of life and we support the development of new aqueducts for our communities. We are also working on projects for watershed protection and reforestation of the top of our area.
Quality of Life includes employment. Therefore we support the development of residential and Santiago Springs for other people to come and enjoy our climate and quality of life. We believe that residentials like Monte Verde Quintas will attract a level of people who can bring many benefits to our communities in which employment is one.
To summarize, what we want to accomplish is quality of life and we believe that this is achieved by being pro-active communities with a fighting-spirit and pro-development spirit. We know that we will succeed only in conjunction with each of us being part of this team. We are open and invite ideas on how we can develop better quality of life in our communities. We invite you to be part of the group.
We sense a majority of those living in this area have embraced this doctrine. Enjoy our photos capturing the road refinement - well-deserved progress in our favorite Tico community!
March 25, 2016 / Robert & Peggy Townsend
Blog #8 – What is New – Before I continue with my main post, I want to note that today is March 25, Good Friday. During 2016 Lent, Holy Week, and Easter, we are missing reflection and worship at St. Paul's. In years' past, we've returned from Costa Rica in time to celebrate the Resurrection of Christ with our church family, even sometimes the final weeks leading up to Easter Sunday. This year that is not the case. Easter Blessings to all, Isaiah 53:1-6!
Now, what else is New? I've been lazy about writing for our winter blog this year. These blog postings represent a trip journal of sorts for us and I'll probably regret not being more diligent in my efforts this year. Also, when I write a posting, sometimes in my haste, I do a poor job proofing and I miss errors. Like, blog #7 when I meant to type “doily,” but typed “dollie.” I did return to the posting and correct. My apologies for my lack of attention to detail.
Perhaps because Bob and I are too comfortably settled in our rental casa and entirely content to stay close to home, we find ourselves taking root rather than travel about Costa Rica as in previous visits. Instead, this year we spend our Costa Rican days reading, drawing, putting jigsaw puzzles together, hiking, playing cards, dominos, and relaxing with friends. We even purchased fabric in San Isidro de General and secured the loan of a sewing machine so I could recover some chair cushions as a gift to the casa and landlord. That domestic opportunity was rewarding.
Truthfully, Bob and I are not complaining about this more low-key wintering in Costa Rica. It felt like we needed it this year. That is not to say we did not thoroughly enjoy January when Glenn and Betty Russell joined us. That was great fun. However, apart from that, Bob and I have been on our own this year. The year of 2016 will be remembered by us as the year dedicated to relaxing in our general Costa Rican neighborhood region savoring good times with the locals.
Don't misunderstand, there are Costa Rican adventures to be experienced; but we've been too laid back to seek that excitement. We've spent hardly any time on the Pacific Coast which is only 90 minutes from us. It is so very beautiful and lively on the coast with lots of activities, but we'll give those more attention next year. Before we return to Michigan, no doubt we will be making a day trip to the coast to some of our favorite beaches and eateries. It would seem odd not to do that day trip.
Weekly, sometimes more than once, we travel into Palmares, a town just north of us and closer than the bigger city San Isidro de General. Between Palmares and the San Isidro corridor (the canton of Perez Zeledon), we shop a favorite large grocery store, visit the local enclosed shopping mall, pick up produce from a favorite vendor and various meats from Tres Jotas, a superb local fresh meat processing facility . We also eat at favorite restaurants in the vicinity. Oftentimes on these outings, we'll decide to veer off the main drag to explore down a road less traveled. There are lots of those and once the pavement ends they are always an adventure. We also travel the mountain area surrounding our casa for our haircuts, to shop the small grocers, and visit friends scattered about the neighboring villages. Those destinations are close as the crow flies, but some of the excursions can require an hour or more travel time. Some are reached via circuitous and rocky routes in the mountains and that takes time.
Speaking of traveling, we just returned from San Vito, Costa Rica, where we wandered over to Panama. As our stay in Costa Rica this year exceeds 90 days, we had to leave Costa Rica prior to the end of the 90 days and reenter. Rules are rules and the easiest way for us to abide with this rule was (and is) to travel to San Vito, Costa Rica, onto Sabalito and the Rio Sereno border. We migrated to Panama, shopped a bit in Panama where Bob purchased two leather sombreros for a total of 14 US$, and then we reentered Costa Rica successfully accomplishing the necessary requirements. Next year, we hope to spend a few days traveling in Panama and exploring that country.
Lucky for us, in San Vito we have Costa Rican friends Juan and Patricia. Patricia took us through the entire process and it was such a true gesture of friendship. Later we returned to their casa where Juan and their daughter Gabby tended the family cheese processing business. We had lunch and then took our leave for the return drive to Santiago.
March 23, 2016 / Robert & Peggy Townsend
Blog #7 – Who is just a bit older?
This past weekend was an exceptionally memorable time for us. I (Peggy) turned 69 on Friday, March 18. When I entered my sixties, I never imagined that I would be celebrating birthdays in Costa Rica. If I cannot be with our girls and their families to blow out the candles, being with our adopted Costa Rican family is a great substitute for which we thank God. And, it so happens it is a shared birthday with Nat and Carmen Yoder's youngest daughter Lydia, who turned 8. You will recall we rent our casa from Nat and Carmen and we love this family. What a treat to celebrate with Lydia. Last year we celebrated together at the Mennonite Christian school where I nearly crippled myself playing soccer. Perhaps playing soccer with those 55-60 years younger is a bit too much rowdiness for someone in their late 60's!
This year was a different celebration. There is a charming rancho in the development of Santiago Springs and the evening of March 18 Lydia and I were treated to a birthday dinner at the rancho. It was lovely. We enjoyed barbecue chicken, baked beans, potato salad, rice, chocolate cake and apple crisp with delicious ice cream. Yum! All the guests are dear friends who will always have special places in our hearts. Now, I look forward to next year when I turn 70 when we hope to have our children and grandchildren with us for a spectacular celebration. I'm posting some photos from our birthday evening at the rancho.
We also have some fabulous news to blog about in the next few weeks. Our neighborhood in Santiago is finally, after years of working on making it happen, getting major road improvement. Most of our readers cannot possibly understand how terrific this is for this community. Nat Yoder's development of Santiago Springs is also enjoying road improvement.
In fact, any of our readers who think spending time in Costa Rica away from harsh winters is just what the doctor ordered, should research Santiago Springs and the development available. Nat and Bel have property available and terrific designs for casas in the Santiago Springs and Monte Verde developments. Bob and I are only too happy to provide the lowdown and the best contacts. You can write us at
[email protected]
or
[email protected]
You must be comfortable in a rural, somewhat rugged, tropical setting which requires a bit of road travel to reach particular shopping conveniences. Honestly, it is so wonderful in Santiago Springs and the people are kind and sweet. The climate is perfect and a day outing to the coast is easy to accomplish from our location. Seeing the improved infrastructure underway is exciting for us and we can only imagine what it means to those who are permanent residents. Stay tuned for our upcoming blogs detailing this exciting time for Santiago.
March 07, 2016 / Robert & Peggy Townsend
Blog #6 – Sit a Spell with us this Evening
We are outside enjoying the evening sitting in the bamboo rocking chairs on our tiled terrace. Rocking quietly, we listen to the sounds of our neighborhood in Santiago, Costa Rica.
Spanish chatter and laughter drifting from the homes near our rental fill the airwaves. We listen to the noise of the night as motorized vehicles travel the road conveying residents to their homes. Up and down the road typical tico trucks with colored stockade-like framing around the bed rattle along the rocks; motor cycles varoom; a few cars ease along carefully avoiding ruts; and the bus rumbles up to La Colonia as it nears the end of its route for the day. Added to this evening symphony the occasional toot or beep as drivers pass neighbors and signal a greeting.
A chorus of frogs, buzzing insects, barking dogs, clucking and cackling chickens, roosters crow all day into the night, and the cooing and chirping of nocturnal birds provide nature's sound effects. Actually, we count on the dogs and chickens to make their presence known 24/7. However, the frequency of that particular cacophony, for the accustomed resident, dissolves into subliminal background; like the regular consistent chiming of a grandfather clock, your hearing has placed on mute.
On some evenings musical instruments and singing voices drift our way. The tones come from the Assembly of God Church “Monte de Dios” which is down the road. Recently, they hosted a few neighboring churches and participated in a song fest. Even in Spanish, some of the tunes were recognizable as contemporary Christian frequently sung in many USA churches.
However, no music this evening, but there is a distant thundering, almost like a whisper. As we relax on our high perch overlooking a mountain valley, we wonder if the storm will come our way. We gaze down on twinkling lights, blinking red communication tower lights, moving sparkles from headlights and they are all part of a brilliant light show. Many evenings we see large swatches of blazing ground fires. Those are pre-harvesting cane field fires and, though it is a controversial process, it provides quite a viewing spectacle from a distance.
This terrace is our personal lookout mountain. On a clear night, we look upward and enjoy a glittering show from the heavens. We glimpse a satellite or two cruising over the earth. Tonight, however, is cloudy and along with that thunder in the distance we see blinks of lightning. Think the Sci-Fi movies when the ominous clouds over earth contain flashes of light. That's what we observe tonight. It is eerie, but beautiful.
As we look down we watch many different cloud formations gathering. It looks as though there are pockets of rain here and there. Far away there is a downpour with all the works, but it does not look like it will pass our way. We sigh and move indoors as the community settles down for the night, so do we.
February 29, 2016 / Robert & Peggy Townsend
Blog #5 – San Gerardo de Dota – Cloud Forest Wonder -
One spot in Costa Rica that Bob and I love to visit is San Gerardo de Dota located in the Los Quetzales National Park. This particular area is a mecca for hikers, birdwatchers, and lovers of flora and fauna. It is inhabited by approximately 200 bird species with the Quetzals its most famous residents. The most common description of the Quetzal is “resplendent.” Unfortunately, we've yet to spot one, but we've seen plenty of photos and “resplendent” is an apt description. You will note in the slideshow a photo of a painting detailing the Quetzal which easily confirms what a magnificent bird it is.
The area is packed with towering Oak trees and is also home to a variety of epiphytic plants, those plants that grow hosted by another plant without harming the host plant. The San Gerardo de Dota Cloud Forest area contains wild avocados, cypress, bamboos, wild berries and cherries, and a multitude of other plants. When you view our slideshow you will see photos of watercress, Tamarillo (tree tomato) which produces a ruby red sweet fruit, Bolivian fuchsia as well as other fuchsia, begonias, Mountain papaya, avocado tree, lace cap hydrangea , cannas, calla lily, bird of paradise, impatiens – several types, and one of my favorites, Lily of the Nile. Those are just a few; the variety of flora is mind-boggling. I've id'd some of them on the pictures and others I'm not positive enough to name.
One of Costa Rica's cleanest rivers, the Savegre, flows swiftly through this area making its way to the Pacific. It is loaded with adventure opportunities from rafting class II through IV rapids to fly and lure fishing to viewing all manner of wildlife and waterfalls.
Sprinkled throughout this area are a variety of lodges each producing a vibrant rural ambience. One in particular, the Dantica, a Dutch-Colombian family-run eco lodge, is of contemporary design with a Latin American Folk Art museum and gift shop with creative displays. The main lodge reception area and restaurant is all about the view. Large picture windows abound. Dantica is a must stop; however, our favorite is the Trogon Lodge. Trogon is quite different from Dantica in design, more of a rustic look, and the grounds are gorgeous with spectacular views. Trogon, like many of the lodges, offers a variety of activities, such as, organized hikes for birding and wildlife spotting, fishing, horseback riding, and canopy zip-lining. At all our stops, we find the staffs to be cordial and helpful.
We really appreciate San Gerardo de Dota , a Cloud Forest wonder, nestled in the Talamanca Mountain Range. On all our excursions to this area we've enjoyed average daytime temperatures in the 70's. We've experienced one overnight and can confirm it gets very chilly, 40-50's! It takes approximely two hours to reach the Cloud Forest travelling north from Santiago through San Isidro and up the Mountain of Death. Drivers and passengers are always grateful for surviving a drive on the Mountain of Death highway. It is great preparation for the drive on the actual road into San Gerardo de Dota. That road, which diverts off the Pan Am 2, is not for the faint hearted as there are some exciting sharp, steep curves on a narrow roadway that takes your breath away. Drivers, like navigating on the Mountain of Death on Pan Am 2, for the sake of your passengers and oncoming traffic, do not be distracted by the scenery. PLEASE! I've provided a map with the photo show.
Thus far this year we have made two trips. In January, we travelled to the area with Glenn and Betty Russell and also our good friends Don and Nancy from Nirvana. (You read about Nirvana in a previous post. ) Most recently, on February 25, we treated our Santiago Springs neighbor and friend Stan Kaufman to a San Gerardo de Dota day trip. We knew Stan, an expert in plant life with an affinity for tropical plants, would go bonkers over the San Gerardo de Dota area. Indeed, it looked to us that Stan was on Cloud Nine for the day! Enjoy the photos!