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Way back in June — the 13th, to be specific (I guess that should have been a first sign, eh?) — I packed up a whack of things on my desk to bring down to Costa Rica. TeamMG (Mary and Morgan) arranged for this to be shipped down here by FedEx, a company I had used many, many times to get things from Point A to Point B quickly.

Problem: When a company doesn’t have a complete representation in Point B, you’re not going to get your box as fast as you thought.

Today is 24 July. I only got the box today.

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When we started planning this crazy little excursion to Costa Rica oh-so-many months ago, there was always the need for me to leave in advance of my family, and then come back to get them. The logistics of making everything happen were basically impossible to handle any other way. That month away wasn’t easy, which you already know. Issues of living in Costa Rica aside, the reality of being that far from my family was far more harsh than I had ever imagined.

Needless to say, when I arrived last night, I was overjoyed to see that Mi Pequeña Niña (I think I’m going to use “MI Niñita” from now on, by the way — that seems to be the prefered version of “little girl”) recognised me. You have no idea how good that felt.

Today was packing day. And also my 36th birthday.

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We tried to survive without cars. Really. We took taxis everywhere, and suffered due to the language barrier and an unfamiliar taxi system. (We’ve been unable to get taxis when we need them — baffling, when you see them driving around — and gouged when meters have been turned on.) We could try the bus system, but so far we’ve been utterly unable to understand them. We don’t know what the routes or schedules are.

So we went to renting a car — an infinitely better improvement, as we can go where we need to go when we want to. And if we feel the urge to take a detour to explore a bit, it’s not a problem. But rental cars aren’t cheap — it costs a few hundred dollars a week.

The natural conclusion, and something we’d planned all along, is to buy a car. But it’s harder than it sounds.

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I’ve been in Costa Rica for over three weeks now. Three weeks away from Alex and Mi Pequeña Niña. Each day has been a challenge being so far away from them. The longest I’d ever been away before was six days. Six short days. That was hard — I missed them both a lot, and that was just after spending over two weeks with them every waking moment.

My well, you could say, has run dry. I have nothing left in my reserves. I want to go home now. I want to be with them both right now. If I could just get on a plane and go there this afternoon, I would.

But I have to wait another week.

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I’ve had a few people tell me about how great it is to be living in Costa Rica, and how much cheaper it is to live here. Some people know from a little bit of experience, but others are making the assumption — it’s not Calgary, it’s not Canada, so it must be cheaper.

Funny thing about foreign countries: if you live in the right places, if you know how to blend in, you’ll do well. But if you’re a gringo, you aren’t going to get the free ride that you want.

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Last week was a rough one. It’s almost hard to believe we’ve only been here a week now. (A week ago right now, I was in the lobby of our hotel, chatting with Jason and Javier, waiting for our realtors to come and whisk us away to our condos.) Since then we’ve gotten our places, bought the things we need to make life reasonable (note: not “comfortable” — we’re still working on that), moved into a temporary office, got connected (still need cell phones), started working on new work, and had a surprising number of meetings given that there’s only four of us.

So when we got to the end of the week, we had pretty much declared ourselves “beat”. Had we been a lot more set up than we are now, we’d probably have just gone home to our respective places, kicked back, and relaxed. But it’s hard to do that when you have to flag down a cab. Which you can’t here, for some reason.

We rented a car instead.

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Okay, so a while back I was having kittens (pun intended) about bringing Asia into Costa Rica. Mostly because I simply could not seem to get a straight answer from anyone about the proper process. It was driving me batty.

So, to anyone bringing in their (small) dog or cat (this might also work for rabbits, but don’t expect success with gerbils or hamsters or any form of rodent; and it’s a one-way trip for all birds, you can’t take them out again) into Costa Rica, allow me to present the (current) process. It’s really easy.
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