We're BAY-UCK!

Hola! Yup, we're bay-uck in lush, green Costa Rica. What's bay-uck? It's a lot like DAYUM which I had to Google recently to find out is southern for DAMN. This is a quick trip of just 2 weeks to do some paperwork with our wonderful lawyer, Yalta, open a bank account, and finalize the interior layout of the casa. Sounds simple, eh? HA! (or JA! since we're in CR)

But first, let's re-cap how we made the trip. When we researched our flights, we found that we could fly DIRECT from Toronto to Liberia for significantly less than we could fly from the US (and those would not be direct). Since Heather would be joining us, we decided to drive to her place and all fly from Toronto. Plus, we wouldn't have to coordinate our flights' arrivals by flying together.

We picked up Heather, visited with her Mom for a short while, and met Joe and Diana in Port Perry for dinner on our way to the airport. We stayed overnight at a 'park & stay hotel' and flew to CR the next morning. We arrived over 30 minutes early, found all our luggage, picked up our car, and hit Mimi's in Cañas for lunch.

OK, so now we're at Heather's casa. That evening things got 'interesting', to say the least! We learned from Kevin (our friend and contractor) that the land that surrounds our casa was recently surveyed, and that our property lines may not be what we thought we bought. (And I don't mean that we got MORE than we thought LOL!) We also learned that an Argentinian was purchasing the surrounding parcel (hence the survey).

Here in CR, parcels of land are usually separated by barbed wire fences with natural fence posts made of madera negra (a very hard wood tree). It makes a pretty border because the posts usually re-sprout and become small trees again.

The fence around our property makes logical sense - it surrounds the small 'plateau' above the surrounding land which drops off steeply down to a creek called Rio San Luis. The sloping land around us seems like a good area for horses and cows but not for a building, at least that's what we thought. The 'Argie' has carved out a flat area from the hill upon which he will presumably build. The good news is he won't interfere with our view (unless he builds a 3 story casa!). Here's a temporary fence the Argie made to block his "driveway" down to the area he flattened. You can see our casa way to the left.

But the other news is that, depending on which 'plano' one refers to, either we own the entire plateau we thought we bought, or our septic system is partially off our land, or our casa is partially off our land. A plano is a surveyor drawing that is officially filed with the Registro and represents a plot of real estate. Here's a plano showing our lot in the center with multiple borders drawn.

We immediately contacted Yalta who immediately contacted a surveyor. They both came over one morning to check things out. Long story short, Yalta is working on filing a new plano with the Registro and we're back to the reno after a few days of unexpected heartburn. It looks like the worst case is we could eventually have to move our septic system to the other side of the casa. As long we we have that option if it becomes necessary, we're good to continue.

But wait, there's more...

Heather decided that, since the surveyor was here and had more time, she might as well have her property line verified. He started the physical survey that day (Friday) and then he and Yalta headed back to Tilaran. Late that afternoon, Heather got a call from Yalta that she needed to go to her office immediately (!). Yalta had searched the Registro for Heather's plano and found that the plano to carve her lot out of the large surrounding finca (farm) had not been finalized. Depending on one's perspective, Heather is either the finca de madre, meaning she owns the entire finca, or hmmmmm.....

Apparently this kind of stuff happens all the time here in CR, land of 'Pura Vida!' (which I'm learning means 'Anything Goes!'). Regardless, it's all good and Yalta has job security! So...

Hernan and Henry are finishing up the cemento board to fully enclose the casa under the new techo and they are applying a skim coat of 'reparo' (stucco?) and then priming it white. After that they have a bit more demolition to finish, including removing the old tile floor. It's odd that the floor has different levels (even though it's a one-story casa). They will have to apply concreto here and there to level it off. Here's the front - mostly done except repair to the porch ceiling that the roofers stepped through.

Here's the back, not done. 

We met with Kevin to mark (with spray paint), room by room, the location of every wall, door, and window so that, as our budget allows, he can have the guys start the rough re-construction. That will probably go on all this year into 2020. It will be very exciting to come back and see it!

Here's some of the rough interior awaiting more demolition. You can see cement board over the doors and windows in the old framing.

While we marked each room we were sensitive to three fledglings that obviously had JUST left the nest that is in the casa. One chick looked absolutely frozen sitting high on top of the wall not too far from the nest. Another chick was hopping around on the floor so Heather gently herded it around so we could work room by room without frightening it. The momma bird continued to bring food to the nest, so we assume the 3rd chick hadn't taken the leap. We are pretty sure they are clay-colored robins, the national bird of CR. You would think that as self-proclaimed birders we would be sure of this identification, but it's surprisingly difficult for me to id a bird so much closer than usual and inside the house. Here's the momma coming with food.

Stay tuned for 'Always Something!'... PURA VIDA!

More Techo Nuevo Construction

It took about 2 weeks to build the techo nuevo and many days there were 5 guys working on it. It is being "stick-built", but it is not wood - every piece of metal has to be welded in place. In fact, the metal is all galvanized. The galvanizing must be sanded off where the weld will be or it won't take. Then, after the weld, it must be painted with a protective coating so it won't rust where the galvanizing was removed. Quite a process!

Normally, the roof panels would have to be painted, but there was a sale on pre-painted panels the week we purchased them. Yay! The choice was red or green (or was it blue?). Anyway, we chose red which seems to be the most popular there.

In the photo below, see how the wall is running lower in height from right to left? The original (relatively flat) roof apparently was pitched that way for water drainage.

We weren't there when the roof was finished. These are the last photos we were there to take.

On March 30th, Kevin let us know that the techo nuevo was termino!

Back to Work!

I promised that in this post I'd get back to the renovation. Hernan and Henry finished taking down the old roof as well as some of the walls that were cement-board (we did well on regular drywall, but cement-board was H.A.R.D!). 

While they were doing that work, Kevin came up with a materials list for the new techo (roof). We ended up purchasing it from Colono - the biggest ferreteria (hardware store) in Tilaran - you can see some of it in the photo above. 

The techo nuevo was to be built by Omar and his crew so we needed to meet with them to finalize the design. Omar speaks no English and he speaks Spanish very fast so there's no way we can communicate with him without help. Hernan speaks some English and, for us, speaks Spanish very clearly and slowly - plus  he uses a lot of hand signals! Kevin knows enough Spanish, especially construction words, to communicate with Hernan. So we would ask Kevin a question - he would in turn communicate it to Hernan, and Hernan would ask Omar. The answer would come back via the same route. 

Here is Omar on the roof marking locations and heights per Hernan's instructions. 

And here's Omar on the roof waiting for information while Heather types something into Google translate. Kevin is the tall guy, Hernan is in the green shirt, and the other two hombres are Omar's crew. 

Here's the first day of work on the techo nuevo. Look at all the basura (trash) that needed to be hauled away! 

We could even see the work progressing from Heather's casa! 

Every day the crew would arrive about 7am. We'd walk up later in the morning and again in the afternoon to check it out and take photos.

The next post will show the roof panels going on - this is getting very exciting! 

All Work and No Playa?

We came here to begin working on the casa renovation, but what would a trip to Costa Rica be without going to the playa? And riding horses? And walking hanging bridges? Right - it would be missed opportunities AND estupido!

We'll start with hanging bridges. Our stay here at Heather's casa overlapped with Joe's stay and then we had 2 days with both Joe and Heather. Joe hadn't done any sight-seeing while he was here alone working on his book, so we decided to go to Mistico Arenal Hanging Bridges Park. On the map below, you can see Tronadora circled. Just to the right of it is an arrow pointing to our casa on Chimurria road. To get to Mistico Park (east of Lake Arenal), we have to drive all the way around the lake. The road is hilly and curvy with several one lane bridges and construction zones. You can't go much more than 25 mph so it's about a 2 hour drive to go 35 miles to Mistico.

On the map I circled both Tronadora and Nuevo Arenal - both are "new" towns because the original ones lie on the bottom of the lake. ICE ("EE-say"), the electric company, expanded the size of the lake to make hydroelectricity - the dam is at the end of the lake near Mistico.

The views of Arenal Volcano are simply magnificent if it isn't hidden by the clouds!

Speaking of playa... A couple of friends I had worked with for many years contacted me that they were coming to CR and had rented a place at the beach - Playa Ocotal. Fawn and Don had extra space and invited us over - WOOHOO! On the way we stopped at Walmart (yes, there's actually a Walmart in Liberia) to pick up some food, beverages, and shoes. Since we had come to CR to work on the casa, I didn't pack flipflops or even any regular sneakers.

Sneakers were needed because we made reservations to go horseback riding at Diamante Eco Park. This was to be Sue's second time on a horse, the first being last year near Arenal volcano.

So there we are on our caballos at the Pacific Ocean where the temperature is 100F, and that's not an exaggeration! Good thing Fawn and Don's villa at Playa Ocotal had a pool - a private pool, no less! It was also right on the beach, but we didn't swim there because the waves looked too powerful.

We walked on the beach and searched the tide pools for interesting shells and 'stuff''. We watched birds, and Heather made friends with a White-throated Magpie Jay as you can see in this video.

But the highlight bird-wise was right at the villa - a Turquoise-browed Motmot!!! (I borrowed this photo from Cornell University)

Another big outing we did was a day trip to the Monteverde cloud forest. Tronadora is about 15 miles away from Monteverde as the motmot flies, but it's nearly a 2 hour drive on pretty rough dirt roads. On the way we stopped to view the biggest, most complete rainbow I have ever seen!

At Selvatura Park, we booked a guided hanging bridge walk and visited the hummingbird garden. The hummingbirds would actually sit on your finger!

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The hanging bridge walk with Juan Carlos was amazing! We got very distant views of Three-wattled Bellbirds and a very brief glimpse of a Resplendant Quetzal in flight. Next March we will have to go back to try to get better looks (and photos!).  

Next post will have photos of progress on the casa - stay tuned! 

Raising the Roof

Last Friday, Hernan arrived to begin dismantling the roof. He started by tearing down the ceiling and the metal rafters that the dry wall is screwed into. [bad grammar noted]

So what do you think of the color scheme? Should we stick with it?

We went shopping in Tilaran with Kevin to order materials for the new roof. First stop was the music store. Sue needed a guitar, and Heather and I decided we needed ukeleles. It's hard to tell in the photo, but Heather's uke is a green smiley face and mine is pink Hello Kitty. 

After the music store, we got serious and visited two fereterria's (hardware stores) so Kevin could get competitive prices on the materials. Colono offered the best deal (including pre-painted roof panels!) so we placed the order, paid, and it was all delivered the next day. 

Hernan and Henry are unscrewing what they can unscrew, grinding off what they can't, and saving everything that can possibly be re-purposed.

Here's a picture of Hernan and Henry, plus a couple more of the roof. 

More demolating

We learned that demolition is better to do in the morning. Even though temperatures are nice here at about 2000 feet elevation, it feels very hot and humid to work in the casa in the afternoon. Plus, we can only work 2-3 hours at a time - we're not spring chickens anymore! 

I can't be sure how many more days we spent demolating, but our last day involved cement board (vs. regular drywall). HOLY CRAP!  Even sister sledge didn't want to bang through that stuff! We have a reprieve on that hard work because Hernan and Henry arrived to start taking down the roof. Mucho gracias Hernan y Henry!

The original original casa was a front-to-back tico house constructed of cinder blocks. Over the years it had multiple additions. One is an ell off to the left that was used for storage and has no access from inside the casa. Another addition is a front-to-back series of separate motel rooms on the right side that also had no access from inside the casa. We were told that a guy who ran a local motel added them for his workers to live in. Then there is an odd-shaped addition to the back. 

Each roof (the main casa and each addition) was its own construction with no concern for how to aesthetically tie them in. Tico houses are strictly function over form, which I'm ok with - in fact, it's one of the things I love here. 

Here's a little "grow room" open to the outside - it's where the back addition connects to the main casa -
I use the word 'connects' loosely! 

We had a bit of a debate as to whether to keep the roof as is or tear it down and re-build. Kevin, our contractor, broke the tie - he felt that it should be re-built. Based on the termites and cockroaches that fell out, I'm now happy with that decision! 

More on tico casas - concrete sinks and electric hot water showers - 

More later...

Demo Day 1

The casa sat since last June waiting for us to come back to Tronadora and get to work. In the meantime, we designed and re-designed and re-re-designed and re-re-re-designed a new floorplan. In fact, even as we are 'demolating', we're still refining the floorplan.

We continued working for probably half a day. Too hot for us gringas to work more than that in a day! 

We came across evidence of termites, although we didn't see any of the actual bugs. There were giant cockroaches in the ceiling though! 

Our results from Demo Day 1...

Closing was a Close Call

With our offer accepted, Sue and I made plans to return to Tronadora in June to close on the purchase. Having observed Heather's Spanish communication skills (including hand signals and Google translate), we decided it would be very beneficial to have her along to help as our 'translator' (jajaja!). Thankfully, she was willing and available.

At some point before June, Sue and I had to initiate wire transfers of money to Yalta (our lawyer). We did that and Yalta kept checking her bank account but no money was arriving. Days... weeks... no money in Yalta's account. We arrived in CR and still no money. Yalta went to her banco and asked the manager about it. Apparently there's a lot of delay and checking to look for money laundering. Sue's money arrived, but mine got returned to the source account. argghhhhh!

I re-initiated the transfer and provided a bunch of documentation to prove the source of the money. Yalta took that to the banco manager and we waited. In the meantime, we re-scheduled our flights home one week later. Now it was a race against time - the closing was scheduled for Monday and we were leaving the next day. Every day Yalta checked her account and finally the money was there! 

David had told Yalta that he would pay off the mortgage once he got our money, but she was firm that SHE would pay the mortgage and give him the balance. Monday the three of us met Yalta at her office and then walked to Coocique ('koo-SEE-kay', the mortgage company). Yalta had a conversation with a clerk and learned that David was 13 months in arrears on his payments! Worse than that, Coocique had recently sent the house to the foreclosure court!!

Things were getting tense - remember, we were leaving the next day! We went back to Yalta's office to regroup. She had requested that Coocique's lawyer call her so she could ask him to remove the house from foreclosure. While we waited for the call, David arrived and Yalta filled him in. He said that he was supposed to have made a payment by a date aligned with our original closing date, but the wire transfer delay caused him to miss it. He never told us he had a deadline - when Yalta had asked for a week extension, she said he had agreed as if it was no problemo. Apparently it was a mucho grande problemo!

Sue let David know in no uncertain terms that she was upset that he had not told us he was behind on his mortgage and that he had not told Yalta sbout the foreclosure deadline. From that point for the rest of the day, David would not do business with Sue. Tico men do not like to be spoken to that way by women I guess.

The whole thing went on for most of the day, but long story short, Yalta convinced Coocique to take the house out of foreclosure, David came back to her office, and we signed the papers!

Preface (March 2018)

Sue and I first visited Costa Rica in 2008 on a grand tour with 4 friends (J, K, M, and S - you know who you are!). We fell in love with the birds, the monkeys, the volcanoes, the plants and trees, and the people. PURA VIDA! 

Never in our wildest dreams would we have thought back then that we would own a house there! We have never been particularly daring internationally - I can't think of any international trips we've taken without the security that comes with traveling with friends. My next trip to CR was with Heather and Christy of 'Whooping Crane fame' in 2013, and again in 2015 with those dos amigas plus Heather's daughter Lindsay. During both trips, Heather expressed a desire to buy a small house in CR for her retirement. With goats. And banana trees. 

In 2017 or 2016 or I don't know when, Heather fulfilled her dream and bought an adorable 'tico house' in Tronadora, a small town on the southern shores of Lake Arenal. Her house is up in the hills at about 2000 feet elevation, so it is a comfortable, breezy climate. 

Heather's wee casa

Sue and I visited Heather at her wee casa in March of 2018. One day Heather remarked, "gee, the casa next door is going up for sale - you guys should look at it - it needs a lot of work so it'll probably be a good price". I shook my head 'no' at the same time Sue was saying, "ooohhh it's on my bucket list to buy a house and fix it up!". 

So we looked at it. And made an offer. And David accepted our offer. 

450 metres SW of the entrance to Barrio el Roble de Tronadora (that's our address!)

Before leaving CR on that trip, we found a wonderful lawyer who speaks English, Yalta Aragon, in the nearby small city of Tilaran. David agreed to a closing in June, so Yalta got busy drawing up the papers so everything would be ready when we returned for 'the big event'. 

Yalta Aragon, our Costa Rican lawyer

March 2018 - no goats yet!