The Concrete Floor and Other Stuff

I have been accused of lolly-gagging around instead of keeping this blog updated on our progress with the casa. Guilty as charged! There are SOOOO many distractions here to lolly-gaggle with! Feeding the iguanas, watching birds, monkeys, and sloths.

Yes, I said sloths! There is a mama sloth with a baby wandering around in the trees behind the house. The other day they were RIGHT BEHIND the house and we had great views! (I am trying to use fewer exclamation points, but this is SO exciting! LOL!) Here's a photo Heather took -

We haven't spotted them again (yet), but the nearby monkeys are also entertaining. Photos of monkeys will appear in another post - they're still on my camera and I'm a lolly-gagger.

Ok, back to our casa. Yesterday Henry and Sergio finished most of the floor. Oh wait! Henry and Sergio invited us to go fishing on Sunday! We drove quite a while along the southern lake shore (Lake Arenal) to get to where Sergio wanted to fish - he is a spear fisherman. The road crosses a few rivers, only 1 of which has an actual bridge. The others you either drive across if they are shallow enough, or turn around if they are not. Two of the rivers were shallow enough to drive through, but when we got to the river at Caño Negro, we would have needed a ferry boat. Here are Sergio, Henry, and me checking the river depth at Caño Negro -

By then it was too windy to fish according to Sergio, so we turned around and eventually found a place along the side of the road where we could walk to the lake. We took our chairs, beer, crackers & frijoles, and fishing gear.

The wind was howling but Sergio went diving anyway - no fish. I had a handline rigged up and had brought along a can of sardines in tomato sauce for bait. I found some pretty tough leaves and made sardine empanadas out of them, then pushed the hook through to hold them together. For the most part they fell apart when I swung my line out, but it was still fun. Henry and Sergio think I am mucho loco! That's me fishing in Lake Arenal with Arenal volcano barely showing itself behind to the right.

On the way back to Tronadora we stopped at Bar Cavi for beer and bocas (appetizers). Bar Cavi is totally authentic - it is truly out in the middle of nowhere with cows and horses all around, and no one speaks English. Henry ordered us chifrijo (a bowl of rice, beans, pico de gallo, and chicharones), carne de cerdo ahumada (smoked pork), and papas fritas (french fries). The beer was served in a glass with a shot of lemon juice and a salted rim. The smoked pork was out of this world good! Henry told us about a meat store in Tilaran where we can buy it, so that's what we got for dinner last night. YUMMM!

OK OK back to the casa! Most of the floor is done. The first front-to-back section they did somewhat roughly, so they will need to go back to smooth out the rough spots over the leveling ridges. They do this by sprinkling cement powder and spraying it with a water bottle. It makes a watery paste that fills in and covers rough spots very smoothly. Here's Sergio starting the first section - you can see the 'leveling rows' that he is using as a guide -

The second front-to-back section they did all the smoothing as they poured. They won't have to go back over this part, but it took twice as long to complete (mas o menos, more or less).

To get this done (which is most of the casa) we had rented a 'concrete blender' for 3 days. Here's the blender and two guys who operated it - you can also see the bags of  'cemento' as well as the sand and agregate they mixed it with.

Henry and Sergio will mix concrete manually for the small area that is left. But first there are a couple more sections of concrete block wall that they are going to remove. Here's a picture of the crew on break -

This morning (Tuesday) Henry went with us to Colono (the big hardware store in Tilaran) to order materials for putting up walls. This afternoon we will put tape on the floor to mark each wall, door, etc. and use spray paint to mark each window. That means I need to get back to work!

PURA VIDA!

Welcome to Tronadorable - 2020!

Sue, Heather, and I arrived in Tronadora on Miércoles (Wednesday) 2/19. Until today (Saturday), it's been a bit of a blur for me because I arrived with a cold ('gripe' en espanol) and immediately went to bed for 36 (48?) hours. During that time, Sue worked out an arrangement with Henry and Sergio (a new 'guy' for us) to have them remove the old, uneven tile floor and install a new, level concrete floor. You might remember that Hernan was our other 'guy' but he is currently busy working for another ex-pat on our street. Enter Sergio and, like Henry and Hernan, he seems to be able to do just about anything!

The tiled floor is something like 1700 square feet and the tile is cemented down like it was never intended to be removed. Henry and Sergio began on Jueves (Thursday) using heavy iron 'digging bars' to chip away at the old tile. Friday was more of the same but when Heather and I went to check out their progress this morning, they had switched to hammers and chisels. (Sue didn't go because, by this morning, she was down with 'the gripe'). 

The poor guys looked discouraged - they were literally CHIPPING the tile away, small piece by small piece. It was obvious that there had to be a better way. Heather and I headed to Tilaran, to Colono (the big hardware store), to look for a 'rotary impact hammer' that the guys had described to us (in Spanish). This looks like a large drill, except it pounds tile away quickly with a chisel.

Here's a short video demonstrating the value of the new tool!

And a few photos -

I really suck at taking selfies! Anyway, I DID do a LITTLE work -

With the power tool the guys expect to finish taking up the tile on Lunes (Monday)! That morning Sergio will go with us to Colono to order the concreto materials. I expect they'll start pouring on Martes (Tuesday), but we'll see...

Pura vida!

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.