Sounds of Progress

Hello darkness my old friend

I've come to talk with you again

But the peacocks screaming down the street

And the nightjars calling constantly

Break the silence with their freaking cacophony

I need sleep

I'm begging for the sounds of silence…

Just kidding. Well, not kidding about the peacocks and the nightjars, but they make beautiful sounds. The barking dogs across the street are not as soothing, but they don't bark every night. Sound is what I've been thinking about - can you tell?

Daytime and nighttime sounds are very different. Daytime starts about 5am with the howler monkeys in the trees below and the rooster down the street. At that point you can either give in to their insistent calls and get up, or you can roll over for more sleep (like I usually do).  howlers

The birds start singing then too. Clay-colored robins sing all day - their song is similar to the American robin but a bit more varied and definitely more melodic. They might be thirsty - they keep singing about iced tea because I keep hearing te frio (tay FREE-oh) in their songs. clay-colored robin

About 7am either Lenny or Sergio stops by for the key to Twicasa (the name of our house) so they can open it up and start the day's work. Lenny comes by bicycle, so we don't hear him coming. Sergio comes by car so we know when he's stopping here. Henry shows up a little bit later and he's very recognizable skidding along the gravel road in his small pick-up truck. Henry is loco and drives mucho rapido! LOL

We hear construction sounds from our casa occasionally, but it's 100 meters up the road so we only hear if they use the metal grinder. On our twice or thrice daily visits to view the work, if we hear the sparky sounds of the welder, we stay outside until it stops. A constant sound (except during coffee breaks) is the circular ssshhh ssshhhh sssshhh of Lenny applying the plaster skim coat (repello) to the walls (paredes) - he's going to have a right bicep the size of Arenal volcano!

Arenal volcano at the southeastern end of Lake Arenal

Back on Heather's patio, we often hear toucans calling in the distance - their sound is just like running your thumb down a comb, over and over and over and over. The gray hawk in the valley must need a mate - his simple 'here here here' happens many times each day. In March the orapendulas burble a lot but right now we are hearing their bubbly song only occasionally - the flowering tree they were eating nearby has no more flowers so I guess they've moved on.  oropendola

Flycatchers, vireos, doves, more robins, anis (AH-nees not AY-nis!), wrens, chacalacas, grackles, euphonias, seedeaters, grassquits, etc. provide more grist for our ear-mills all day.  chacalaca

So do the various trucks lumbering up and down Chimurria Road making deliveries to the different construction sites. Between Heather's casa and our casa, down in the valley, Andres and Paula are having a casa built mostly out of stone. Every few days a giant dump truck has to make the precarious trip down their curved dirt driveway to dump a load of rocks. Going down is pretty easy, but we've observed some difficult situations when they try to drive back up. The good thing is that the stone house will not obstruct our view of Heather's casa and the 3 volcanoes across the lake - its roof is below the level of our floor.

Andres and Paula's rock house under construction next door

 Andres and Paula are from Chile, but they have been living over at the beach (Playa Coco) for about 15 years. They are moving here to escape the heat of the beach. We are in the highlands at about 2000 feet altitude. If it's 85 degrees here, it's 100 at the beach. Plus our area stays green as it squeezes the last bit of rain out of the clouds moving from the Caribbean (east) to the Pacific (west) coast. Once you drive about 5 miles west of here, past Tilaran, you are down in a hot, dry valley all the way to the Pacific beaches. And if you go about 5 miles east of here (which is across the lake), you get (on average) 85 more days of rain each year than we get. We believe we are in the optimal area for temperature and rainfall!  

Rainbow over the hot dry plain west of Tilaran

Just like at home, the daytime sounds wind down at dusk with the robins still singing. But then, unlike at home, the cicadas pick up where the robins leave off. You are hard-pressed to sit outside and have a conversation when the cicadas crank up their buzzing!  cicadas

Oops I'm supposed to bring you up to date on our progress on the casa, not babbling on about sounds. It's going very well. It's 'muy dificil' to understand Estaban (the electrician) but we think he's going to finish on Friday. Most of the outlets and switches are installed, as are very simple $2 lightbulb sockets where each light fixture will go (after we find and purchase them). Also we have motion sensor security lights installed all around the outside of the house. Here's a photo of Estaban (on the left) buying materials at Rafa Ferreteria. Elberth, on the right, is the only person at Rafa that speaks any English, so he ususally waits on us.

Two of the placeholders for overhead lights in the main living area

There is a fair amount of poverty here, or maybe it is better to call it 'surviving one day at a time', so crimes of opportunity something to guard against. That means don't leave anything outside if you're not home, and, if we are not going to be here in CR full time (which we're not), we need security bars on the doors and windows.  I sometimes think that as each Costa Rican boy comes of age, he is given a weed whacker and a machete and sent on his way. For some, that becomes their way of life - become a 'Jose of all trades' and hustle every day to find the next day's work. Henry, Sergio, and Lenny have been working steadily for us for over 2 months now and will continue to do so for at least 1 more month. Henry also manages to fit in odd jobs like weed whacking people's lawns, collecting scrap metal to sell, and building doors like this one he is building for Heather. 

Henry has trouble fitting everything in. You ask him when he will do something and he replies 'mañana' (tomorrow) - our joke with him is it's 'mañana, mañana, siempre mañana!' (always mañana!). Heather's door isn't done yet, but Henry assured her he will finish it mañana. 

Back to the casa… so ya, the electrical is almost done and the windows have started (yay!). We got 2 quotes for windows and Michael, the local-right-in-Tronadora guy, came in significantly less. We are happy to give someone local the business but it was a little awkward that we didn't choose Sergio's son Anthony. Anthony's business is about 2 hours away and it was difficult (3 weeks or so) to get him here for a quote. Not sure if Sergio felt bad - not sure he would have let us know if he did. Anyway, we paid Anthony for his time and fuel to eliminate hard feelings.

We have 20 windows (!) and 3 sliding glass doors. We ordered 5 windows and 1 slider to start, so we could be sure we liked Michael's product. Two weeks ago I went with Heather for a ride to Danny's house on peninsula 2 to pick up some plants he was giving her. He had a cool house with large, beautiful windows. I asked him about them and he said his neighbor did them. Turns out his neighbor is Michael. Small world, Tronadora!

Last evening Michael and his partner came and installed the 5 windows, and tonight they will come back to install the 9 foot sliding glass door. Then we will place an order for the next batch of windows, based on which openings Henry and Sergio will have ready next week. Here are photos of windows and doors being installed.

Michael installing one of the sliding glass doors

We discovered one glitch this week. We wanted hanging barn doors that roll to each side for the bedroom doors. I know I've gone through the motions (multiple times) to show Henry and Sergio how we wanted the doors, but somewhere along the line my pantomime got lost in translation. Yesterday we got the barndoor point across and Sergio's face darkeoned a bit. Turns out he didn't install any reinforcement above the door for the metal track that will hold the total weight of the wooden doors. He installed reinforcement all around the opening, figuring that hinges would need to be screwed in there. We all agreed to just think about it for a while - bedroom doors are not a priority.

The priority right now is that I get to bed before the peacocks and nightjars turn up the volume! TWEEEEEET and PURA VIDAAAAA!

(sound clips and some photos courtesy of Heather Ray)

Rapido Progress!

Things are progressing muy rapido at the casa! It's very busy there whenever we walk up to observe and ask (or answer) preguntas.

The main electrical caja (box) at the street (with the meter) is not in front of our property, so they are moving it and making a rectangular posta to mount it on. Lenny dug all the trenches in the front yard for the terrestrial (underground) cable - it looked like a miserable job!

 
















Henry and Sergio are putting up walls, covering one side with cement board, then Estaban and his son Estaban put in the electrical tomas (outlets), cajas (junction boxes), and interruptors (switches). All the cable is run inside plastic conduit so the ceiling looks like a spider web with all the conduit and junction boxes! Here's Estaban and his hijo (EE-ho) (son) installing a toma plus a view of part of the ceiling.

From left to right: Estaban, Estaban 

One of ceiling spider webs

Next, the other side of the wall gets its cement board and Lenny tapes and muds the seams. Lastly, Sergio (or Lenny) puts on a skim coat of repero and it's such a bonito (beautiful), rustic finish that we're not doing anything on top of it for now. Below Henry is raising a heavy piece of durock (cement board) over a door opening - Sergio is helping him while Sue and Joe hold the tall ladder. In the middle Lenny is mudding the seams and on the right is a partially repero'd pared (wall).

 








It is also interesting that we cannot get haircuts (as I'm sure is true everywhere these days). Last week Sue got the name of a woman in Tilaran who cuts hair and made an appointment using Whatsapp (everyone here uses Whatsapp). The day of the appointment, the woman messaged her that she had to cancel because of the stay home order. My hair has also been getting long and that drives me loco. Today Heather said "want me to cut your hair?", I said "yes", and she did!

I look kind of scared, don't I! 

The hardware stores are also open, except at lunchtime which is when we tried to go to Colono the other day. To kill some time, we went to Pollolandia for fried chicken at the walk-up window. The parks and playgrounds are all roped off so we found a shady spot to park on the road and ate the pollo in the carro. The hardware stores have all installed temporary lavamanos (hand washing sinks) in front and ask that you wash your hands before entering. A pex water pipe runs across the ceiling and out the door to the sink, and a plastic drain pipe runs the water into the street gutter.

Heather washing her hands before entering the Rafa ferreterria

We needed to buy door knob / lock sets for the 2 front doors. Hernan's hermano (brother) Roland is going to make them. The wood will be cedro (cedar) and will be varnished but not stained - we like the natural look. He expects to have them done in una semana (1 week)!

Sergio explaining the front door to Roland

Cedro with different finishes

There are 2 front doors because our design allows us to divide the casa into 2 apartments. That way we can rent the 'front' and stay in the 'back' which will have a 'mini-cocina' (mini-kitchen) and its own baño (bathroom).

'Cocina' reminds me of a story from last year that I don't think I mentioned yet. The word for kitchen in Italian is (we think) cuchina, and, right or wrong, we pronounce it koo-CHEE-nah. We mistakenly used that word with Hernan last year and he turned 50 shades of red. Apparen0tly in Espanol, that's not a kitchen - that pronounciation refers to a woman 'down there' LOL! The Spanish word for kitchen is cocina (pronounced co-SEE-nah). We are very careful about that now!

Another thing we're very careful about (now) is remembering to take the house keys when we go to town. Below is Joe using a piece of wire to try to unlock the latch that keeps the upper and lower parts of Heather's dutch door together. By the way, check out that puerta! It's cedro and it is MUY BONITA!

Joe has also been working on several projects at Heather's casa. First he expanded her outside bodega. This entailed laying concrete blocks, enclosing the top with durock, and building a shelf to store her tools and paints.

He also made a really cool mesa de cafe (coffee table) for the patio out of an old door.

The madeira (wood) store is one of our favorite places to go! The lumber is not cut into standard sizes (e.g. 2x4, 2x6) like at home. It's all random widths and thicknesses so you just go in, browse until you find something that'll work. Cristian (the madeira man) will cut any length you need and the prices are very reasonable. We usually buy laurel (prounced lah-oh-REL).

No, the bus does not stop here! 

There's not a lot of other news. The government has issued a 'stay home order' because of the coronavirus. The pickleball court is closed, as are any restaurants that don't have takeout. Fortunately the little shop in Tilaran that we call the 'Everything Shop' is usually open - that's where we buy our yarn and other craft materials. We just bought some canvases, acrylic paints, and paint brushes - this should be interesting!

Oh! Here's what the guys who hauled away all our construction trash found in the pile in the front yard!

PURA VIDA!

Walls, Windows, and Doors, OH MY!

Wow have I been lolly-gagging! Let's see if I can bring this chronicle up to date... We finalized the specs on walls, windows, and doors so the guys are now making great progress (mucho rapido!). They laugh, though, every time we walk in because they know we have another cambio (change). Everything is metal (because of termites), so at times they are cutting posts with an electric grinder and other times they are arc welding. Totally different construction style than at home!

Here's Sergio up on the ladder and Henry holding up the scaffolding.

One morning we walked up to observe the progress and learned that there was a water problem - the guys had turned on the water spigot outside and water started coming up inside the house in places where the concrete floor wasn't finished. The spigot is out near the road, so Henry and Sergio had to reason where they thought the line into the house ran. They were spot on, but it was a lot of work to dig all the way down to the pipes. For a country with no frost, these pipes were buried pretty deep, and the fill was very rocky!

They cut and capped the pipe into the house and will connect the new pipes to the water line later.

We use several different ferraterias (hardware stores) - Colono, Rafa, Quincho, and now mostly the one here in Tronadora, 'Miner' (Miner is the owner's name, but I have no idea how to spell it.) Henry and Sergio know which store has the best price for each item. For example, the cement board they are using for the walls - it's 18000 colones for a 4x8 sheet at Colono and 11000 from Miner (that's about $32 from Colono vs. $19 from Miner). They make it BY HAND over in Alejuela Province (meaning they pour concrete into a shallow form (with a mesh core) on the ground and then drag a board across the top to smooth it - Henry showed me some photos of the process). Anyway, for the most part we are now buying from Miner - when the guys need materials Henry calls Miner, it gets delivered, and Henry tells me that I should go pay mas tardes (later). (He tells me by making a motion like swiping a credit card LOL.) Here's cement board being delivered. It's incredibly heavy!!!

On Monday, the guys brought an electrician to the house (Estaban) - he was recommended by Miner. We walked through our electrical plan (he had already re-drawn it from my rough drawing) and he gave us a quote on the spot. Very reasonable! Estaban speaks no English, but by now we're used to that. We know quite a few construction words in Espanol and Google Translate gets us over the rough spots. 

On Tuesday, Estaban and his son were on the job, and they had another guy outside digging a trench to bury the electric service from the road. Here's Sergio (on the left), Estaban, and his son, Estaban Jr.

On Sunday a window guy named Luis from San Luis (no relation) showed up so we gave him our list of windows and sliding doors to get a quote. We thought Luis worked with Sergio's son Anthony who also sells windows. We were supposed to meet with Anthony on the weekend, so we assumed Luis came in his place. Turns out Luis has nothing to do with Anthony! Sergio was a bit hurt because he though we had called Luis (we didn't!). When we sorted it all out, no one knows why Luis showed up!! Sergio said Anthony didn't come because his kid was sick so he's coming this Friday or Saturday. We certainly prefer to give Anthony the business! 

Here's Henry cutting out one of the ventanas (windows). 

Another water problem happened, but this time it was in front of Heather's house. The trash truck ran over the water main valve (for the whole street) and broke it. Water was coming up and running down into the valley between Heather's and our house.

That would have been fine - it would have just run into the little Rio (River) San Luis that runs through the valley, but there's a house being built down below by Andres and Paula (from Chile). The builders down there dug a trench to direct the water around their worksite. Here's a look at that project from our yard. It's a bit hard to see, but the front (to the left) is beautiful stonework and will have windows looking right into the monkey-and-sloth-laden trees (ok, there aren't that many monkeys and sloths).

Andres' house's roof will be just about at the level of our yard, so it won't spoil our view. You can see Heather's house beyond the worksite, up to the right.

It hasn't been just work (hahaha - like we're actually working!) - up until this week we have also been having fun. Just a couple of miles from here (a lot shorter if you hike over the hills) there's a open air (but covered) tennis court with 2 pickleball courts marked. Walk-in pickleball happens on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday so we started going a couple of weeks ago. It was a lot of fun (until Heather pulled a muscle) and this week we decided that, based on the coronavirus, we should stay away. Damn!

There are about 50 cases of the virus here in CR and the border was closed to non-residents yesterday. They have also closed bars, restaurants, clubs, and casinos. We feel pretty safe because we're way out in a rural area. The only crowds are of the bovine variety. Here's what was just next door the other day. Check out all the cattle egrets!

Occasionally cows get loose and wander around. Horses too, although cows much more often. Here's one that showed up in Heather's yard.

One day we went to the Centro de Rescate Las Pumas (Puma Rescue Center) with our friend Pamela. They have monkeys, birds, and several different types of cats (not just pumas) that have been rescued and can't be released. Here's one of the cats taking a nap in the heat (sorry, I don't know a jaguar from an ocelet from a puma). The habitats were large and very natural!

Every afternoon, just about suppertime, a beautiful beagle-ish dog comes to visit us for a snack (boca). We dubbed him Snoopy!

That's it for now... PURA VIDA!

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!