Tag: car

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Car in Ditch

My rent house is on the side of a hill above a residential street inside the Roca Verde development. I can look down through the trees and other plants to the street if I wish – not my favorite view!   🙂

A week or so ago I heard a crash below me and a car driven by one of my Tico neighbors had gone into the concrete ditch made for rainwater going down the hill. No curb or barrier or guardrail along the rainwater ditch. Here’s 3 shots on my cellphone of the guy in the ditch, the flatbed truck preparing to pull him out and the guys helping the truck by pushing on the car (which they always do here!). The car was all scratched up and probably had some wheel, axle or alignment problems, but he drove away it away without needing the big truck to take him into a shop. Pura vida!   🙂

Daily I thank God for not owning a car!   🙂

 

“Walking is the only form of transportation in which a man proceeds erect – like a man – on his own legs, under his own power. There is immense satisfaction in that.”
― Edward Abbey

¡Pura Vida!

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Home Business Sign: Auto Detailing

Auto Decorations?
Of course this image makes you think of your car.
And adding decorations, audio, alarms, etc.  🙂
Atenas, Costa Rica

Across the street from the Sports Park one young man runs a business out of his garage or more likely out of his parents’ garage. And every morning he carries this portable sign out to the curb to attract other young men fortunate enough to have a car (not many). He basically adds unnecessary accessories to your car, I guess to attract women like this. Interesting home business.

Before he gets up and puts the girl out, his closed business.
Atenas, Costa Rica

I’m growing a new photo gallery: Home Business Signs – Atenas

The cars we drive say a lot about us.
~Alexandra Paul
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Thanksgiving Plus Improved Numbers: 49.4, 49.6, 51.2, 48.8, and 46.8

“View from a Costa Rica Cloud Forest”
My photo from the September trip to Talamanca Mountains & Quetzales Park.

It is a THANKSGIVING time for me the way wonderful friends are loving on me as I’m about to leave! Tonight’s going away party at the apartment of Frances Carver was wonderful with super good food by her daughter Kay and help from her son-in-law Ed. They are such great friends and the time together was special!

And the numbers? Well those are this afternoon’s weights of the five suitcases with only one coming in over 50 pounds, so I’m about to get there as I continue to adjust and remove items like the iron skillet that I pulled today! Weird you think? Well it was the only cooking utensil I felt valuable enough to take, but they have utensils in the furnished apartment and I will be able to buy things like that there. The biggest adjustment in my suitcases today was taking the 26 pounds of file folders in my Tupperware-like file box out of a suitcase and shipping it via my Miami address. I’m hoping it will get there within a month! And worth the high price I’m paying! I guess what we choose to keep or take with us on a downsizing move like this tells a lot about our priorities.  🙂

I sold my car Friday and Monday I am wiring more than 20% of the income from it to the Costa Rica shipping company as a “deposit” on the shipping of the 57 boxes of art and books. Everybody wants my money now, but after getting settled and the residency paperwork behind me, that will hopefully slow down.

If you haven’t already signed up for the email version of this blog, do so now in the right panel near top and each new post will come to you as an email.

And by the way, I am so happy about President Obama’s announcement on Cuba where I hope to travel again, remembering my wonderful trip with AZAD two years ago. Now if congress will just get off their rear-ends and stop the stupid blockade, the U.S. might become a humanitarian country again. Oops! Getting political which I promised myself I would not in these blogs. But . . . I am looking forward to living in a country that has no enemies and no military or military industrial complex.  🙂

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Car Paved Around in San Ramon & Theater Anniversary

A Lack of Communication?
I guess in the states the car would have been towed – maybe – but in San Ramon, Costa Rica this guy leaves his car parked on a street on paving day and the workers just pave around it. A little funny from Costa Rica!

See Tico Times article

It is exciting to see how Costa Rica is celebrating the 117th Birthday of the National Theater tomorrow. I look forward to hearing the national symphony or some other performance in that beautiful theater! And by the way, you did know that Nashville, Tennessee’s Symphony Director,  Giancarlo Guerrero, is from Costa Rica? Didn’t you?

Teatro Nacional, San Jose, Costa Rica
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Car

Today I read some of an electronic Moon book on Living in Costa Rica and double-checked it with Chris Howard’s New Golden Door book and they both say about the same.

  1. It will be cheaper and easier to buy a car in Costa Rica, even though they cost about 30% more there. If you drive or ship your car from the states you pay an even higher excise tax, like 50%+ of the retail value AND the paperwork will require a lawyer.
  2. I could drive my old car which from Brownsville, TX would be over 2,200 miles through five countries, lots of red tape, complications, possible dangers, and the high excise tax mentioned above. But would sure be a neat adventure!
  3. Most people buy used cars which are well cared for there because of the high cost of cars. If I plan to frequent national parks and other wilderness areas I will need four-wheel drive on a high-riding car. 
  4. One writer recommends the Toyota RAV4 and another said Suzukis do well there because they ride high. Most cars in Costa are Japanese or Korean. 
IF I make the move this is the one area of life that will cost me more than in the states and needs to be carefully considered in my budget. One living in the city could easily get by without a car with good, low-priced bus, train and taxi service compared to the states. But of course my adventures will probably require a car. 
One important area of living there is now fairly clear in my mind.