Life in Costa Rica

Everybody I know thinks I live on the coast, sunbathing and drinking beer, now as nice a thought that is it isn’t very practical as it is very hot and humid on both coasts and life is too primitive without most facilities of a civilisation. I actually live in the capitol of Costa Rica, San Jose along with 2 million others. Here we have everything a normal city of this size would hold and it is much more practical also. It sits at an altitude of about 4000 feet so is much fresher and cooler than the coasts and as everyone who reads my Blog, sleep is something I treasure as I suffer very badly with sleep deprivations if I don’t have the right circumstances. So I live in the suburbs of San Jose up one of the mountains of the central valley and it has a climate similar to England on a summer’s day.
We have 2 seasons here, the rainy season and the less rainy season as it’s the tropics and a very green country and the rain is what keeps it green. San Jose has a terrible rush hour problem and that was caused by the traffic explosion over the last 20 years and most of the roads are small and houses dotted along the side of all of them and it’s like driving through small villages all along all the major routes into the central region. They still have the old railroad system intact with rails running along the roads and even the old railway station complete with rusting steam engines. The tried restoring part of it as a mass transport system in the late 80’s and the costs killed it plus the traffic on the roads was probably too heavy by then also, trains don’t stop that quick if something gets in its way. So I can go to the British Consulate and all the other consulates very easily 15 minutes tops and airport is only 45 minutes and Pacific coast id 2 hours and Caribbean is 3 hours and along nice and quiet roads very well paved and quite dangerous. All the drivers think God is looking after them and they drive like loonies and die when they fly off one of the huge ravines as you drive through the mountain ranges to get to either coast, they go up to 10,000 feet and are cold and cloudy and foggy and its nice to get some fresh air sometimes. I will tell all of you that the Caribbean coast is much more attractive for holidays and very quiet and maybe what the Mediterranean was like about 100 years ago. Small bars and small places to eat and very uncommercial. You can walk along the beach front and find no people and little cabins for $30 a night , no glass in the windows only wooden shutters, and an outdoor kitchen to cook in the glorious fresh hot humid air of the tropics. Around the cabins you will find sloths resting from their nightly forays into the local forest and huge Iguanas and small monkeys and deer if your lucky and other mammals like racoons and Agoutis (a long legged rodent), a huge amount of interesting birds and butterflies and moths and giant spiders. You can spend a whole week eating and drinking and living in a cabin and spend no more than $300, other than it would take most folks $1500 to get to Costa Rica in the first place for 2 people and then it is cheap, I once went white water rafting along a mighty river in the mountains on the way back from the beach and it was very nice and very spectacular and at $60 each I thought it was quite expensive but it did last 3 hours. Costa Rica has lots of benefits and is very cheap to live, I have no heating bills and local taxes for the house are about $50 a year. Fruit and vegetables are very cheap and so amazingly varied that there is too much choice, I only drink fresh fruit juices in the house as it is easier and cheaper to make than carton nasty juice. There are drawbacks to living here some things are very expensive like imported electronic goods and cars, as they are all heavily taxed. Overall this place is very nice and very relaxing and can be perfect if you find the perfect place to live.