Years ago John and I became interested in Costa Rica after a farm member raved about the medical care his wife received in Costa Rica, the beauty of the country, the friendly people, and the FRUIT! He loved the fruit! So I researched it and I remember sitting at my computer telling John, "We would essentially be living in the jungle, can't do it!"
But we were still intrigued and made arrangements for a vacation in Costa Rica. Two weeks before we were to leave (took 6 months for the vacation to arrive after we reserved flights!) I found the web site
www.serenitygardensecovillage.com. I called John at work all excited and we both did all the research we could for the next two weeks about Serenity and it's sister community Osa Mountain Eco Village.
Although we had reservations at another place for the first week, we took 4 days to stay with the residents and developer at Osa Mountain. Serenity didn't have a place to stay as the roads were just starting to be put in and no houses yet so we just would visit Serenity but stayed at Osa.
We took the next week going back and forth...yes, no, yes, no... should we move to CR?!?! Every day we would wake up around 5 or 6am, discussing things, thinking about it, going over everything we could think of. We had another week in CR and during all our tours and outings we had our eyes and minds going full tilt, wondering if Costa Ricans liked Americans, could we live with the culture change, could we adjust to the shopping, banking, food, roads, etc. We would have to learn Spanish, although in Serenity and Osa Mtn. mostly North Americans live so English will be spoken in our little Eco Village. But could we really learn Spanish? John and I felt we were going through life just fine not knowing another language and now we were creating a lifestyle change that would make the hard work of learning another language mandatory, at least enough to go to town! Yiks!
But those 4 lovely days in southern Costa Rica at Osa and Serenity were so intriguing and John would be able to retire! We could travel! We finally decided that we were at an age that if we wanted an adventure we had better go for it or lose the opportunity.
So here we are...
Selling my dream home (this was to be our retirement home, we designed it around our needs and wants. Really thought I would leave this house kicking and screaming!)
Selling our stuff (we will ship a large container of household goods we don't want to part with)
John wakes up worried about all his tools, what does he take? what does he sell?
We have to jump through hoops, many hoops, to apply for residency and hire a CR attorney.
We have to choose someone to help us move our stuff in a container.
We have to find a All-Wheel Drive car to take to CR. Used cars there are so expensive that buying one here, paying for shipping and import taxes is still cheaper!
We have to choose a CR builder.
Design a house with someone in CR!
Allow someone to build our house without us there!! How scary is that?!?!?
But most of all, leave our family and friends and hopefully convince them that we have a guest room waiting for them for a lovely tropical vacation in Costa Rica that will be super inexpensive since the guest room is for free!
 |
Serenity, we
will have hydro-electric power
|
