by Jo Stuart

When setting off to accomplish something in San Jose, I find it a good idea to have a plan B at the ready, and when depending upon buses, having a Plan C in the wings is not a bad idea.

This week I had a 7:00 a.m. appointment with my doctor at Hospital Mexico. I got there on time, but through a mix-up (probably a breakdown in communication), I didn’t see Dr. Ugalde until nearly ten a.m. but he is a sweet man and since he had some student interns in his office, I smiled when I told him I was annoyed. He apologized for the delay. I took the opportunity to give him my book “Butterfly in the City” and he was so pleased, I couldn’t be annoyed anymore.

I had had only a cup of coffee and my hot lemonade for breakfast so by the time I left I was really hungry. I decided I would take a taxi to the MasXMenos on the autopista and kill two birds with one stone, or rather feed this bird twice with one visit. Cate and Bill had told me that MasXMenos had really good gallo pinto, and it is a supermarket, so I would have breakfast and then shop. That was my plan. Only the biusa that I took from the Hospital didn’t stop across from the MasXMenos (they used to.) So, quickly, I decided I would breakfast at Quiznos on Paseo Colon and shop later. The biusa doesn’t stop there anymore either.

Shifting to Plan C I decided, if one MasXMenos has good gallo pinto perhaps the one downtown does, too. Lately I have been inundated with advice about the foods that are good for aging bones and lagging energy. There must be some reason I see so many older women in San Jose walking tall and straight and I have decided it must be the daily intake of rice and beans. No other food that I can think of is as universal here, although fruits and vegetables help. I got on another bus at the Church de la Merced – where the biusa does stop – and went to the Caja.

During my ride I took notice of the buildings along the way. My friend Dos has been commenting to me about the newly painted, brightly colored buildings of late. She wants me to find out why people are painting them such bright colors. The only recent paint job I noticed on my route was the Teatro Melico Salazar’s new yellow façade. It is quite beautiful. I had asked a friendly Tico architect why the new colors and he said it was “the Mexican influence.” I wasn’t sure if he was kidding.

I had a four block walk to the store and on the way I passed The News Café, a Kentucky Fried Chicken, Spoons, a hotel restaurant, four pizza places, several sodas, two panaderias and one paint store. It crossed my mind that maybe there has been a big sale on blue, orange and lime paints. I was tempted by the different fare in the various restaurants but rejected going to Plan D; afraid if I did I would forget to shop.

The MasXMenos on Avenida Central has a complete cafeteria now. I stuck to gallo pinto and a couple of fried platanos, which I love but seldom eat. For a mountain of rice and beans, two pieces of platanos and 12 ounces of Cas juice, the cost was 605 colones (under $1.20)

On my way home I realized I should have gone into that paint store and asked them about the new décor of San Jose. (That is, instead of dropping into that corner shoe store.) But since I didn’t, I am putting out the call. If anyone has another answer besides the Mexican influence, please let me know so Dos can go on to some other fascinating cultural question.

Jo Stuart is the author of the popular book about life in Costa Rica entitled, “Butterfly in the City.” To order a copy of her wonderful book please contact her at: jostuart@amcostarica.com

By Nathan Rold a long-time resident of Costa Rica

Over the years I have had the opportunity to meet many Americans from all walks of life. To be here you have to an adventurous and different type of person. It takes a lot of courage to move anyplace. Some people have a difficult time moving one place to another in their home town let alone moving to another country.

The majority of the North American retirees I have encountered have been very pleasant people. I have had nothing but good dealings with this group. However, let’s look at the other side of the coin.

A growing number of would-be North American entrepreneurs are becoming increasingly attracted to Costa Rica because of the growing number of business opportunities especially in the fields of tourism and real estate. Unfortunately many of these people are not qualified professionally, lack the fundamental knowledge and life experiences and even ethics. I have heard a growing number of Americans complain that despite the growing crime problem among Costa Ricans, that they have had more bad experience and been victimized more by fellow Americans.

The problem is that we have now have overnight gurus and experts being by the slews. Some foreigners think that by just moving they have enough experience to dole out advise and go into business. Recently, I checked out a tour company and found the owners had only lived in Costa Rica for a few months. How could they possibly have enough knowledge about Costa Rica to run a tour company in such a short time?

Would-be real estate agents are coming out of the woodwork. Many are even wetbacks (no offense to our Mexican brothers) who are working here illegally without having residency. Would you buy property in the States or Canada from an illegal?

I even heard of a person selling Costa Rican real estate in the States who had never even been here.

With the graying of the baby Boomers there are now thousands of web sites springing up all over the Internet by people offering retirement and real estate. Its hard to separate the real deal from inexperienced people and outright scoundrels. Every real estate site has retirement info. They have cut and pasted from a few of the real authorities on the subject. Several groups offer retirement related services and the principals don’t even speak Spanish nor have they lived here for enough time to give good advice. They are just here to ride the gravy train of the gold rush and prey on naive prospects.

One very smooth talking character I met , who passed himself off as a very religious family man, ran a dating service for single men looking for serious relationships. He lured the men in under this pretext and sold them products like off shore corporations, on-line casinos, none of which these people really needed.

An investment company with a biblical name and whose principals are now in jail in California, bilked other North Americans out of about $150,000,000 million dollars a few years back.

Bottom line is most of us who come here just want to live and let live. A few others are here to reap the spoils of the land and take advantage of their naive countrymen. Please be careful! This article is written to both help and protect future and current residents and keep them from making unfortunate mistakes.

This is bound to cause some controversy.

People often ask me, “Is it safe to invest in Costa Rica?” I don’t purport to be an expert in the field of international investments but lately have seen a growing number of big name U.S. companies and individuals investing in Costa Rica. They would never think of putting their capital here if the investment climate was not favorable.

Intel was the first major play to invest in Costa Rica in 1998. A significant amount of Intel’s major manufacturing and technology development has taken place at its award-winning site in Costa Rica. This site includes two manufacturing plants and one distribution center dedicated to the assembly, testing and distribution of the world’s fastest processors.

Let’s look at who else has invested recently in Costa Rica.

• General Electric purchased 50% of the Bank of San Jose, a private local bank. As a result the bank plans to expand to other areas of the country.
• Wal-Mart just purchased stock in Supermercados Unidos, the largest supermarket chain in Central America.
• Steve Case, the founder of AOL and of Time Warner fame, just purchased 23 million dollars worth of beach property. He plans to build an upscale resort at Punta Cacique.
• Wendy’s Hamburger chain will open over 15 stores in Costa Rica starting in May of 2006. All 15 of the stores should be completed by 2010.

This purpose of this article is to show one person’s resourcefulness and courage in the face of adversity. The author is not advocating moving to Costa Rica with little or no money.

About three years ago I met Steve who had lived in Hawaii for many years. He moved here because Hawaii had become very expensive and he wanted to make his early retirement “nest egg” go farther. Steve had always been used to living frugally and in the process amassed a few hundred thousand dollars.

Within a few months of moving here Steve invested his life savings in two high interest -yielding investments with the idea of doubling his money in a few years. This was his game plan but unfortunately both of his investments went “belly up.” Steve was left with only a few thousand dollars to his name. As we mentioned Steve had mastered the art of living on very little money but had never been faced with having no resources and living in a foreign country. He knew that he would not be able to draw his pension for four more years. Steve thought of returning to the States to work and then moving back to Costa Rica when he got back on his feet. However, he became involved with a nice Costa Rican woman and had also fallen in love with the country.
His close friends provided him with a place to live for free, but he still had to find a way to generate and income. Since he was born with the ability to repair almost anything, he did odd jobs in exchange for small sums of money and food.

After a while he figured that the only way he could continue to live in Costa Rica was to start a business. Steve had one big problem; no money with which to start a business. His pride kept him for asking for a loan from friends. He started to look at local small business and do research on the Internet. It did not take him long to come up with a good idea for a small business. He came across a good recipe for banana bread and his business was born.

At present he sells he bread to tourists and his many friends in the city of Heredia where he lives. He has purchased a mixing machine, an oven and his lady friend is helping him.
Steve is a born survivor. All of his friends are sure he will continue to do well and continue to enjoy living in the country he has adopted as his home.

The first week of December I visited my home town of Thousand Oaks, California. I had not returned in almost seven years. The first thing I noticed was that a lot had changed dramatically. Due to a construction boom, I could barely recognize some of the areas of town. It seemed like everything had become a great deal more commercial and homogeneous on much larger scale. Everywhere I went there were people driving a whole gamut of Sports Utility Vehicles or as they are more commonly known, SUVS. The streets were filled with gas-guzzling vehicles we rarely see in Costa Rica – the Ford Excursion, the GMC Yukon, the Ford F-250 monster truck and a couple of models of Hummers – to name a few. The latter is similar to military vehicle you see in Iraq which is being blown to pieces by roadside bombs. The version sold in the states is more luxurious with its leather seats, colorful paint and sporty trim. In California it appears that the bigger the vehicle, the better it is and more status a person has. You are defined by what you drive I guess the car’s size reflects the owner’s ego. The interesting thing is that very few of the owners use these mammoth vehicles to go off road but only for commuting at a snail’s pace on the over crowded freeways, for going to the grocery store and to take the kids to soccer practice.

The freeways are also bigger than ever. They usually have four or five lanes in each direction. Rush hour is almost an all day affair. Traffic begins to get bad at 5:30 in the morning and ends around 8:00 at night. Sprawling, massive, slow-moving traffic jams can extend from Ventura Country in the north to the Mexican border just south of San Diego. These are normal conditions. God forbid if there is an accident! The freeways are indeed bigger but not a faster means of transportation than our pot-hole-filled roads in Costa Rica. Costa Rica’s presas or traffic jams are small in comparison.

Everything else is super sized up north. There are 24-hour enormous gyms to keep those perfect bodies in shape. Almost every major shopping center and strip mall has a Starbucks, a Subway sandwich shop, a Home Depot, a Wallmart, a Target, a big chain vitamin store, a Borders or Barnes & Noble bookstore, a branch of Best Buy and almost every other colossal chain store. There are supermarkets that even dwarf our Hipermás. They have a huge selection of every imaginable food. There are the gigantic bags of potato chips, barrrel-sized bottles of soda pop, and a variety of mouth-watering delicacies to stimulate your appetite. No wonder obesity is such a monumental problem in the U.S. Restaurants super sizes everything. There is even a chain of pet stores called Pet Co. Most of their stores are as big or larger than a Costa Rican supermarket. I guess most pets are also overweight in the States. It would not surprise me if there is a Weight Watchers for pets.

Then there are the massive Kinkos copy centers. They basically offer every conceivable type of service from making photo copies to using the Internet. Everything is under one roof and they are conveniently opened 24-hours. These stores are extremely handy for the traveling business person. I accessed my e-mail everyday by using one of their computers. I was going to use the local public library’s computer services at $5 an hour but there was an hour limits. The price at Kinkos proved to be astronomical. I paid $12 per hour to use a state of the art credit card device connected directly to the computer. The cost of the average net café in Costa Rica is about a dollar an hour. However, none of the Internet cafés in Costa Rica that I have seen feature new Dell computers like the ones at Kinkos.

Everything else is geared towards large scale consumption. People seem very happy and caught up in their fast-paced lifestyles of expensive SUVS, the “shop until you drop” mentality and living in their palatial upscale housing tracts which seem like ritzy suburban ghettos where every house looking almost exactly like it had been cut from the same mold.

After a few days of experiencing everything on the large scale, I began to yearn for my simple down-sized lifestyle in petite Costa Rica. People here seem to be a lot happier with much less. The average person here is materially poorer than the average American, but their lives are far more richer. Here people seem to live with gusto (enjoyment) and sabor ( a flavor or spice). In Costa Rica every day can be filled with adventure and exciting activities. Sure we have the malls and a dose of U.S. culture but we also have a lot more little things which truly make life immensely more worthwhile. People up north exist, we live the pure life on a much smaller scale. The phrase, “¡Pura vida!,” says it all.