Monday 5th Today my contract expires for working for the bank. It rained all day until there was a moat around the house, but now I’ve no job to claim expenses for the cleaning or a nice little duck house. Unfortunately now the roof is on I’ve no reason to go home as soon as [...]
Posts Tagged ‘costa rica’
Busy day – Puerto Viejo de Sarapiquí, Costa Rica
After deciding to get out of San José the previous day I’d booked a trip to Puerto Viejo de Sarapiquí, a small agricultural town in the North-East of the country with a river that goes all the way to Nicaragua. Right on 6.30 the lovely Gina turned up at the hotel with an air conditioned [...]
Do you know the way to – San José, Costa Rica
Having spent Friday morning sanding down an entire concrete house using a brick my handshake was a bit raw when the local volunteers supervisor turned up for a site visit. He seemed rather surprised that I was actually doing stuff as it seems most of the fresh out of university volunteers get given a spade [...]
Wear and Tear – San Ramón, Costa Rica
A few decent night’s sleep seem to have made all the difference – Monday I managed to work solidly for 7 hours without too much bother. I spent the morning digging gravel out of a pit in the ground and using it to line the floors of the house, ready for concreting. The afternoon was [...]
Waiting for a bus – 8km from San Ramón, Costa Rica
Missed the bus home by 2 minutes. Unlike everything else here, which runs on TicoTime, the buses are extremely punctual. I considered walking home but already exhausted and looking up the hill at the 7-8km walk into the next valley I instead wandered along to the next bus stop which I remembered as having a [...]
Building site – San Ramón, Costa Rica
For what it’s worth, the exact building site is in the once green patch opposite the white house by the road on:
José vs. the Volcano – La Fortuna, Costa Rica
On Friday I worked 6-1, which meant a 4.45 start to catch the bus but let me get away early enough that we could get to La Fortuna that evening. We checked into a great little hotel for only $7 a night and after our first hot shower in a week headed off to the [...]
Memoirs of a Builda – San Ramón, Costa Rica
The first four days of working were absolute agony. Having no particular building skills I was given all the manual labour jobs. Over the first three days I: Smashed up 3 entire septic tanks using just a small lump hammer. This got me the nickname ‘El Torro’ for smashing things up like a bull in [...]
Only 8 weeks to go then – Alajuela, Costa Rica
It seems my body really doesn’t want to go to Costa Rica – for the last week it been fighting against me. Whether its backache, headache, toothache or a last minute cold, an unhealthy dose of Lemsip Max got me onto the plane without the officials grounding me under suspicion of Swine Flu. The second [...]
Costa Rica tops Happy Planet Index
From the HPI site: Costa Rica comes top of the Happy Planet Index 2.0. Costa Ricans report the highest life satisfaction in the world, have the second-highest average life expectancy of the Americas (second only to Canada) and have an ecological footprint that means that the country only narrowly fails to achieve the goal of [...]
