Rain and Return!

This is Augusto Ceasar! Cousin to the Chavarrias and a good friend since we have been here. Yesterday he went with us to talk to his Uncle, he is related to 85 - 90% of the people in Berlin, about purchasing a "house" and a little land at the start of our property. Our thoughts are that we can fix it up and stay there while our house is being built and then use it for help to stay in while working at the B & B or on the coffee. As his Uncle said, while almost falling on the floor laughing, it's not 5 star!! He had used it for his Nicaraguan coffee pickers to stay in. It's basically a shack but has a septic system and is already existing so we wouldn't have to go through the permit process. It has a concrete floor, tin roof and wood covered windows!! Talk about a remodel job!! We were hoping to walk to the property and snap a picture but it rained and we didn't want to tackle the mud!

Today we went to San Ramon early with Josaletta who has saved our bacon. Her "husband" has built some houses in Costa Rica and she speaks Spanish and understands all the hoops you need to jump through. Our trip to town ended up being quite an adventure. The little bit of rain we received turned the thick powdery dust on the shortcut Josaletta likes to take to slick mud and the shortcut is down a steep hill and around a curve! After feeling foolish and full of second thoughts a car pulled up behind us and we had to go forward! Don drove and we very slowly and slickly made it safely to the bottom of the hill and across the bridge! Never a dull moment in Costa Rica!!

Although Augusto Cesar has been helping us with I.C.E. and translating with the Chavarria's, Josaleta and Eric have also been a big help. We applied for Permits today with the Minicipal to allow for grading our property for a building site. Hopefully that will get done while we are in the states! Thank you very much Eric and Josaletta!!

Augusto and his Uncle are also working on I.C.E. for us and, if all goes well and the creek doesn't rise, they may get us electricity much less than the $50,000 we were first quoted! Keep your fingers crossed!!

A couple days ago we had Danilo's workers cut down the very tall grass that was hiding the terrain of the property. Two men worked for two days with machetes to do the job and charged us $24.00!! Amazing! Next it needs to be burned before excavating begins!



















This is a Mango tree and it's on our property! YEAH! And the plant with the flowers in front of Don is one of our coffee plants!

Last is the walk from our property back to Chavarria's house! It's about 2 miles straight up and/or down!



Off to San Jose tomorrow for a last visit with the Doctor to hear all the test results!! We will spend the night at the Ritz again and then fly home about 1:00 p.m. on Wednesday, March 2nd!