Ciudad Colón, located just a few miles west of Santa Ana, is a small town that still retains its traditions while slowly being dragged into the 21st century.

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My husband and I moved to Ciudad Colón in 2004, when we were expecting the birth of our son. We had been living in Escazú, and were looking to move somewhere a little more tranquilo, a little further from San José; a little more country, a little less rock-and-roll.

We found a small house in La Trinidad, and loved being surrounded by nature. The quiet life was just what the doctor ordered! Not long after our son was born, we bought a café downtown, and decided it would be easier to move closer to the café and be within walking distance to it.

One of the things I loved most about living downtown Ciudad Colón was the ability to walk anywhere with my young son and feel absolutely safe doing so.

Last November, my husband took a job at a hotel in Bajos del Toro, necessitating a move to Grecia, and I did so very reluctantly. I still miss many things about Ciudad Colón — my friends there, the ability to walk to any number of stores and cafes downtown in just a few minutes, and the growing ex-pat community are just a few. Maybe someday we’ll move back to the area; who knows?


I knew what I liked about Ciudad Colon, but since I couldn’t very well interview myself for this article, I spoke with some friends who still live there for their thoughts on life in the villa.

Sharon Wallace and Dick Maehl have lived in Ciudad Colón longer than anyone else I know. Originally from Boston, Massachusetts, Sharon and Dick first moved to Costa Rica in 1971, Sharon said, because “we wanted to live and raise our children in a country with no army or conscription. We also wanted to be part of another culture and learn and speak other languages.”

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Though they weren’t specifically looking to move to the Ciudad Colón area, fate intervened on their behalf. “We were newly arrived in the country and looking for a house to rent. We called a number in La Nación for a house, and got a wrong number. The wrong number was a retired Oregonian with a place for rent. We drove out to (then) Villa Colón to see it, and rented the house on the spot. We ended up buying property and getting residency, and stayed in the area.”

A typical day for Sharon and Dick centers around life at their finca. “We have four houses to care for, and 38 acres, so we do a lot of maintenance and some animal care. We shop pretty much daily for fresh food. I talk to people about their medical needs and make recommendations. I do volunteer work with pregnant teens and with local families.

Dick works on various projects, and keeps bills paid and does the voluminous paperwork involved in having employees, dealing with banks, paying bills online, doing legal chores associated with migración/taxes/car and land ownership. We home-school our children (only one now), so that’s ongoing. We have vegetable and herb gardens, and I cook all of our food…we grow our own corn and beans, and keep a laying flock and chickens for the table. Life is very labor intensive in Costa Rica.”

Texas-born Amy moved to Costa Rica “sometime in the 1990s,” because, she said, “I needed to get very far away from my middle class family, so I could get a grip.” A self-described “refugee from middle class America,” she at first lived in central San José for years, but all of that changed when development started.

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“It was lovely… birds, turtles, rabbits, parrots, all kinds of wildlife in the backyard, yet accessible to the businesses we needed. Then the burning started, the green zone went, and one day I told my husband he had to go outside and look at the freeway coming through. He went out, took one look, and said, ‘We’re moving. Next month.’

I started looking in The Tico Times for a house to rent, maximum $300. I called the number for a place in ‘Via Colón.’ Looked at it and was floored. Yard, trees, windows, car port… the landlady said nobody but me had called her. I think everyone who read the ad thought Via Colón was Paseo Colón! I got lucky, and loved the house.” Amy still lives in the same house with her husband and parrot, Thales.

Amy described her typical day in Ciudad Colón: “We try to get up between 6 and 7, have a fresh breakfast on the patio with Thales, watch the sprinkler, have a smoke, drink coffee, take a walk, I give my husband a massage, then we continue with like activities for the rest of the day… if we’re lucky!”

Jaleh Ruhe, originally from Honduras, moved to Costa Rica with her parents in 1977. They chose the Ciudad Colón area because land was cheap at that time and it was a safe distance from San José.

She cited El Rodeo (the area from just outside Ciudad Colón toward the University for Peace) as one of her favorite things about the area. “The road winds seven kilometers southwest around a giant river jungle that we still explore and swim in. It has some of the most impressive cathedral trees. There are significant schools of fauna that have been in this same place for ever and droves of butterflies that evidence them.”

Proximity to services is another reason to like Ciudad Colón. Amy said, “It’s close to some things I really need, like CIMA, but it has fresh air, a walkabout town, nice people, and I like my house. It’s right in the center of town without being a risky location.” Sharon and Dick agreed: “It’s a perfect size town for us, close enough to the airport and to San José for travel and business, but also really the campo as soon as you’re outside of the town. There are good markets, and we’re two hours from the Pacific beaches. The climate is fine… no heating or cooling needed.”

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Sharon stated that “Ciudad Colón is a friendly community. Less so since it’s become basically a suburb of San José, perhaps. There’s not much in the way of intellectual stimulation, but there’s a lot of community work and organization always happening.”

Jaleh found the local culture to be “varied, educated and jovial. There are a lot of participants in the belly-dancing class in the cultural center this year, and there used to be a conga group that practiced there as well. It’s usually at its most fun when artists are practicing their craft.”

When asked about the educational community, Jaleh replied, “I’ve heard the schools are pretty good. Based on size and test scores… the elementary public school has won awards. School life is at the center of the town, along with the Catholic church, so in the long run, it has had a serious effect the good nature of the town culture.

With the regional growth of the last 20 years and free market enterprise, the number of private schools has also increased. I’d suppose there are many different kinds of teachers and teaching techniques, but for the most part, no matter what, the parent will send the kid in as one nationality and the kid will come out a Tico.”

Amy explained that her neighbors’ lives mostly center on their children. “Feeding and clothing the kids, getting them to and from school, and gabbing in the street, hanging laundry, schmoozing at the pulpería and trading stuff we want to throw out.”

I heard mixed reviews on the ease of making friends in Ciudad Colón. Sharon noted that she found it very easy to make friends “…but it did take several years to feel even partially assimilated into community life. Having children who grew up here helped tremendously, as did speaking Spanish. We’ll always be expatriates here, and that’s fine…it’s reality.”

Amy, on the other hand, has not found it as easy to make friends in the area. “Most of my friends are online, and then there’s my neighbors, the peeps at the grocery store, and that’s about it. I do know a group of really great Gringas here. I spend so much time online that I don’t have many English speaking friends I see in person very much. I cherish the ones I do have, because they are truly special individuals.” Jaleh gives a word of advice on making friends: “Smiling helps.”

I asked what drawbacks, if any, there were to living in Ciudad Colón. Sharon and Dick stated that “Ciudad Colón has no libraries or adequate (for us) bookstores, and any but the most ordinary ingredients for cooking have been difficult to obtain. There’s not much to interest teens.” Jaleh mentioned the lack of a good coffee shop, but Amy thought there wasn’t much to dislike, all things considered. She did add, however, “I am a bit unhappy every weekend around noon Saturday when I’m realizing what I really need from the hardware store, and know they’re closing at noon. On a Saturday! Hardware stores that close on the weekends might be my biggest pet peeve right now.”

Though my family personally never experienced any problems with crime in Ciudad Colón, all of those whom I interviewed did. Amy described her experiences with crime: “Although it’s hard to call it real crime, someone recently stole my bike, and reached into my bathroom window and stole all my shampoos. I put screens up finally and got a BB gun, just in case I get the chance to shoot someone in the hand if I catch them reaching in again!

I did experience real crime in San José, so compared to that area, Ciudad Colón’s really tame.”

What did people think the biggest challenge to living in Ciudad Colón was? Jaleh mentioned “people who still think it’s so far away.” Amy didn’t find Ciudad Colón much of a challenge at all, but thought the water cut-offs were annoying. “Although you haven’t lived through a water shortage thrillingly until you’ve lived through them in central San José and the neighborhood riots, as in attacking the water truck when it shows up. That’s an experience. I can’t say Ciudad Colón is so challenging. It’s probably the nicest place I’ve ever lived, all things considered. It’s peaceful, and at this point, peace is pretty big in my book.”

Sharon and Dick thought the biggest challenge was the encroachment of development. “Farmland is being turned into residential areas, cafetals are being ripped out and being sold as building lots. We’ve been trying to extend the habitat here, and maintain a corridor for the local fauna, but there’s not much local support.”

Though Jaleh and Amy were both unsure of their futures in Costa Rica, Sharon and Dick firmly stated that they had no intentions of leaving Costa Rica permanently; everyone seemed to be happy to be living in Ciudad Colón.

Sharon and Dick offered these parting words of advice to would-be Ciudad Colón residents: “I think that Ciudad Colón has a very favorable combination of access to goods and services and an excellent climate. In general, I’d say our biggest difficulty overall has been finding enough books to read. Computer access has helped that, but reading for pleasure isn’t yet a prominent feature of Costa Rican life.

I think that expatriates of whatever nationality would benefit from ridding themselves of unrealistic expectations of ‘becoming Ticos,’ and enjoy the advantages they have as rather privileged residents of a country experiencing a transition from agricultural to a mixed economy.”

Amy summed it up nicely when she said, “I think as far as the difficulties or frustrations, Ciudad Colón is no different than most places in Costa Rica. As far as the qualities and pleasantries, Ciudad Colón’s got a little more than many places in Costa Rica.”

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Written by Wendi Patrick. Wendi Patrick is a California transplant who currently lives in Ciudad Colón with her husband, son and ever-growing menagerie of animals.

Besides being the editor of Costa Rica Outdoors magazine, Wendi’s articles have also appeared in The Tico Times, and she is the author of several children’s stories. Her Costa Rica adventures have included falling in a muddy ditch while hitchhiking in Tamarindo, running from a troop of angry howler monkeys in Manzanillo and holding a baby crocodile in Atenas.

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