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Nice to see you post here, Saratica. I read your blogs.
You refer to the presence in CR of people who are competent con artists, who will make a good impression and take you for eveything they can steal. I suspect you are answering my post further up wherein I state that I trust the people with whom I have had business dealings based on their behavior. If there are no laws to protect people from con artists, then there is little protection from losing your “camisa” short of simply not doing business at all.At some point, you have to rely on and trust others. Period. We can’t all be lawyers and doctors and police at once. You have to trust some of these people to be honest and to do their jobs. We all, everyone of us, rely to a great degree on the system in which we live and upon our judgement, however flawed either may be. What I am trying to say is that caution is always advised UP TO A POINT. Crossing that point is where fear and mistrust begin to take over your life and make it miserable. I am glad you have finally decided to stay in Costa Rica. You have apparently conquered your own fears enough to make your life there a positive one. Congrats.
Edited on Dec 14, 2008 04:58
Do you live in a gringo gated community, Maravilla? I think you are west of San Ramon, if I am not mistaken. I am not too familiar with that side. I am on the east side well towards Naranjo. I just find it hard to believe there is crime of any sort around there from conversations. I know Palmares has its issues especially during festival times, but further out, it all seems so tranquil.
I am 58. I may not be an expert on human nature, but after nearly 6 decades of dealing with peolple, a certain level of knowledge about people based on experience is reached.
The man who caretakes my property is someone I have known for almost three years now. Without going into details, of which there are many, I’ll just say that I am sure he is trustworthy.We all have to make decisions every day in our lives from important ones to banal and unimportant ones. Whether or not we live happy lives depends almost entirely upon these decisions. Bad things happen to the best decision makers, but more often than not, bad things can be avoided by making the right decisions. Only you know if you are a good decision maker or not. Rely on that.
I value the physical safety of my dogs more than any possessions. They are small dogs, 22 lbs and 8 lbs and are indoor pets. In fact, I don’t even understand the concept of keeping pets outside most of the time.
But leaving my house unattended is not going to be an option for me down there. I will pay my care taker 30 bucks to stay at the house when I go away for a week end. The only hole in my security will be the odd hour or two when I go for groceries or out for a movie or whatever else. If that is impossible to do without too much worry, then I may have to reconsider my analysis of the area where I want to live.I don’t live in the area yet, but as far as I can tell, there are no outside workers. The fincas are small and worked by the locals.
I spend time talking to the guy I employ to care take my property. He is a local resident and has been his whole life. I let him know I appreciate his expertise when it comes to how to care for the land. He knows everybody who lives in the area. He has advised me on who can be trusted and who cannot be trusted. There are only a few to watch out for.
I chat with other members of the community whenever the opportunity arises and learn more about who is who and what, if anything, is going on in the small farming area. This all gives me a sense of where I am intending to live and what to expect and I am very comfortable with what I have learned so far.
Your associations and living habits are at least as important as your location when it comes to avoiding being a vicitm of crime. I am not interested in reading about the expected crime that happens with certain people who have bad habits or that happens in crowded urban areas. The only reporting of crime that mildly interests me are those that deal with the exceptional robberies, the ones that happen in the country to people who lead simple, honest lives. When those crimes no longer are the exception to the rule, THEN I will start worrying.
Haha! Yup,move near or in with gringos where most of the robbing takes place. Why do you think they live in “gated” communities? They create a little fortress in what they see as a wilderness of foreigners who can’t be trusted. That’s what happens when you separate yourself from a community.
If you crave the company of Americans, why not stay in the U.S.? If you are simply looking for a cheap, comfy place in paradise, remember that so is everybody else. Prices will reflect value more often than not. Why are there so many cheap gringo houses for sale in the Potrero area?
Either commit to living in Costa Rica the right way by learning Spanish and by accepting the negatives of the Tico culture, or move into one of those gringo gulags which are segregated from the rest of the culture by walls and fear.
You can reach the Pacific in about an hour from the central valley west side. I grew up in Ohio so I know about miserable cold but I have lived in Miami for 26 years now and, while the beach is great for week ends, the heat in summer is stifling here. The Costa Rican Pacific coast is hotter still.
Think about how you will spend your days in CR. Unless you have an unusual passion to be right by the water 100% of the time, you may want to consider living in the mountains where there is less crime, less heat, cleaner towns and in my opinion, prettier scenery. Drive to beach on weekends if you want. It is not that far away. And land is arguably cheaper in the central valley.
Try the mountains of the central valley…unless you absolutely need to be next to the ocean and can either live with heat or high electic bills. Remember, vacationing at the beach is not the same as day to day life. Too much heat can be almost as bad as cold. The mountains have spring like weather year round and, in my opinion, the towns are more tidy up there.
I agree with the spirit of 2BNCR points. This is one of the reasons I bought land in CR and intend to live there. Consumerism and lassaiz fair capitalism are destructive not only to the planet, but also to the human spirit. The point I was making is that human nature chooses these destructive paths whenever they are offered and Ticos could easily succumb to them. Only by the force of an enlightened, freely chosen government by an well educated public can an economy be properly directed away from those destructive philosophies.
There were some figures posted here some time ago which showed income brackets in CR. I don’t remember the breakdown and it has to have changed by now but I think it was addressing the huge gap between Ticos with $1100 to $1800 a month income and the next tier down which was at $600 a month. The highest income bracket was over $2900 a month.
Generally, economies seem to be measured in three brackets; poor, middle class and rich with percentages of population for each bracket being a very important indicator. This has to be one of the best ways to take the temperature, so to speak, of a society to see if it is healthy. The disparity between the economic classes inthe U.S. has been widening since Reagan tool office in 1980 and waged war on the middle class. It is coming to a head now in the States asso many more move from middle class to poor.
Costa Rica seems to have less of a disparity between the classes as far as population percentage differences. The poor are the largets group but there is still a respectable percentage of Tico who fall into the middle and upper classes. If and when this changes, as it has already doen in the States, there will have to be societal consequences.
Costa Rica is a small country and can make direction changes rapidly. In a world depression, I would expect to see changes here in Costa Rica take place with lightening speed comapred to the mammoth U.S.
Capitalism is addictive. Whether or not it stays depends on how much it can be mofified to mitigate its many destructive aspects.
So far as I can see, Costa Rica uses socialism to good effect over all and perhaps its new found capitalistic tendencies can be tethered more to the needs of the people rather than the needs of corporations, as is the case in the U.S. It may depend upon who gets control of the peoples’ opinion. Strong Chinese and Nafta political and economic forces will be at work to influence which direction and how far Costa Rica’s capitalism goes.
It should be interesting to see how public opinion deals with this dangerous new ingredient after some time has passed. Who gets left behind and how many?
Middle class is defined by relative income within an economy. The world is moving towards a single economy so one day, IF a middle class is to exist, it will have to be worldwide. The problem is that the middle class is an aberation. It is not the norm. Over the last 7000 years, the normal state of affairs has been to have only two classes; the elite rich and the working poor. It doesn’t look too promising for democracy, does it?
I have read that democracy cannot last long without a strong middle class. If that is true then Costa Rica must have had a strong middle class since it initiated democracy 60 years ago. Of course, middle class is a relative term.
Ometepe island looks like a pretty place although probably quite hot compared to the higher Costa Rican Central Valley area. I hope my fellow Americans flock to Nicaragua and forget about Costa Rica. As far as I can tell, there are already a few too many of us in CR anyway. I would like to settle down in Costa Rica with fewer fellow gringos causing rising prices oneverything from land to a loaf of bread. I think Costa Rica can survive without thousands more of us showing up in paradise.
