On Monday, I will have been here for three months. Must say, the experience has been much different than I had anticipated. I am teaching at a very prestigious private school and I feel extremely lucky to be teaching where I am (I actually look forward to going to work everyday). However, until I arrived, I had only seen images of the best of the best (which my school is). But every time I told anyone back home in the States I was moving to Costa Rica, people had one of two reactions:
1) "Oh my god! So jealous! I/ we just LOVE Costa Rica! We went there on vacation/ for our honeymoon and it's SO beautiful. Plus, you're going to save SO much money! Wish I had the freedom you do to just pick up and move!"
2) "You sure? Costa Rica is pretty much a third world country. You ready for that? You're a girly girl, uber-educated, and coming from a big city. Let me know how it goes!"
To be honest, thus far it's been somewhere in the middle. For starters, everything you hear about CR being cheaper is a LIE. I can count the things that are cheaper than in the States on one hand and, so far, they are:
1) Movie tickets ($5)
2) Apartment rent (less than $600/month for a one bedroom... but everything is old to the point that you want to super-sanitize)
3) Taxis (between $4-6 for most rides... but I'm from the midwest... not a cab culture)
4) Salon visits ($40 for a cut, color, blow-dry, and flat iron or $20 for a cut, blow-dry, and flat iron)
Everything else? More expensive. Yup, a six pack of local beer is more or less $9 and a can of (imported) Campbell's Soup is $6. I kid you not. Anyone who tells you that you can SAVE money in CR is full of it. (PS: Just did a price check at the "mid-level" grocery and -yes, imported- a 12 pack of Coors Light cans is $15 and of bottles is $19.) Pura vida!
I have so many feelings about San Jose. I will begin by saying it is the absolute WORST part of Costa Rica. It's dirty, it's filled with all kinds of shady characters, and (possibly as a result) ALL buildings are protected not only by multiple gates and locks but also by barbed wire as well. Not exactly the "Pura Vida" welcoming CR you had been expecting, no?
The city truly feels like a prison. Very patchwork. A nice neighborhood of condos aside a ghetto filled with homes of made of cardboard boxes and tin. It's unpredictable yet predictable and, overall, very sad. That is why I try to get out of SJ any chance I get. I feel the true beauty and heart of CR lies outside of its icky capital. But one must learn to delineate between the crappy tourist/ uber-American cities (such as Jaco and Tamarindo) and the genuinely beautiful, welcoming spots (Playa Hermosa, Puerto Viejo, etc).
As I mentioned, I'm only at my three month mark. I realize I have a lot more to learn. But these are my preliminary observations. Take them or leave them for what they're worth.
Pura vida,
t
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