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| The view from the kitchen |
The week started well, how we have reached week 7 already I have no idea! After some careful negotiations with our contractors Alex & Marvin, they agreed to throw more labour into the project as things were starting to slow a little.
In the meantime Don and I successfully managed to paint the better half of the rear of the ever so important retaining wall with a thick impermeable, supposedly waterproof, layer of bitumen. With a battered roller & paintbrush, we were done by lunchtime and then proceeded to spend the rest of the day trying to clean ourselves up while the workers cheekily smiled, the penny slowly dropping in terms of why no-one had opted to do this messy job so far!
Back to admin - getting final quotes for stone finishes for the bathrooms, talking with glass suppliers (gone are the days that glass is actually just called 'glass', nowadays one has to choose from tempered, raw, natural, frosted, polarized, pure, re-inforced, semi-pure, naturally tempered, 6mm, 8mm, clear, bronzed, bla bla bla then translate these all into 'Costa Rican' spanish and you start to understand how long things can take!
Then came the drama of no water - AGAIN! Unfortunately just when we are ready to pour concrete - AGAIN! Understandably, the team starts to get vexed, turning to me for answers and solutions. We had already invested 'mucha plata' in the repairs last time round, just a few weeks ago (our water supply coming from a river a couple of kilometres up in the mountains). While the 'developer', who initially put in the infrastructure, is on the other side the world, there is/will be no long term solution, we have no choice but to re-schedule events and play the waiting game to see if the tricks we pulled will result in the arrival of the much needed constant flow of river water one requires for a successful construction project.
As the week progressed, our patience was continually tested as we now waited for the final architectural & electro-mechanical plans to come through from San Jose - I know, it does seem a trifle strange not to have the complete set by now, given that we are already 7 weeks into the project. How we have managed 'improvising' and bouncing between 5 sets of 'old' plans is a miracle - I guess that's where the 'mas o menos' (more or less) Tico culture comes into its element!
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| Second floor |
By Wednesday afternoon we had the 'all clear' that they would be arriving via 'Encomienda' to Cortes just a half hour from the project. This 'encomienda' system - Costa Rica's answer to Fedex (obviously without the door-to-door service within 24 hours!) seems to work via the public transport & bus system. (I say 'seems to' as nothing ever happens the same way here, the words regular and consistant have been replaced long ago with, yup you guessed it, 'mas o menos!')
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| View from the deck into the jungle |
With another useful 'inspection' with our engineer, where we confirmed the designs and implementation of the giant columns that will seemingly grow from the canopy below the jungle villa, supporting our rather large western facing 'hanging' deck I was starting to feel very excited of the form the house is taking.
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| The second floor |
With the 'structure' almost complete, one can now walk around both levels of the house (albeit clutching onto poles and climbing up ladders) and genuinley feel how the 'experience' will unfold - happy to say it is just like I had visualized, with the real 'impact' coming when you climb the stairs, 'dar la vuelta' (turn around) and are presented with a 250+ degree view of the jungle canopy and then the open valley below leading to the River Terraba and the Pacific Ocean - very 'pura vida mae'!
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| Boquete, Panama |
After staying up all night Wednesday, going through the electrical plans, (Alex wanted ANSWERS before we disappeared on our second shopping trip to Panama) a blurry eyed Joe and Don swung by the project to check all was clear before we hit the road for Panama.
Thank G-d for good Panamanian roads otherwise I don't think my poor 23 year old Toyota Hilux would have made it back! There are a 1001 great things about Costa Rica, but the roads aren't really one of them! After all the regular dramas, chaos, form filling queues and stamps required to cross the border, our depleted team was now reduced to three as our unprepared muppet Tico friend tried to cross the border with nothing more than a half filled in customs slip - the whole idea was that with more people, we can 'import' more tax-free Panamanian goods, with the limit being strictly controlled at $500 per person. As Elcer sheepishly headed back to Costa Rica by foot, we headed onto David.
Two days later, with the car loaded with AC units, 'cagaderos' (toilets - unfortunately not of the hanging kind), door locks, aluminium rails for our sliding doors and the remainder of the showers and taps that weren't in stock first time round we confidently headed back 'home'. Yet again, another productive road-trip with a well needed visit to the beauriful hot springs of Boquete in between.
Naively arriving at the border with the car quite clearly overloaded (I'll assume no-one from customs reads this blog!), our 'excess' shopping clumsily 'hidden' under the seats, we are again waved through at the border and police check - having stopped for a juice just before, a local had told me they had recently found a truck full of guns, I guess a couple of 'gringos' branding a 'I've been to Panana' shirt and a shiny white Panama hat, loaded with one too many toilets (to say the least) wasn't their main priority - apparently we don't look like gun runners...
