So how do you know what day it is when you are retired and living in Puerto Viejo??

You don’t!!!  Unless you have some reason to mark the day.  On Saturday mornings there is a farmer’s market so it isn’t too hard to know what day is Saturday.  And on Sunday, the Tico’s  bring their families to Playa Negra (our beach) and play all day long. Other than that, I am not sure how to tell  what day it is and I am not really too concerned about it. 

There are other things that happen that mark the days.  On Saturday, the gardener came and made our yard beautiful!  I am amazed at what they can do with their machetes.  We have a rather large lot and in three hours it was all cleaned up and raked and shrubs all groomed.  He gave us advice on what we needed to do with some of the plants and then said he would see us in a month.  Of course I could not understand most of what he said (I can’t wait to start Spanish school) but Tom was able to converse quite well with him.  He wanted a picture of Kaya and Wiley to take home so Tom took a photograph and printed it off while he was here.  He smiled from ear to ear when he got that.

On Sunday we drove to Sixaola which is the town on the Panamanian border where most people from Puerto Viejo go when they have to leave the country every ninety days.  The drive there was beautiful.  The towns are much different than PV as they are inland and almost everyone works on the banana plantations that line that part of the country.  The road wasn’t too bad except for a couple of spots and those were horrendous.  We decided that when we head to Panama, we will hire a taxi to take us to the border and then will take the bus to Bocas del Toro – islands off the coast of Panama that everyone says are THE place to go. 

When we got back to PV, we walked to a small bar/restaurant called Jeffrey’s  just a few minutes away for lunch.  The lunch was excellent and Jeffrey was there and was glad to meet us since we will be neighbors.  He was curious about us and our family and told us that he had two grown children, both in college in Bri Bri.  He has been here thirty three of his forty three years and is Jamaican.  It was great fun and we have decided we have found our neighborhood get away. 

Tomorrow is Independence Day in Costa Rica – they are marking the 189th year.  It is supposed to be one of the major holidays in the country and it just so happens to fall on my birthday.  We are looking forward to the festivities 🙂 .