HOMELESS

After accepting jobs with the Washington School, Brett and I had to shift our focus from job interviews to apartment searching. We were super excited about finding our first apartment and we had an idea of what we were looking for; location close to the school, furnished apartment, and internet access.

Saturday morning, the day after accepting our full-time teaching jobs, Brett and I sat on our all-too-familiar bed at Gaudy’s hostel and began looking on recommended websites for somewhere to live for the next five and a half months.

“This looks nice! Oh, they only accept year-long leases... never mind.”
Apartment hunting is hard work. 

When we finally started finding some potential apartments to go check out, we wrote down the important information in our little notebooks. Some of the ads said that they usually require a year-long lease but that they may make some exceptions. The first few contacts we tried said that the apartments were recently taken. We were pleased to notice that 95% of the other ones we liked had the contact information of the same lady.Thinking it would be easy to set up appointments and kill a few birds with one stone, I called her provided number on my little yellow tracphone. 

A secretary answered the phone and I began to inquire about the handful of apartments we were interested in and told her about our situation. “We only lease to year-long tenants”, she told me. I pointed out that it says on the website that they sometimes make exceptions, but she was SURE that my request was out of the question. I asked to speak to the lady herself but she wouldn’t let me. We were back to square one because that single phonecall eliminated everything else on our list.  

We sat on the bed allllll dayyyyyy lonnggggg. I don’t think we even took the time to shower. By the end of the day, we were exhausted, hungry, and frustrated.

The next day, I decided to make a post in a Facebook group called “Gringo Expats”. We needed all of the help we could get. One lady messaged me back and said that she had a fully furnished apartment with internet but that it might be a little farther away then we wanted. I clicked on her FB page and saw that she attended the SAME medical school that Brett is going to in the fall! I was sure that it was a sign. I messaged her and let her know we were interested in coming to visit the place. She was happy to invite us over to the “finca” the following day, but she kept mentioning that it is probably a little different than we might be expecting…

We were able to schedule two other appointments so that we could see two different apartments while we were out and about. After sitting in the hostel all day the day before, we were feeling excited to be going somewhere.

First stop, the finca! The lady told us to take the bus into a town called Ciudad Colon and to call her daughter when we got off of the bus so that she could pick us up and drive us to where we needed to be. As some of you may know, Brett and I tend to get lost. We stayed on the bus too long and ended up in the middle of nowhere next to an old bus station. I called the lady’s daughter and she thankfully knew the area I was talking about. She and her dad had to come get us.

As we got closer to the finca, we quickly realized that this apartment was in the jungle. We drove down a long dirt road to where the lady (Sharon) was waiting to meet us. Trees surrounded us from every angle. “THIS is what Costa Rica is supposed to be like”, I thought.

Sharon talked to Brett about Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences and told us that she graduated as an OB/GYN. She also talked to us about her apartments there at the jungle and asked if we minded if women had their babies there. She is now in her 70’s, but she use to deliver babies there on the finca regularly. She doesn’t really do it, now, but when she was showing us the apartments she would say things like, “one woman had her baby here in this shower. She named her Earth… we just smiled”.

As we moved through the tour, she told us that rent with all utilities and internet would be only be $350 a month. We looked off the back porches into the jungle and were told that (1) there is a gardener that would bring us fresh food and that (2) if we didn’t like bugs then the finca wouldn’t be a good place for us. She also mentioned that (3) we should be very sure to keep the doors and windows locked up because the monkeys will get into the apartment. Apparently they had one tenant who left a yellow folder on the table and a monkey ripped through the screen because it thought it was a banana.  

After the finca, we were on our way to the second apartment of the day. Finding the place was so difficult. We ended up getting a taxi, giving the driver the directions we were given, drove around asking people on the street how to get there, calling the lady who was going to give us the tour, let the taxi driver talk to her, and STILL got dropped off at the wrong place. We had to hike up this huge, steep hill to where the apartments were.  Unfortunately, the apartments were about $900 and didn’t include utilities. We couldn’t live there.

One more stop. The apartments in a little town called Pozos was only a 10 minute bus ride to the school. Surprisingly, we made it there without too much trouble. The apartment was in a beautiful gated area; air conditioned rooms, modern furniture and a beautiful kitchen. There was even a maid that would come twice a week to clean. The downside was that it was over our budget and didn’t include utilities, either.

Brett and I were running out of time and were struggling to agree on which of the two would be the best option. He wanted the expensive one with a maid, I wanted the jungle house with huge bugs and monkey thieves.
 

The next day, I decided to give one more look on the various websites to see if anything recent came up. That’s when I saw it. Our first apartment. Right way I showed the page and pictures to Brett and all he said was “call her, now.” Sure enough, it was everything we hoped it would be and Maria wanted to show it to us the very next morning. We couldn’t have been more relieved.