Life On A Rock - Being Real
This is for those nice folks who think they would like to join us here. If you only care about enjoying gorgeous beaches and world class sunsets then this is the place. Sell everything you can and give the rest to charities...pack your bags and take the plunge. Should you choose to make your home here, a nice warm, tropical, picturesque Caribbean destination, all I can say is bravo to you. Make it happen but do some detailed research first.
People all around the world spend their work days planning their perfect tropical vacation. They are yearning for that one precious week when they get to spend time where we now call home. We are "so lucky" they say. Yes, we agree that we like that feeling of not having to shovel snow any more but what they don't realize is that it's not the same as staying in an all-inclusive resort nor like a self-serve hotel. No one can afford to do that year round on a pension and there are some things that come to mind as a compromise for all of this...
Many things that we discovered here (similarly in Mexico), we only became aware of after we arrived. It is impossible to get a true feel for a place without actually going there to spend time learning about day to day living. Many landlords / owners / agencies of rental apartments paint a picture suggesting Rembrandt quality and when you get there to see it with your own eyes it's more of a Picasso or maybe even "The Scream" by Edward Munch. We did our homework, research and asked questions, and still managed to pay deposits and up-front rent for something less than what we expected.
So, as it turns out, pioneer skills are necessary....renting a third world furnished apartment sight unseen generally means you are stuck with whatever “leftover” token items that were tossed into the apartment by the owner.
Old non-stick pans that stick, 3 forks, 2 large spoons and 2 small spoons, 3 knives (none of which are sharp) cracked glasses, a tiny stove, a fridge that doesn't stay cold but sure likes to heat up the apartment from its backside. Three small drawers, three feet of overhead cabinets for food and dishes and three feet of lower cabinets for pots and pans and whatever else you can manage to cram in there.
Kitchen duties that consist of preparing food to be included in meals, cooking on the stove and baking in a hot oven on a hot day, and then the ever present cleaning of the dishes. All of this takes place in the four square feet of space located in front of the refrigerator that has been pulled out from the wall to try to keep it from overheating. If the duties are shared - like in our home - you need to agree on a schedule to have control over the floor space. This is not optional.
Living room furniture is generally from 1950 or there-about, beds have a definite sling to them where countless bodies have been cradled in sweaty positions, and bathrooms are laid out with minimalist folks in mind.
If you are lucky enough to have a washer for your laundry you still need to hang it to dry somewhere (a dryer will cost you more to run that your monthly rent payment) and a jury rigged clothes line from the front door, through the living room into the bedroom window seems the logical solution for your drying needs.... If you don't have a washer you find yourself doing a small load by hand every morning after breakfast and asking your loving wife if she would mind hanging it for you in the living room. Thankfully, a washing service is available for the weekly sheets and towels and they come back with a $20 invoice attached.
.....People who visit you from the great white north think you are crazy when they see all of this and express their obvious concerns with their eyes while saying the words "this is nice"..... we have learned to leave our previous expectations behind and just make the most of things.
The internet is slow and cuts out a lot. You really have no choice in this when the landlord provides the service to your suite on your behalf. This is just the way it is.
The water doesn’t always flow the way you would like as the water infrastructure is built for 100,000 people on an island with 300,000. Some areas on the island go through a dry-pipe period for several weeks at a time. Fortunately that has not affected us so far, but the dribble of cold water you get for your morning shower is somewhat frightening. The solar hot water tank located on the roof of the apartment is shared between several tenants and those who get up at 6am enjoy a warm dribble rather than a cold one.
Generally people here are very friendly and will most times go out of their way to help you. However, some businesses providing services have their own issues to contend with (they live on this rock too) and they can sometimes bring comments to the service counter to try to cover up what might short-comings in customer service. “Sorry we can't help you now but come back tomorrow / next week / next month”, doesn’t really mean that. It actually means “I don’t know”; “I don’t feel like doing that today”; “I don’t know who to ask but it definitely isn’t me”; "I'm talking to my girlfriend on the phone"; or “I’m eating lunch right now”. What you hear them say is what they hope you will settle on. You learn quickly to know it means something else, that you can't do anything about it, and that you need to leave your "type A" personality at the airport the minute you arrive...after all, you are just another tourist to them.
Money seems to run through your fingers even though rent is minimally cheaper or at least somewhat comparable to that of small northern cities. Our grocery bill is the same or higher as it was in Vancouver, (one of the most expensive cities in Canada) and our electrical bill is massively higher than in Mexico - ten fold higher. We have air-conditioning in the single bedroom but we generally use fans. During the evenings when the "feels like" temperature goes above 35 degrees C., we turn on the a/c for an hour or so to cool down the bedroom before laying down in our birthday suits (mosquito spray in place), and then we switch the a/c to the fan-only function to try to conserve on costs. Electricity is supplied to the island via diesel generators, hence part of the reason it’s not cheap. See previous post for more on the cost of living on our rock.
For health issues, so far, we have been very lucky not to have had to experience medical care here (knock on wood), and our bodies seem to be weathering daily life on this rock. Staying healthy and physically fit is important to us and we do what we can to maintain that in between rum punch and flying fish sandwiches. I can't see into our livers and our circulatory systems so I am going with a big hopeful "check mark" on those too.... We have heard from others that primary medical care here is really quite good but we are trying to avoid it if we can. The heat and humidity has been very much on our minds for the first 7 weeks that we have been here - similar to our experience in Mexico. Sweating is a continuous exercise and I suppose that helps us to get rid of unwanted toxins from our bodies... I have managed to convince myself that this must be some kind of health benefit... yeah, that's it.... constant sweating is a health benefit...yep.
We don't have a car of our own so we walk, and take the bus, and take a taxi when we have filled several bags with groceries. The distances to daytime and evening destinations seems to be much farther than what we had become accustomed to in Puerto Vallarta, and we are finding that we are taking more taxi rides to get to places here. It was really nice when we rented a car for a week (pictured) while other family members were here, as we could explore places and go shopping in places that had previously remained a mystery to us.
You must know exactly what to do and how to prepare for bad weather, or you will regret it. By this, I mean if it starts raining, gets windy, or even if you think it might get cloudy, you better run and plug in all of your electronics to charge up because the power has a habit of going out. If you don’t prepare, you’ll be sitting in the dark with absolutely nothing to do....on the bright side, once you drink all your wine and rum supplies in the dark, you can use the bottles as candle holders. Cheers!
I suppose once we make a decision as to where we will have our own more permanent place to live, our pioneering skills can be eliminated and we will likely buy a vehicle of some sort too. That would definitely make life more comfortable for us. In the meantime, we have lowered our expectations and are enjoying each day as it comes. Keep Smiling!