The Boom that Never Happened

Back about 2000, American Real Estate Developers looked down at the beautiful Orosi Valley, and they saw money!

Other Americans would want to live here, build houses, and build a new life for themselves.

Now, twenty years later, this has not happened.

There are large housing developments full of small, inexpensive houses that Ticos can afford, but Americans do not want. The ones who were here have gone back. And the little businesses that were built for them have closed down.

I live in a house that was owned by an American couple who opened a vegetarian restaurant.
The husband died and is buried just up the road. The wife and daughters have gone back to the States.

I have a small Social Security retirement income. Once a week I take the bus to Cartago, the nearest large town, and get packages that I bought from Amazon, and were delivered to Miami, and then flown to Cartago. And get some groceries from a Walmart store.

If I get sick, I use the National Medical Service, which costs me $50 a month.

I am living on the remains of a boom that never happened, but set things up for me.