By Ivo Henfling

I remember the times we had cows and horses in the streets of Escazu and you could build anything in real estate in Escazu you felt like and those are long gone now. There were no controls, building permits were not important and zoning did not exist. The 4 year Costa Rica real estate boom changed all that and suddenly we had quite a few 7 story condos. That was more or less the only thing the engineering department of the city of Escazu controlled, no more than 7 floors, due to the seismic code.

Not only traffic in Escazu has gotten worse, it is the same thing throughout the Central Valley and the entire world. When I grew up, we had only 1 car at home. My Escazu neighbor’s family has 6 cars now. The Municipality of Escazu has always been a little slow on things but in the last 2 years, things have accelerated.

by Ivo Henfling

Our neighborhood gang used to play baseball in some construction site near my home when I was 12 years old. The owner of the building under construction invited us to keep visiting after the building would be done.

That was when I was first introduced to 10 pin bowling, the first one in Holland (Europe). When I moved to Costa Rica, I was soon invited to play the American League in the Boliche Dent in San Pedro, the only bowling alley in Costa Rica at the time.

That was before the only terrorist act in Costarican history took place. Tico terrorists (can you believe that?) placed a car bomb against the American embassy downtown San Jose. Since most playing in the American League were US marines, people working at the US embassy and a few teachers who worked at Country Day School and The Costa Rica Academy (now International School), we were not allowed to play for the rest of the year. This was in the beginning of the 80’s.

By Ivo Henfling

I would like to share this funny story with you, just to show you that when you think you’ve seen it all, you find you haven’t. This is not a fairy tale and though all the actors involved in this novel thought about suing the writer, we decided that this seller either has a serious psychological problem or he is just a great writer, wasting an opportunity to become famous and make a lot of money. When things like this happen, I always think about how boring life would have been if I would have stayed in Holland and wouldn’t have moved to Costa Rica.

Let me tell you a bit about the author first and how I met him. Many years ago, our GoDutch Realty office sold a property in Escazu to a North American client. The single man lived there for quite some years, remodeled the home and then one day called us again that he wanted to sell.

By Ivo Henfling
 

In my first years of living in Costa Rica, I was always surprised that Costa Ricans have an amazing quality that most of us don’t have: patience. Over the years, I have learned there is more freedom of speech in Costa rica than in many other countries.

Costa Ricans have a huge quality that most of us foreigners don’t have. They can stand in line at the bank in Costa Rica for hours, no matter how long it takes or how bad the service is, they can stand stoically in line forever. I don’t know if it’s my Dutch up bring or that I am just an impatient person, but I generally cannot put up with it longer than 10 minutes. My wife does most such things that need standing in line. She is Costa Rican though she seems to starts complaining too. Even my 24 year old son is getting impatient. Impatience seems to be contagious. But if we get to change those things, everything would be just like we were back home again. It’s all about balance, and that is what we look for when relocating to another country.