Savoring an Elusive Romantic Getaway in Costa Rica through Art

Even paradise wears you down after a time, especially if you find yourself bogged down by the normal daily routines of life: transporting the kid to and from school, shopping for groceries, yard work, cooking, cleaning, etc. We have found since moving to Costa Rica that we seem to take even fewer vacations or weekend trips than we did in the States in order to break up our domestic monotony.

So, even though our original motivation to stimulate demand for Tamara's well-known mosaics was admittedly pecuniary, this trip turned out to provide us an excellent opportunity for an amorous getaway hours from the finca working together to bring Tamara's art to someone new.

A scintillating and enthusiastic art lover, Judy Fried, responded to my posting on a Costa Rica expatriates Facebook group showing off some of Tamara's past works. She had the perfect spot, a front door gable, where she wanted to display an original mosaic featuring a Quetzal, local plants, butterflies and hummingbirds with a symbolic representation of their gorgeous view over Costa Rica's Pacific mountains down the Gulf of Nicoya.

One of the original mosaic concept sketches

Want to Buy a Lovely Costa Rica Finca? or Selling, but Not Selling Out

View from the balcony of our house. Cerro de La Muerte just beyond the clouds

Our rationale is simple: a little less field work and a little more money in the bank acount. That's essentially why we've decided to offer up a couple of lots out of our nearly 3 hectare finca here in southern Costa Rica. If you will not be satisfied unless you can have it all, we'll consider that too.

The price of the entire property is $279,000. We are open to financing with about 20% down over 10 or so years.

Here's a rough summary (more details can be found at the "Our Finca Sale" page, which you can access just under the blog header photo above):

• Located at 4,000 ft. elevation just north of San Isidro de El General. The air is always fresh and cool and the views are outstanding
• Walking distance to Matasanos village and the larger towns of San Ramón Sur and San Ramón Norte.
• Fresh, cold, clean water comes from a spring flowing right out of the Las Piedras granite batholith, part of which crosses the property

What Else the Wife Is Up To in Costa Rica - Painted Rock Fish and Bracelets

A Blue Rock Fish

"Your wife is way more awesome than you are! :) " was a recent FB comment to me from a friend of ours in Costa Rica.

That was in reply to my posting of Tamara's latest mosaic, the sign in San Ramon Norte. With friends like that ... !

Well, what can I say, it's true actually and here's more proof.




Currently, she has something like a hundred of these painted rocks she made, all sizes, all colors. The kitchen table is usually covered with the latest batch in progress.

We hauled about 40 kilos of rocks from our last trip to the beach Monday.

Seriously, they look way cooler in real-life than my pictures fail to do in transmitting art into life.

She often paints both sides in such a way that when you flip it over a slightly different fish or sea creature emerges from the same rock.

Tamara's Contribution to the Beautification of Costa Rica

Three committee members: China, Isabel and Vianay

Several months ago, Tamara was asked for help by the Beautification Committee in San Ramon Norte, which is a village directly below our farm in the San Ramon river valley. The committee is organized by our neighbor, Steve, who was a Peace Corps volunteer in this corner of Costa Rica about 30 years ago. Steve returned several years ago to retire here.

The committee has already finished several projects, such as planting hundreds of meters of amapola (hibiscus) hedges, creating more parking spaces, landscaping, and refurbishing neglected gathering areas. They have more projects in the works.

Work in progress on old mini-park

They approached Tamara for help with decorative mosaics on walls, tables, and cement stools. She made the drawings and got them started and Steve, who worked on the big mosaic with Tamara at Sean's school, took over from there.


A couple months later, they asked Tamara do make a mosaic welcome sign for the town in order to replace the deteriorating wooden direction sign. Since it was a big project, about 5 by 5 feet, Tamara made a deal with them to trade her work for work on our finca. We picked up the steel frame of the old sign and brought it to her workshop here.

At Last, The Costa Rica School Mosaic is Complete

If you've been following Tamara's progress on the CAIRA school mosaic, you know that's she's been at it for quite some time. Planning started last October, and work began the first part of December. There were a couple of weeks hiatus when the staff were on vacation during the Christmas holidays, and then Tamara and helpers were back at it in January. 

Last Friday, the project was finally finished. Monday was the official unveiling.

The entire mosaic, about 6 meters wide by 3 meters high

 The final week may have been the most difficult, as by that time Tamara just wanted it to be done at last. She's now able to enjoy a little down time, though she's tinkering with another, smaller mosaic commission this week. 

Tamara's Costa Rica School Mosaic Project Mid-way

With about a week before school here in Costa Rica resumes, Tamara and her small crew are trying to finish the big wall mosaic at Sean's school. Most of the details are done now, so it's a matter of filling in the spaces and then grouting it all. Easy to say, time-consuming to do.

A neighbor girl, Marilyn, and fellow ex-pats, Steve Bok, and Patti Lawrence have been helping out every day

They'd probably all be done by now if we hadn't take several days off last week to make our first visit to Panama, but we wanted to squeeze in one trip while Sean is still on school break. 

This project, as all projects are wont to do, is taking longer than expected, but it's certainly coming out beautifully. I have been pushing Tamara to get some local media involved for publicity for her and the P.Z. International Women's Club, who helped sponsor this project. Anyone local who has contacts with journalists, please let them know.

Update on Tamara's School Mosaic Project

Tamara's big mosaic project is now into its third week. Students and others come and go as the mosaic grows. The last few days she's recruited some of the kids in our neighborhood and even Sean to help out.

Today was a bust, however, as the person who has the key to the classroom where the tools and materials are stored called in sick today. Why the school doesn't have a spare key ... well, that's Costa Rica for you.

Moth Hunting in Costa Rica? Leave the Lights On

Earlier in the week I was fiddling with one of those motion detector lights on one corner of the house. It never seemed to work quite right so I adjusted the settings. Apparently, I left the sensitivity too high, and it was on all night. In the morning, the wall for about a 2 meter radius around the light was covered in moths pluz a couple of other non-moth light-lovers. The upper center picture in the grid below shows the entire collection.

There were a couple of interesting things about this: 1) wow, what a diversity of moths in one place! I only took pictures of about half the species on the wall, and 2) they hung there without moving the entire day. You could stick your nose within inches of them and not a flinch from them would you see.

If you're inclination is to feel the willies when you look at bugs up close, then don't click on the thumbnail image below. Otherwise, enjoy, and sorry about some of the fuzzy shots. The small beetle and the long critter that looks like something out of your nightmares hung there all day as well. Maybe they're moth wannabes?

Other items:

We're really proud of how Sean is doing at school. This week is mid-term exams for the bimester and so far he's bringing home solid B's on the tests, A's on his homework. He came in 4th out of 16 on his Spanish grammar exam and the teacher gently chided the classmates that scored lower since Sean is the only non-native speaker in class.

Tamara just finished another mosaic project at a new house near Platanillo, pictures below. I think the detail in her new-found medium is really improving. She's now completing the second of 6 mosaics on our house, too.

The "winter" here continues to be mild. Though it rains almost every day in the afternoon, we haven't yet had all-day downpours. It remains very pleasant. We've been adding new plants to the landscaping about every other day. It's amazing how many plants you can just cut up, merely stick in the ground and they flourish like nobody's business..