Running Away From Paradise is Too Costly

 

Playa Grande recently near the big rock. Jim tried to get me to go to the beach today, but I was just too under the weather to make that happen.

One very interesting thing happened. A set of friends just made it back from the States. They originally said they were staying here and going nowhere. But pretty quickly into the Covid lockdown someone in their family had an emergency and away they went back to the States. 

As I've said before Tama is a ghost town, most of the rich millionaire types have departed. They are the first to return I know of. After listening to their tale of how hard it was to return and the costs of having to find a rental home, and everything else their little sojourn it ran a good twenty thousand dollars more than staying put would have.

Wow!  I knew the airline tickets are now astronomical if you can even find a flight, but didn't consider the other costs. I'm glad we stayed put. They're even five hundred bucks out of pocket for the rapid Covid test required to come to Costa Rica, and had to pay for the additional insurance required of gringos.

Jim is so parsimonious that he would be freaking out now if we had done that. Likely I would have been too. It's one thing to spend money on necessities and feathering your nest, but an entirely different one to spend on things you know would never been that expensive in normal times.

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