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Damn squatters

// March 1st, 2005 // Costa Rica

Well, I guess everyone can give me a big I TOLD YOU SO!!! Today was the day i returned to see my land here in costa rica… for the last year, people have been harping on me to the fact that there are squatters down here… I said, oh no, it’s not a problem yadda yadda… well, i should have listened…and i should have listened hard and right away…

The day started by taking shitty off roads to the land… its about an hour or so from this beach, so maybe 35 mins from the closest beach… not too shabby if it wasn’t squatted… anyways, more on that in a bit… so i figured i had to pay taxes… i found the municipal building and went in… after waiting for like an hour, i was up to bat… gave them the property number my lawyer gave me, and it came up in someone else’s name… oh shit i thought, i got ripped off… turns out they gave me the wrong number… so after calling my lawyer, i found out they had already paid my taxes for me… i got a receipt too… from what i can tell, the taxes were only $1 !!! though if the receipts are in US $$$ it was $500… we’ll see… $500 is more than i thought, and $1 is way less… in any case, it’s not too much…

so from there we headed to the land… i was amazed to find it… the directions were less than perfect… anyways…. beautiful beautiful drive to it… half the time looking out over the gulf of nicoya, half the time looking out towards the ocean…. it’s up some pretty steep roads, though i think a car could do it, we have a shitty little suv type thing…

anyways, when we got out of the car, i could hear the squatters… i just kind of looked at my mom and we both laughed… we hiked into the land a ways and there they were… i tried talking to them but the language barrier was hard to deal with… shit… this internet cafe is closing down i HAVE to leave… i’ll finish the story next time i’m online… it’s a major bummer… i have some pics….. but can’t post now.