Power outages, and what to do about it

The schools in the bigger cities and highlands are out for "winter break", and so many families are coming to the beach, with them they bring problems. The crime rate is higher, some of it is kids playing games, some are real banditos knowing these vacation houses are unsecure and the occupants have expensive toys. But the real problem is with the power, it happened to us while in San Alejo, the vacationers come and illegally hook up to the power lines, sometimes knocking off full time residents connections. Or they do it so hap hazardly that every time the wind blows the whole grid goes down. Well, this seemed to be happening to us a couple weeks ago, finally we went to Joffre, our "go to guy" and he sent someone over to look at the situation. I dont think it was the temporary neighbors as much as the connection had just worked its way loose, or was corroded by the constant sea/salt spray, whatever it was, in about 20 minutes total (from the time Mike got back from talking to Joffre) we had power, and the cost? A whopping $15, problem solved, and we haven't lost power once since. Try that in the States, or other "civilized" country, it would takes days for someone to come out, and how many minutes listening to awful hold music would you have to endure before speaking to a real person? But! That is not all I have to say on the subject...once when the power went out, it was a nice overcast morning, we decided to take a walk thru a neighborhood we'd not spent much time in.

Love the vibrant colors, especially bright in the overcast morning, we refer to it as "magic hour". The pink place is a restaurant we've been to a couple times, only open Friday and Saturdays. (Ronaldo and family, he works days at the local gas station)

The yellow place also has had table and chairs set up in the evening, probably empanadas, or it could have just been a bingo game... So interesting to see the "work in progress", on the newer construction White House, you can see where they only recently cemented the final bit of balcony, that may have been where they brought up the building materials, because check out those stairs...

Two very different houses, the first looks very Robinson Family Caruso,  as you look at it, notice the only indoor living space is on the second level, probably only one room, where the second is pretty massive and wonderfully landscaped. (really doesn't show in the picture.)

This is a pretty big house, very economical with the split bamboo walls. Will keep our eye on this one.

This one I may have shown before, this is a single family home. Not sure I've ever seen anyone in it...too bad, it's only a block back from the Malecon, and on the corner should have good breeze. Huge house, but doesn't look like any outdoor space...a sign it's not a local.

Hope you enjoyed your walk through the barrio with us, we had a great time, seeing fun houses, familiar faces from town, and getting some fresh air. We also got to use the resurrected iPhone...Mike put them both in a sealed Tupperware with those little silica packets and after a week, voila.

Stay tuned, the adventure continues, and  next time the power goes out, don't get mad...take a walk.