Man, is that another truck? What the hell is a truck doing coming up the hill, its gears grinding and the exhaust obviously punctured, at 5:45 am? I roll over in my admittedly very comfortable bed with four (four!) pillows, until I hear a motorcycle tooting its horn. What is it announcing? Newspaper delivery?

The icing on the cake was a loud speaker I heard not long after, the kind affixed to the back of a truck, selling tamales, before 7 am. Does no one sleep in here? Mind you, this is the country that thinks it a good idea to set off firecrackers at 5 am on Mother’s Day. 

I chose the urban tropics, though, with my eyes wide open. After all, I lived here for almost a decade. And I’m a morning person, so when I hike away from my charming if noisy abode, I am soon on quieter streets with bougainvillea trailing over the electrical wires and orioles flitting in the trees. I arrived at the tail end of the rainy season - the country is lush, the flowers emerging, the mountains are topped with fluffy clouds and the sun is warm.

Yesterday morning I walked up to the Saturday market. One of the best parts of my new place – along with the delightful 300-year old adobe house with two large bedrooms, an expansive kitchen, a river running the length of the exotic garden and a generous terrace – is having that market on my doorstep. People come from all around to buy the produce. It’s all local and includes the foods that I always pooh-poohed at English markets. Like bananas. Why do they sell bananas and avocados and lemons at the market in Chiswick? They do not, cannot, grow in the UK.

Here, however, the stalls are overflowing with bananas, avocados and limes (no lemons in this country), plus plantains, tomatoes, peppers, mangos, papaya, coconut, lettuces and herbs, pineapples, melons, zucchini, various types of potato, plus the unknowns – chayote, camote, hierba buena, yuca, pejibayes, guanabana and mora, and in addition the prepared foods such as pupusas (stuffed tortilla), plátano relleno (cooked plantain stuffed with beans and cheese), and the rather sickly granizados that my children used to beg for. Shaved ice with a flavoured syrup drizzled over and then topped with condensed milk. Have I mentioned that Costa Ricans have quite the sweet tooth!

As I settle into this next chapter of my adventure, I think about the fact that our unconscious selves take in every smell, sight, sound and taste around us, ensuring that we stay away from danger, lifting things to the conscious level if a reaction is required. We are not aware of this, our brains are used to our routines and have learned to filter the known from the unknown.

I have stepped away, though, from that comfortable routine that I created in Montreal and have turned every one of my senses on its head. Which gives me a slightly raised level of constant anxiety. Gone is the usual cold and wind, the dryness of heaters, the bakery smells along Blvd St. Laurent, the seasonal scent of Christmas trees being sold in the parks, the sights of massive murals, and the constant sound of French as I move around my quartier, eavesdropping shamelessly. All that vanished with the closing of the airplane door on Friday. 

When the door opened again, my senses went into overdrive.

So my brain is reacting, overreacting even, as it struggles to verify the unknown scents, sights, sounds and smells from the backfiring trucks, the delicious aroma of mangos, the slight mustiness from the shelves filled with books and the thick adobe walls, and the constant thrum of activity surrounding me. Birdsong fills the garden, even the nearby river is loud, louder than the traffic. There are dogs barking, motorcycles honking, a squirrel chatters at me.

The over-stimulation is making me a little overwrought. I’m thinking too much, wondering what I’m doing.

And then this morning, a perfectly-timed note from a friend who reminded me that I have moved out of my comfort zone, I have plunged into a new adventure. And he added that it would be odd if I wasn’t questioning everything a little, he would be concerned if I didn't. So I cooked up gallo pinto for my breakfast (rice and beans fried up with some peppers, onion and culantro), shopped for basics at the supermarket and hiked up to the top of the nearest hill, gently reminding myself all the while just to be present.

I will allow my senses to take it all in, I have faith that my brain can accommodate the sensual changes, and I will search for new routines while also reaching out to the great number of old and interesting friends that I have here. That is how a new home can be constructed. Home, after all, is not really the geography, it is a feeling.

                                     

My old, adobe house and the view from the rocking chair