Santa Ana: Discovering Condominiums

Halfway through our week in San Rafael de Escazu I woke up one night with the room spinning and a severe bout of nausea. When I got up in the morning the same thing repeated: the symptoms seemed to match with BPPV (Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo). So part of the backdrop to that week was that I was coping with these intermittent dizzy spells and having to do a funny little manoeuvre (the epley manoeuvre) every now and then to try and put the otoliths (little crystals that reside in the ear to help with balance) back to where they were supposed to be. It was still ongoing as we made our journey to our next stop at a place called Rio Oro, near to Santa Ana.

Although we were all but finished with city living we had booked this stop for just a few days for a couple of reasons. One was that we had promised the girls somewhere that they would have access to a swimming pool and the other was that we needed just a few more days to try and book up the next portion of our journey and arrange details for transport, accommodation, etc. We’d reserved 4 nights at an apartment within a condominium.

After the usual routine of packing up our belongings and catching an uber we arrived at our destination. Due to COVID we had to book up hourly slots if we wanted to use the gym or the pool and we’d reserved a slot so that the girls could jump straight in. We went for a swim. One of the benefits of this booking system was that we got the whole pool to ourselves!

This was the first time that any of us had ever stayed in a condominium and it turned out to be really interesting. Initially my expectations were low; I had a notion of a condominium as a kind of apartment block and there was not much that I had expected to appeal to me. The reality was surprisingly different. As we made our way back from the pool we passed the gym which was next to another pool and we were following a path which ran alongside the river that ran through the site. It was not how I had expected. The place was really well planned and they had managed to retain a lot of the original trees and vegetation of the site. It had a natural feel about it.

Whilst travelling around one of the questions we were frequently returning to was what kind of place we would like to live in if and when we settle again? We had spent time in rural areas and we had returned to the city. We really like being in a rural setting as we like the open space, being close to nature and the fresh air. However, we also feel that sometimes the lack of other people in the countryside would bother us and might also not be a good thing for the children. There are lots of things about cities that I don’t like but the one thing that really appeals to me is the potential for community. There are so many people in a city setting that you can always find a group of people who share interests with and similarly there are lots of other children for our girls to make friends with.

So the interesting thing which first struck us about the condominium setting was that perhaps this had the potential to be the best of both worlds. It was set just outside of the main centre of Santa Ana with some beautiful mountains as the backdrop. With the aforementioned retention of the old trees around the site it had a rural feel about it. You could easily spend time walking around the grounds of the condominium but you could also head out the gates and up in to the surrounding hillsides. At the same time, there were a lot of people living there. There were lots of families. Potentially this seemed like somewhere that could meet both sets of needs that we had observed. I’m not saying that it was perfect but it was possible to see the potential for this kind of middle ground between the convenience of city living and the freedom, proximity of the natural world in a rural setting.

Next to the swimming pool there was a communal area which had a barbecue and plenty of seating. During our stay we saw families gathering there for their child’s birthday party and using the pool. There were yoga areas and little play parks dotted around the site.

One way to think about this type of condominium was that it was a bit like a commune but without all of the new-age baggage that might put some people off of communal living. People were living in close proximity but also maintaining their need for a bit of personal space.

There were of course also things which were missing. There was no on-site food production which would be an essential feature to appeal to us. It seemed like a missed opportunity to not have a restaurant on site which could be supplied largely with produce grown within the grounds. Each day and night all of the residents would be returning to their apartment to cook their separate meals which on the one hand seems very inefficient but also prevents real community from forming. I’m not suggesting that everybody should eat in one place all together all of the time but it would be good to have the option.

Of course these kinds of settings also create issues but ones which with a little creative thinking seem like they would be easy enough to resolve. Waste streams was the first one to come to mind. All of those people living in a small space produce a large amount of waste – both sewage and also landfill waste. The provision on site for waste was not good with no systems in place for recycling or composting. If you made a system to deal with the organic waste of all of those apartments then it would be possible to produce a good amount of rich compost in which to grow some of the aforementioned site-grown produce. Doing that would also reduce the amount of packaging coming into the site for all of the salads, vegetables, etc which would be purchased from the local supermarket.

Our short stay at the condo was other than this fairly uneventful. As my BPPV faded out, Rachael was hit with a bout of gastroenteritis which left her drained and out of action for half of the time. We went to the pool, had a few little walks out and about and got on with trying to plan the next little stint in spite of our combined afflictions! With all of this going on we hardly left the condominium site, it was only a day or two before our stay was up that I ventured out to find a local shop for a few essential items. I have to admit that this was a bit of a shock and revealed that we had been in something of a bubble. Whilst the condo had heated pools, neat pavements, tended plantings and a generally polished appearance the surrounding area was nothing like it. It really stood out as something that had been imposed on the site and it left me wondering how the local residents who had lived there before it was built felt towards it? I would also speculate that there was little integration between the residents of the condominium and those in the surrounding area. The condo had been built once again around car ownership and it seemed that the local area was more of a passageway from the condominium to the local town.

We have seen a couple of different styles of condominium since this first one. It only remains to reiterate that it seems like a model which has genuine potential to meet the full spectrum of human and community needs with just a little tweaking. I’m interested to hold that thought as we continue our journey and continue to think about the kinds of healthy human habitats that can be created to address the problems of our times…