The closest town to our house is the tiny Esterillos Oeste on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica, whose main industries seem to be fishing, surfing, and low-key food and lodging for visitors.
While we haven’t been surfing or fishing, the beach is stunning, and Theo has even occasionally been willing to dip his toes in the water before returning to digging in the sand.
The Internet access at our rental house is abysmal, so for work, Brian and I have been making daily trip to La Sirena, a hotel/bar/restaurant on the water with semi-reliable Internet, an ocean view, and regular visits by a macaw who likes his crackers with salsa (and sometimes beer.)
I also seem to end up in the local grocery store at least once a day and have already managed to leave my credit card there once.
In Esterillos, most of the people I’ve encountered don’t speak much English, so I stumble along with my rudimentary Spanish and lots of pantomiming, and we somehow manage to have conversations about macaws nesting near a house, recent soccer matches, and how I’ve once again handed over a completely different amount of money than what was requested. (At least, I think those are the conversations that I’ve had. As my sister Joanna pointed out, given my inability to check my assumptions in these situations, they might have been talking about something else entirely.)
Regardless, the high level of friendliness and generally laid-back attitude makes it feel very easy to communicate, even when I’m struggling with the actual words.