November 19, 2007 - House Hunting 2

Oh boy, were we naive! We probably still are, but a bit less now.

For some reason, we thought we'd be able to find the perfect house or apartment in just a few days. HAH! We started looking last week, and we *still* haven't even *seen* a place!

We started with very specific requirements - San Pedro, 4 months (this is short-term, since the usual minimum is 6 months), fully furnished, not expensive... We actually didn't care if it had a view or a garage. One realter said he knew of a place - it fit all our needs. He said he would call the landlady and call us about seeing it. Well, we thought this meant that the place was available, and that he would call us the next morning. HAH!

We got the newspaper and looked at the online ads - when we called, all the places had been rented already.

So, after a few days of no progress, we expanded our "requirements." We said it doesn't have to be in San Pedro - it could be anywhere in the Central Valley, as long as we could walk to town (we are *not* buying a car just to get into town on this trip!). We said we could go unfurnished, and just buy some basics - figure out later what to do with the stuff when we leave. We said maybe we need to pay a bit more (ack!).

Then we found out that at least one person had tried to call us at the hostel, but couldn't get through. Drat! Now we not only can't make phone calls, we can't even receive them.

We enlisted help from even more people - we spent the afternoon first calling about more ads in the paper. We called about the ads in the ICE office. We drove to a realtor's office - none available in the area. We drove around and found ads posted - when we called (standing outside the apartment), the places were already rented. And the signs are still out :(

We moved from the Hostel - we're back "home" at Vida Tropical :)
So now we have internet access and a *phone*!

We still don't know where we will live...