Erin Van Rheenen began life as a serial re-locater at the age of five, when her parents moved the family from Oregon to Nigeria. Most of her adopted locales, however, would turn out to be in Latin America, and included Ecuador, Guatemala, and Mexico.

In 2002 she arrived in Costa Rica, thinking she had it made. Her Spanish was good, she had a degree in Latin American Literature, and she'd already adapted to many new countries. What more did she need? Plenty, it turned out. Knowing all the conjugations of the verb to jump for instance, won't help when the locals tell you, you need a chapulín (grasshopper) to pull your rented 4 x 4 out of the river. And having read dozens of Latin American novels doesn't make it any easier to decipher Costa Rica's labyrinthine medical system.

Erin now knows that a chapulín can be more than a hopping insect and that the medical care in Costa Rica, once translated, rivals that available in the U.S. As for discovering the lush variety of this tiny country, that's a lesson the author is happy to keep on learning. Erin hosts Costa Rica relocation seminars and has a website, www.livingabroadincostarica.com.