I have found several services that will allow you to send 1 or 2 texts for free. I also have used cardboardfish at a low rate to send texts. None of the services I have found have allowed your favorita to text to you. She can text thru Kolbi with an international plan, but it is very expensive for her.
I am very interested to see if you find a good, reliable, inexpensive, easy to use answer to your question as I too have several ticas (yes, I am using the term correctly) that do not have email that I'd like to keep on the hook.

Doesn't that require 3g or wifi?

I have Magic Jack for calls but you can't text to CR. Any ideas? I have AT&T phone but they want .25 per int'l text or buy a package. I don't text enuf here or there to justify the $$ for their package, I usually just call but my amiga lives in a remote area up against the mountains and so even her 3g is hit or miss, annoying and time consuming and Magic jack still charges for the minute even if not connected. A text will eventually get there (I think)Thanks in advance

Yep, and I bought it yesterday, the first agent I talked to last week said I had to buy the full text package first for $30, and then tack on the $10 for Int'l. I called again yesterday and the agent said I could buy the $10 Int'l solo, so I did.

The Navagalo sight listed by the Giant above works, and so thanks for that, but I noticed sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, don't know if it's me or them, but ATT's $9.99 for 100 SMS of 160 characters was pretty good. Now if I could just use my keyboard and not the phone to compose, I'd really be happy.