My life in Nosara started by staring at a yellow house on a beach where the river met the Pacific: online, of course. I’d long wanted — or needed – to live on the ocean, the Pacific in particular. A California chick, I’d actually grown up in England where days were super long or super short; where the weather was never quite warm enough, and where the rain seeped deep into my bones. I didn’t learn to surf until I was in my 30s and became friends with a woman who surfed every weekend in Hermosa Beach. Entranced and addicted, I was beholden to the vicissitudes of the sea. Knowing I could never afford the spot I craved while in my home state, I looked north (even colder), and then ventured until I saw this little place. I had been traveling to Costa Rica for a few years, always in the rainy season when I could find a spot on any beach. Dreaming continued and I found this spot, which was way out of my reach.  One day, as I was preparing to return to Costa Rica with my daughter for a couple of weeks of surfing, I checked again, seeing that the price had dropped precipitously. So, in the calm, reasonable way I go about things, I called the listing agent and sent him money to just not sell it until I got there. I changed all my plans (luckily these were the days before Airbnb mania), and visited Nosara for the first time. I spoke no Spanish, but my daughter was conversant (which was great when the police stopped us to say a bridge had washed out). We drove through pouring rain on dirt roads most of the way. The next morning, our listing agent found us and led us down a circuitous path to a small place made of wood that leaned just a bit to the south (an earthquake had forced the house off its pylons….just a bit…). We had a look, peered through the floorboards to a space below (we were not permitted to go inside), sat on the porch in a swing, drank a bottle of local beer, and watched through the rain as the sun set over the pacific.

I’d been saving money and had been gifted a check for a generous amount (which sat in a drawer; I was too overwhelmed to do anything with it). Everyone around me thought I was crazy, and i couldn’t disagree: here I was pondering buying property in a country I barely knew, where I hardly spoke the language. What on earth???? Returning to the house at the end of our journey a couple of weeks later (still abandoned, I was able to just crawl through a fence…not advisable). We sat on the deck and I called one of my kids. When I told him it was just a shack, he responded “that’s all you ever wanted.” ah the wisdom of children.

So, we went back and forth a bunch trying to determine a fair price for a house that would need at least 20,000 of work (ha. The optimism of the ignorant), arrived at a sum. And i proceeded to write the biggest check of my life. 

Three months later, I flew down from California, stopped at a hardware store in San Jose (and who knows where else), and drove the 6.5 hours to a town I’d barely visited and a house I’d seen in person exactly one time. Driving a Toyota Prius (this was 2013, I think), I marveled at the sights, the tiny road that had just opened joining the top and bottom of the country, stopped for gallo pinto at a restaurant I can no longer find, and promptly got lost. In the dark. I still had no Spanish. I ended up crossing a river, reversing my Prius into a mountain, and finally stopping at a tiny shop to find out how to get to a place I barely knew. And no, I could not understand their instructions. 

Somehow I made it to Guiones, where my cousins (thank goodness for them) had come down to hold my hand as I started on the adventure (or nightmare) of my life. I got to stay in luxury before visiting my shack in the morning. 

My shack. Hmmm.

The house was full of wasps, it was an absolute disaster inside, and someone had left me quite a gift in the bathroom: Welcome home, indeed.

Having been referred to a property manager I knew I couldn’t afford (it was 150 a month back then), the lovely Anne Marie sent her helper to rescue me. Overwhelm didn’t begin to describe my state of mind, so she sent Manfred to help. After telling me he spoke no English, he proceeded to help me. In English. When I didn’t have water, and had not yet learned that we lost water all the time, I heard my neighbors say “She has to learn to live in the jungle.”

The years advanced, as did my meager grasp of the language. Each chance i had, i’d come down to the boca, spend every day at the ferreteria (hardware store) and the bank where I’d learn to love the convolutions of business in this rapidly regressing country. 

For a while, I rented the house to visitors but found it was perilous when workers remodeling the hotel above me viewed my guests as fair game, and would rob the house at will. 

Cut to two years ago, when my stepmother passed and I was again gifted a much larger sum of money that allowed me to build that little shack into the beautiful home you see now. I’d always wanted to share this precious corner of the planet with travelers looking for something a bit different. But I wanted to live here, too, so I knew I’d have to build something to accommodate all of us. Not heeding all the cautionary tales of construction, I ended up with a deficit, when a dear friend stepped in with a lifeline. Were it not for him, the new house would be without doors, windows, and water, and, most likely, without me. I’m one lucky gringa, for sure.

I hope you’ll come visit and share a bit of the blissful boca with me….and the monkeys.