Shielding my eyes from the piercing rain, I looked up to discover the source of the crash – a towering pine tree silhouetted black by the purple urban night sky. Its branches pierced vertical. Its trunk lay horizontal, disappearing into my roof and reappearing out the other end of my house.

I walked back inside, lights still off, and crawled back into bed. Surely I could wait until morning to manage this situation. My tiny dog clung to me, still shaking with fright.

I closed my eyes, but sleep did not come.

Something was in the bed with me, gritty, wet.

I could hear water trickling like a creek, like I was back in Costa Rica in my little tree house by the river. Pleasant, but not normal for the inside of my house in SC.

I turned on the lights to discover dirt, plaster, and wood littered all over my bed. Amber colored water seeped out of cracks in my bedroom’s white ceiling and walls. Water was rushing out of the light fixture, puddling on the hardwood floor.

The smell of pine tree sap was heavy in the air.

“911 what’s your emergency?”

“A tree fell on my house, but I’m OK, I’m not hurt. Is this a reason to call 911?”

“Yes, we’re sending a fire truck over now,” the operator replied.

I wondered if I was safe in the house. Was the tree going to fall some more?

A fireman cut the electric breaker while another climbed into the attic with a flashlight. The light illuminated thick rafters splintered in two and a giant tree trunk resting on top of my lifesaving 1950s ceiling joists.

“You shouldn’t stay here. Do you have somewhere to go?”

“Yes, my house,” said my dad, who showed up shortly after the firemen.

“OK, well go now. The rivers are rising fast, streets are already flooding. You’ll be stuck here if you don’t go now.”

Back at my parent’s condo, countless emergency sirens blared all night keeping me awake. This screeching reminder of my hometown in chaos would become the soundtrack to my life for the next several weeks.

—

6am the next morning my dad and I are up watching the news. I want to leave to go check on my house, but we are mesmerized by the images of entire neighborhoods under water and of roads washed away.

We’re not even sure we can make it back to my house.

I leave first to map a new route since the familiar 10-miniute straight shot has been flooded out. It’s still raining, but not as hard. Rivers are still rising.

“It took me two hours, all the roads are closed and they’re closing more! I think you can make it in one if you take Farrow and drive through the park.” I said to my dad.

“What?” he asked.

“Yeah, off-road straight through the park. It’s the only way to get here that isn’t collapsed or flooded.” I replied.

At my house, rain has poured in through the giant hole in the roof and filled my basement and a few inches of the first floor. I grab my things I left behind in haste the night before.

We assessed the damage in the light of day, but there was nothing we could do until the rain stopped.

My job was to wait. Wait for the rain to stop, wait for city water to be restored, wait for permission to leave the house again, wait for the insurance and FEMA assessments, wait for a crew to remove the tree and cover the hole, wait for contractors to rebuild my house, wait to start my new life in my old hometown.

Waiting in my parent’s condo was difficult. I was no longer in control of my environment. I missed the rainforest sounds that I had traded for screaming sirens, ticking clocks, and climate control contraptions. I missed the deep sleep from the pitch black of a jungle night. The only thing I didn’t miss was the rain.

The 1000-Year SC Flood had me living out of a suitcase again and my hometown was literally a FEMA disaster.

“I need someone to watch my house for me, wanna do it?” asked my friend Tiger in Costa Rica.

“Heck yeah,” I replied. If I’m being honest, I was already considering moving back before even leaving Costa Rica the first time.

So I packed up a suitcase and my tiny dog and moved back to Costa Rica.

Then I immediately collapsed. The stress and the illness had finally won; I was out of commission. What I would go through next would be a complete unraveling and reprogramming of some of my most ingrained habits and identities.

I thought moving back and forth between countries was hard. I thought losing a house in a flood was hard. Fighting this illness was going to be even harder. I had no idea.

This was chapter 8 in my Leaving Costa Rica Saga. We are almost to the end, and a new beginning…  Subscribe here.

The post Leaving the United States, but First, a FEMA Disaster appeared first on De la Pura Vida.

Updated: March 2017

Many travelers from all over the world agree that Northern Guanacaste, Costa Rica is home to some really amazing beaches. Some of the more advertised and visited beaches are great for those traveling with a family or who want a more all-inclusive type experience with western style amenities, cuisine and services. But what about those adventurers looking to get away from it all? Those who are not afraid to shift into 4x4 and put their wheels in the mud? Those looking to stand on a beach with just one, two or maybe even zero fellow human beings and would rather share the most natural of moments with monkeys, birds, iguanas and crabs?

The truth is that Guanacaste has lots to offer every type of traveler and in my 4 years of living in this area I have found some great things to enjoy about both the popular and secluded destinations.

Popular Beaches of Northern Guanacaste

Popular and highly developed beach towns such as Playas del Coco and Tamarindo are wonderful for families who want the comforts of home but are looking to trade the shade of an oak or pine for that of a tall swaying palm.

Playas del Coco

 

Playas del Coco is well known for it’s good scuba diving, nightlife and beachfront park which is an absolutely wonderful location to spend the day fishing, playing basketball, swimming or just laying in the grass. In the area of Playas del Coco you will also find Playa Ocotal, an inviting beach with dark black volcanic sands and lighter tan sands near both ends of the beach. I can honestly say that for its ease of arrival and beauty, Playa Ocotal is one of my favorites. North of Playas del Coco is Playa Hermosa, a typical Guanacaste “cove” beach that is lined with some great beachfront bars, hotels and restaurants for varying budgets.

The Tamarindo area is well known for it’s surfing. Tamarindo itself is a great place to learn how to maneuver the board. This town has a plethora of hotels and restaurants, which makes for a comfortable travel experience and one of the best locations to make your home base if you are planning a surf adventure. Across Tamarindo’s estuary is Playa Grande, a faster surf break for more experienced surfers just like the locations south of Tamarindo like Playa Negra and Playa Avellanas (which means Hazelnut Beach in English).

Also in the area I recommend Playa Conchal and Playa Flamingo. Both of these beaches are known for consistently blue waters. Playa Flamingo is a small beach with a small resort type community nearby and Conchal is famous for its unique sand made of broken shells. Don’t worry about cutting your feet – these shells have been smoothed over the years.

Looking at Playa Flamingo from Playa Conchal

Hidden Gems of Northern Guanacaste

Then we arrive at the other end of the spectrum, the hidden gems littered along the volcano coastline. If you’re on your way to these beaches you should probably check your tire pressure and definitely have confidence in your 4x4 skills because these roads (if they qualify as such) are not for the faint of heart or those with lower back problems.

Playa Iguanita is located just 40 minutes from Liberia’s international airport on the road to Peninsula Papagayo Rt (253). After turning onto the dirt road where the sign indicates, the first 4 or 5 kilometers aren’t great but also aren’t terrible. Once you arrive at the downhill turn you may be in for a surprise. I have seen many small rental cars abandoned here over the years. But as long as you have your 4x4 you shouldn’t have much of a problem. Once to the bottom of the hill you will pass through a stream or two just before finally reaching Playa Iguanita, which is also a wildlife refuge (no fishing allowed). Most people’s favorite thing about this beach is how calm its waters tend to remain no matter what the open oceans conditions are. These waters are protected to the west by the Papagayo peninsula, which encloses the water into Bahia Culebra, which means Snake Bay. Though I’ve still never seen a snake at Playa Iguanita, the monkeys are abundant and the snorkeling can get very interesting. I have seen tiny neon blue fish, eagle rays and 10kg Pampano on the same trip!

Playa Cabuyal

Further north up Rt 253 you’ll also find Playa Cabuyal which is hands down one of the most beautiful beaches in the area. Playa Cabuyal’s road isn’t as bad as the road to Iguanita but the same rules apply. Cabuyal’s blue sea reaches out to touch the fine white sands, which are protected by the dry tropical forest. What a natural paradise! The southern end of Cabuyal is great for fishing, just near the entrance to the estuary. I have seen some really strange and beautiful birds near the end of the northern side.

Now we get to the really fun stuff, what about the beaches that not even your 4x4 can get to?

Some of the most sought after beaches are only accessible by boat! What a great day trip to travel the marvelous coast en route to these wild beaches where you are usually going to be the only humans in sight.

Playa Huevos is just a 25-minute boat ride from Playas del Coco and worth the trip anytime, but the real treasure is only accessible at low tide when you can explore a small sea cave that runs under the hillside and let’s you out the other side to a perspective of the rock formations and swirling tidal pools that would otherwise be extremely hard to view. Playa Huevos also has a nice trail that leads to a lookout on top of the hill.

Another area paradise is Playa Jicaro, which like Playa Iguanita is located in the Bahia Culebra and home to very calm pacific waters. Playa Jicaro was created by an old coral reef that is home to many pufferfish, triggerfish, sea stars and urchins. Bringing a hibachi and grilling to the sounds of parrots and monkeys has been an experience that I will never forget.

Northern Guanacaste has something for everyone

I’ve heard tourists say that they expected Costa Rica to be more natural and wild. My response to them is to do some research, leave the resort behind, prepare accordingly and enjoy some of the finest beaches in the world!

Share your Guanacaste experience below in the comments!

Recommended Tours in Guanacaste

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• Rafting Rio Tenorio
• Palo Verde Boat Tour
• Heliconias Hanging Bridges and Rain Forest Hike
• Rincon de la Vieja Guided Hike
• Santa Rosa National Park and Liberia City Tour
• Sensoria: Land of Senses
• Tamarindo Mangrove and Estuary Boat Tour
• Coastal Kayak and Snorkeling Tamarindo Bay
• Buena Vista Mega Combo Adventure
• Tropical Dry Forest Canopy Tour Papagayo

Learn more here or design your own!

The post Well Known Beaches and Hidden Gems of Northern Guanacaste appeared first on De la Pura Vida.

“Badass?” questioned the Costa Rican airport official, eyebrow raised, as he stopped my forward progress through security.

“Yes,” I replied with a sly smile.

“Wait here,” he said as he left to bring over more security personnel. They gathered around me and again asked “Badass? Seriously?”

“Yes, after the bull,” I replied and laughter broke out. They were reading my tiny dog’s international transport papers. I named her Malacrianza after an infamous bull in Costa Rica known for spearing human necks and whose name roughly translates to “badass.”

The airport officials passed Mali around, cooing “Malacrianza” through tears of laughter, then bid us blessings and farewells on our journey.

Mali does Costa Rica.

How could I leave a country full of such good-natured people? To return to a land in which airport officials search me every single time and the overhead announcement is full of threats?

At this point, I had already decided that I couldn’t really leave Costa Rica. But here I was, leaving Costa Rica. It’s like I set this plan into motion and couldn’t stop it.

BUT I’d been struggling with this decision for so long I owed it to myself to give the U.S. a try, right?

“You can always go back,” said every single person I ever burdened with my unbearable indecision.

Mali does Suburbia, USA.

Back in the US

“A process server just came by the house looking for you,” said my mom. I had been “home” just one day. What on earth could they want?

This brought back stressful memories of the prior year when a tenant thought she could break the lease and sue me to get her security deposit just because her brother was a lawyer. She had no case, but the bullying from her during that whole bureaucratic process took a toll on me.

You don’t even know how many times I’ve asked myself “Why can’t we all just get along?”

I thought about what to do. In the movies, when a process server is looking for you, you hide. I considered it, but I had no idea what I was hiding from. I had nothing to hide! I called her.

Wild cat sighting in the US.

“Wow it really is you then,” she said as she handed me the papers. Apparently I’m the only one who had ever called her back to schedule the serving.

The lawsuit was a mistake based on misinformation, but the city I grew up in was suing me for $110,000. Welcome home!

It took a month of bureaucratic work to dissolve the claim and I received many apologies, but my stress level increased nonetheless and I began to question what the heck was wrong with my people.

It felt like everyone was judging and all up in everyone else’s business, quick to jump into a fight. I couldn’t even drive somewhere without being judged with a horn for driving too fast, too slow, or for who knows what.

In Costa Rica, I learned to mind my own damn business, to stop finding things to complain about, and to instead find things to be happy about.

“Good morning, how’s it going?” I asked the Costa Rican caretaker who was cleaning up after a huge storm that crushed his house with a tree, broke our septic tank, and killed the power and water for days.

“Pura vida!” he replied, laughing, “We Ticos can be up to our necks in shit, but everything is still pura vida! It’s a beautiful day, there’s monkeys and birds, and I’m alive, well fed, and healthy.”

Wild cat sighting in Costa Rica. Puma!!!

SO, what did I have going for me in the US?

• Love and support from so many friends and family
• Shelter
• A fun old car that my uncle gave me
• Spinach in a box that’s already been picked off the vine and washed!
• 70mb of internet
• The fact that I wasn’t being sued for something real
• My health
• My grandmother
• A garage full of stuff that should be fun to go through …

I opened the garage and found everything was covered in mold. Everything.

I was in that garage night and day for weeks unpacking, cleaning, and organizing. I never wore a mask.

That is when the diarrhea began and my hair started falling out in clumps.

Driving on a highway in Costa Rica.

After a week of this, I went to a doctor who’s known me for 15 years.

“You’re stressed,” she said over my head through glazed over eyes and a disconnected voice. “Take Adderall to get everything done and Xanax to deal with the stress.”

This is a problem. It’s like there is so much pressure to get so much done in the U.S. that no one has the time to stop and think about what the heck the doctor is actually asking them to do.

I needed help, not pharmaceutical band-aids, but I obliged anyway. It’s easy.

I took the Adderall and cleaned out that garage in no time. My family was like “wow you have accomplished so much.” Yes, thanks to speed, determination, and creeps on Craigslist.

“Don’t use Craigslist, it’s not safe. Join ZIPIT,” said my girlfriends. “It’s trusted women selling to other women.”

I was not approved to join. Apparently, I’m not southern enough or married enough or knocked up enough or who knows what. Rejected.

So I sold a table on Craigslist to a guy who texted me later that he also wanted to buy my panties. What the heck happened to you, U.S.?

Just when I thought things were calming down, I got a letter from the IRS with a bill for $5,000. I’m one of very few expats I know who actually do their taxes, but I did them wrong. There is no A for effort with the IRS.

Driving on the highway to my hometown, USA.

Just when I thought my homecoming couldn’t get any more ridiculous, the weathermen started warning everyone “Be prepared folks, this is going to be a historic rain event. We can’t stress this enough, it is going to be ugly.”

A historic rain event? What the heck is that? I remembered weathermen from when I lived in the US – they were always dramatically forecasting storms that didn’t materialize. But a rain event? Are they kidding? I couldn’t roll my eyes hard enough.

There was no way South Carolina was going to have any kind of disaster worse than what I’d seen in Costa Rica. I’d never heard of rain being called an event. It was a part of life in Costa Rica. We just call it “rain.”

I went to bed that night under a dry sky, confident that I’d wake up the next morning to a normal day. Little did I know, my world was about to be shattered.

This was chapter 7 in my Leaving Costa Rica Saga. We are almost to the end, and a new beginning…  Subscribe here.

The post A Move, Tempestuous at Best, Back to the United States appeared first on De la Pura Vida.

The day after I put Mocha to sleep, I got a welcome invitation from Ben, the guy who managed the pirate shipwreck house on the beach in Santa Teresa. “Would you like to come live with me for a while? Heads up – the house has been condemned and is going to be torn down. I don’t know when, but they will assign a date any day now.”

Despite the impending termination of the proposal, I could think of no reason not to go back to live at the beach.

Although, my body became heavy with dread as I looked over my material possessions spread all over the floor. I felt like collapsing when I thought about having to pack up all my things into my car just days after I had unpacked it.

“You have too much stuff,” said Tiger.

Sick of the heavy burden, I gave her over half of it.

She seemed super pleased.

I was left with a car trunk full of crap and a couple suitcases and I shifted my focus to the complicated logistics of moving to the beach.

I couldn’t drive my car to Santa Teresa. I had to figure out where to store it along with my possessions I had left that I couldn’t carry on my back or roll behind me. I hadn’t worked all year, so my budget was as little as possible.

Ben had a solution. “Just call Sal. He knows someone for sure.”

Sal was his connection in San José who acted like a fixer for the wealthy gringos in Santa Teresa. Need 50 cases of champagne brought to you in the middle of the jungle for your birthday? Sal will do it. Need a tow and a new clutch after breaking down on the side of the highway? Sal will handle it. Need to store your car packed with your belongings in a garage where someone will drive it every once in a while so it stays healthy? Sal will find someone trustworthy to handle it.

Or so I thought. But I don’t find this out until much later in this story.

So car storage handled. Tiger loaded up with new-to-her clothes, art, and kitchen accessories. Mocha buried.

I was ready to move to the beach in Costa Rica. Again.

I felt lighter and looked forward to the ways in which being on the coast would help me process through Mocha’s death. The sand and salty air rejuvenates my skin. The rhythmic sounds of the waves crashing at night out my bedroom window gift me with deep restorative sleep. The sun and fresh greens feed my soul.

I arrived and within a week was bedridden with Dengue or Chikungunya.

I don’t know which one, but the symptoms are undeniable. The lab test in Santa Teresa cost $80. I didn’t have the budget to contribute to government statistics or the energy to leave the bed. Makes you think twice about how reliable that data is, huh?

After suffering a week, my roommates brought me some papaya leaf juice. All of us doubted it would do any good. I took a shot, passed out for a few hours, then woke up with enough energy to go downstairs and prepare food for myself. Huge accomplishment.

Papaya leaf juice really does cure Dengue symptoms. Bonus – I used it later when I was diagnosed with a debilitating fungal infection that I’m still treating. More on that later.

After the fever and recovery, life at the beach house in Santa Teresa evolved into a fantastic dirty paradise.

“Be careful, by entering this house you accept all liability,” warns Ben to all visitors.

I already mentioned the house was condemned. This meant that as things broke, they weren’t fixed.

Floorboards failed and left gaping holes and dangerous steps. Plants grew with abandon threatening to overgrow the house. Rain penetrated the failing roof. Termite poop dust fell on every surface including my face at night. Touching certain walls would result in a jolt from failing electrical wires.

Power would go out at the slightest storm.

The path to the beach was dangerous, laden with potential skull-cracking coconuts that would explode as they hit the ground throughout the day and night.

The town was in a drought and city water had been shut off. We had to order expensive dirty water from a company that delivered it in rickety dust-covered trucks. The rationing was so extreme that any violation of the house water rules would result in immediate expulsion from hippie shipwreck island.

I was sharing this house with 5 others. Competition to get a room was fierce. Despite all of its escalating problems, people couldn’t help but be enchanted by the powerful feng shui and good vibrations. As soon as anyone stepped into the house, their breath was taken away.

A typical day for me on hippie pirate shipwreck island was like this:

5:30 am – Wake and meditate with the rising sun.

6 am – Walk on the beach with my tiny dog Mali.

6:30 am – Teach private yoga lessons on the deck by the beach.

8:30 am – Breakfast cooked by my hot host who was a little too old and kind of a dick, but made playtime really fun and was a master of intriguing conversations.

10 am – Art and play time.

Noon – Lunch next door at the pirate hippie surfer man cave, cooked by my friend Laura who came from San Francisco to chef for a season.

2 pm – Art and play time.

3:30 pm – Sauna and cold plunge. Repeat. Repeat…

5 pm – Beach for sunset.

6 pm – Dinner cooked at home or next door, always a quaint social event.

7 pm – Movie or hanging out.

9 pm – Bed time.

I only left the house to walk on the beach or to go to the grocery store that was across the street. The long path through the jungle to the road sheltered us from the dusty coked up town of Santa Teresa and life really was like living on a secluded island.

I forgot about my troubles, I felt like I was home again. Then reality came calling.

“The date came in. The house is being torn down August 8.” said Ben.

“It’s time,” I thought.

I bought my ticket back to the US.

It felt wrong, but I had to see how it was. Could I live there again? Maybe it would be wonderful. More convenient? Easier? At least I wouldn’t have termite poop dust falling on my face every night.

With two suitcases and one tiny dog, I left Costa Rica. I had no idea the obstacles that awaited me in the United States.

This was chapter 6 in my Leaving Costa Rica Saga. Next up I arrive to the US to face one disaster after another. Don’t want to miss the update? Subscribe here.

The post Paradise is a Condemned House on the Beach in Costa Rica appeared first on De la Pura Vida.

While living in Costa Rica, I’ve met many people that do not have an online presence, but would rule the internet with their interesting stories. In this new series, I coerce them (hehe) into sharing their story with me in an expat interview.

My goal is to share a good story, break out of my introvert shell, give a more colorful profile of what makes an expat, and explore how wonderfully different and similar we are all.

Today’s expat interview is with Tiger. She is originally from The United States and has been living in Costa Rica for about 7 years.

Tiger was one of the first friends I made in Costa Rica. I just happened to be staying at her house for many major crises in my life, totally coincidental – the breakup with my Tico boyfriend, my sister’s near death experience, my dog’s death, and me getting violently ill. Geez, I hope one day Tiger gets to know the not-in-crisis Erin!

Before we get into talking about Costa Rica, can you tell us about your name?

My name is Tiger Baby.

It originally came from the flip side of an album by The Silver Convention “Fly Robin Fly.” The song was called Tiger Baby and it was a song I danced to at a bar called The Bare Affair in Fairbanks, Alaska.

When I moved to Japan to dance, I just kept using the same name until I was 28, at which time my manager told me that I was too old to be called Miss Baby and would henceforth be referred to as Tiger.

I want to hear more about that! We’ll come back to your time in Japan as a dancer, but first let’s hear about Costa Rica. How long have you been living in Costa Rica, and why did you move to Costa Rica?

I moved here in 2010. After my husband, Jim, passed I just didn’t want to work or live in San Francisco anymore. There were too many memories everywhere.

I was talking to my friend, who happened to be my hairdresser, at the time. He told me a story about his boss, the woman who owned the salon. She bought 27 hectares of land for a really low price 20 years earlier and was selling off parcels to all her friends and employees, somewhere in Nicoya.

He asked me if I wanted to split his hectare with him, so I decided to sell our house in San Franciscio and go check it out. It turned out to be super hot and humid and the land had no water or electricity so I passed on that, but liked Costa Rica and moved down to Mal Pais.

I didn’t really like Mal Pais.

It was so hot, so many bugs, nothing to do but surf and hang out on the beach and go watch sunset. I wanted to be closer to organic food markets, movies and theater, museums and shopping and my own place. So I looked on Craig’s list and found a woman renting a room in Escazú and went to check that out.

I liked Escazú, but she only had an opening for a week. There was another apartment in the building for rent and I decided to take it despite the fact that it had four bedrooms. I figured I could rent out the other three and that became my first Tiger’s Den.

How do you make your living in Costa Rica?

Tiger’s Den Bed and Breakfast

(Get a $42 credit towards your first $79+ booking on AirBnB with my special link: www.airbnb.com/c/emorris174)

No more room on the counter! A week’s worth of produce from the organic farmer’s market in Escazu, Costa Rica. Less than $20 spent!

What are the pros and cons of living in Costa Rica?

Well the pros are many. Great weather, land taxes are cheap, labor is cheap, fruits and veggies are cheap. I love my house and my yard, I love to cook and to entertain. All in all life is good.

On the con side, workers never show up when they say they will and sometimes it drives me crazy, but I figure that’s my problem, not Costa Rica’s.

I have made some good friends, and seem to have an uncanny knack for getting people visiting my B&B that enjoy my cooking, going to the farmers markets with me, going sightseeing, making art or just hanging out. So I’m not lonely. I’ve also been lucky in love and that’s helped a lot.

How do you define success

To me success is being able to wake up and go to sleep whenever I want.

To be free to pursue my love of art, mostly sculpture and ceramics and not have to do boring repetitive tasks if I don’t choose to.

To be able to take long hikes in the mountains with my dogs every day.

To have good food to cook and share and not to worry about money too much.

What do you fear?

Getting old and being a burden on someone. I want to stay healthy and independent.

If you were stranded on a deserted island, what three things would you have with you and why?

My lover.

My chefs knife.

And my music.

The feria, farmer’s market, in Escazu, Costa Rica.

Can you tell us more about your travels and time in Japan?

When I was a kid my dad flew a little two seater Cessna 150 to work. I got used to flying around, so hitchhiking around Puerto Rico and the Caribbean and the Dutch West Indies by airplane seemed like a natural thing to do.

When I was modeling lingerie in Puerto Rico, I met a guy on a scuba cruise who suggested we move to Alaska because we were both certified welders and could make lots of money. So I did.

When the pipeline in Alaska was coming to an end, I started dancing to keep the big bucks coming in.

One day a talent scout on his way back to Japan got snowed in in Alaska. He traveled to Fairbanks, caught my act, and offered me a job with a two months entertainment visa in Japan.

Did you take the job?

Yes, I jumped at the opportunity for several reasons – the money, an all expense paid trip to Japan including hotels, plus all meals and transportation. I kept secret the fact that my entire Japanese vocabulary consisted of only 5 words: geisha, samarai, sayonara, sushi, and harikari.

So off I went with my huge costume trunk and a baffling contract demanding I must be brond, and not brack eyed (blond and not black eyed).

What was your first day in Japan like?

When I arrived it was overwhelming to say the least. My agent picked me up at the airport and took me to register as a gaijin (foreigner) and to get a gaijin torokusho, which was a card with my picture and thumb print on it that I was required to have with me at all times.

By then I’d been up for more then 24 hours and was starting to feel the effects of the free booze on the flight, not much food, and everything around me being spoken in a language I had no comprehension of what so ever.

I was immediately taken to audition.

I had to change in a tiny Japanese style bathroom and was told I couldn’t wear my high heels because “no shoes indoors.” So my costume dragged 3″ too long. The stage was only about 3 feet wide. They all gathered around to watch me dance. I stripped in front of a bunch of men, who I assumed were all talking about me, to the radio playing awkward Japanese music.

Finally it was over. No one clapped, but Tad told me they were happy and I should go to bed because I had a 12-hour train ride first thing in the morning to Hokkaido.

They put me in a Japanese themed love hotel (rooms that were usually rented by the hour). It had a miniature Mt. Fuji with a slide going into the tub, big fluffy futons on a round panel that turned in circles, and it was surrounded on all sides and above by mirrors.

Were you on an entertainment visa the whole time?

No just 6  months – 3 2-month entertainment visas. When those expired, I got a student visa. I had to attend school 20 hours a week and keep a B average. I studied Japanese for 5 hours a day and danced at night.

A few years later I married my first Japanese husband and got a residential visa. I continued working and studying for about 12 years after I first arrived.

Where did you go after 12 years in Japan?

I went back to San Francisco, bought an apartment house, and started a company called Leo Tiger with my Japanese friend Leo. I rented a huge loft in Oakland and hired a bunch of people from Japan to make clothes. It’s a long story but that ended when I got robbed of a whole season’s merchandise and had to borrow money to pay my employees.

I then returned to Japan for another eight years and married a handsome young Japanese bodybuilder. I got him books on bodybuilding in English and translated them into Japanese for him. He started winning bodybuilding competitions and soon his friends wanted me to train them, too. That’s when I switched from teaching aerobics to being a personal trainer, which I continued when I returned to The States after hubby #2 got someone else pregnant and left me. Insert sad face.

That sucks. What was San Francisco like?

When I moved back to San Francisco, it was the beginning of the AIDS epidemic. I was a home health care nurse for most of my friends as they dropped like flies all around me. Insert face with tears.

In addition to nursing for PWA’S (people with AIDS), I was also a personal trainer, bartender, and I did lots of drinking and drugging to numb the pain and to try and have some fun despite all the death around me.

Enter Japanese husband #3 – a gay friend of mine who was my roommate and needed a green card. That lasted 2 years. He got a green card, I got my rent paid for two years. Win/win.

Finally, I settled down for about 15 years in San Francisco after another year of traveling. This time I was a translator for a nice Japanese man who had been a kamikaze pilot in World War II. (He was saved from flying to his death by Americans) He wanted to travel all over the world. That was fun for a year, but I got tired and longed for a real home and a real relationship.

So I returned to San Francisco where I tended bar at night and trained elite athletes and others at the Four Seasons during the day. I met my fourth husband, Jim, there.

Jim and I had some problems, but were basically very happy. One problem was that I wanted to get married and he didn’t. He finally proposed after 10 years and we were wed in a small, but beautiful ceremony attended by all our friends and family. We had an amazing honeymoon in Europe for six weeks. When we returned I went off to work for a couple of days. When I came back, I found him dead of a massive coronary heart attack. That was October 19, 2009. Our marriage was short, but we had a wonderful ten years together.

Shortly after, I moved to Costa Rica.

How has your experience in Costa Rica compared to your time in Japan?

My experiences in Japan and Costa Rica have differed in every way imaginable. I was really young in Puerto Rico and Japan. I was pretty crazy, too. By the time I arrived in Costa Rica, I had been through so much…I felt dead inside. I felt like I was just going through the motions of life, but not really expecting to ever feel joy again.

I’m glad to say my life was far from over, but it took me a while to fully come back to the living. Where Japan was crazy expensive, I was making crazy big money. I came to Costa Rica because I thought it was cheap and I was tired and felt beaten down, chewed up and spit out.

The differences are too many to mention, but just as an example:

• I flew to Hong Kong once a year, stayed in The Mandarin Hotel and shopped for a week, so I could SAVE money. Coffee cost $30.00 a cup in Tokyo.
• In Costa Rica, I take a big cart and shop until it’s full of fresh fruits and veggies and rarely spend more then $30 a week on food.
• In Japan, my friends called me ‘Miss Match’ because I had matching high heels and a purse for every dress I owned.
• In Costa Rica, I don’t bother to wear anything fancier then cut offs and a T-shirt and no one really cares or notices.

I’ve grown up a lot and I feel it as well as look it, but in many ways I still feel like that wide-eyed crazy kid, just looking for the next adventure.

Thanks for sharing your story, Tiger!

Tiger has 4 rooms for rent in the most conveniently located house in Escazú. I’ve actually been managing it for her for the past year while I write my tale of woe and self discovery from 2015. The house is huge, so even fully booked there is plenty of private space. It’s a cool house. Fantastic place to stay if you are in Costa Rica for dental tourism or maybe need a place to crash in the city for errands. Dentist offices, grocery stores, restaurants, and shopping are all within walking distance.

Get a $42 credit towards your first $79+ booking on AirBnB with my special link: www.airbnb.com/c/emorris174

The post Expat Interview: Tiger Baby appeared first on De la Pura Vida.

“Lay down on your back and put your hands on your belly,” says Devaya. She is preparing to do energy work on me to help me process through a devastating sadness.

She presses her thumb hard into the base of my skull and cups her other hand over my forehead. Tears streaming down my cheeks, near hyperventilating, I focus on my breath.

I breathe deep filling my stomach, ribs, chest. Hold it, then exhale stomach, ribs, chest. I repeat, feeling a calm spread throughout my body. I drift off.

I wake up and find myself in a big city like New York except everything is made out of an oily black goop like tar, but all the edges are razor sharp.

I’m stuck in place and cannot move. I don’t care. I think I want the colors to come back, but even the effort to imagine how to begin that process is too much. The thought flees.

After a long night of standing in the same dark spot and feeling numb, I see the sun cast a brown and oily first light as it creeps up in the distance. A few inches above the horizon, it sets again, giving up in the face of effort. Black raindrops fall from the black sky.

I sink deep into the earth. Cool rich brown soil packs tight against my body, holding me down. I’m not panicking, but I do have a casual desire to rise up out of the grave.

I feel an intense heat burn out of my hands, through my belly, and spread all over my body. My body pushes up through the soil, my temperature rising the higher I go, sweat escaping from every pour.

Out of the earth, I roll over to look back down and see I am floating above my dog, Mocha’s grave. Bright colors shine everywhere. I am Mocha. I am with Mocha. I am both.

Mocha was stuck in the ground, but didn’t understand what happened or why she was there. She needed me to set her free.

“Mocha you can pass on, it’s ok,” I tell her as we roll and fly around the backyard, playing.

“But I don’t want to,” she replies.

“What if you go and then come back to me in a puppy?” I ask her.

“I don’t know how,” she replies.

“Neither do I. Well, get into my heart,” I tell her.

She doesn’t fit. Out of ideas, she insists on staying, floating around Tiger’s backyard, but free to leave when she wants.

I wake up from the dream drenched in sweat and feel a sense of peace for the first time since Mocha died.

Yes, Mocha is gone.

I arrived late afternoon to Tiger’s house after moving from Uvita. Mocha was walking dramatically slower than usual and limping more, but I thought it was just a result of the cramped car ride.

When I woke up the next day, Mocha could not walk. She straightened one awkward weak leg at a time until she could hoist her body up. Then she crapped herself. She looked at me like she was mortified. She took a couple wobbly stilt-like steps towards the door and fell.

She did this all morning – trying to take herself outside, but falling and crapping herself in the bed instead.

She had a long history of hip problems, and a short history of occasional incontinence, but for the first time ever I had the idea in my head that this was it for Mocha. I laid with her all morning emotionally in disbelief of what logically needed to be done.

I offered her carrots, bacon, and bread. She didn’t want her favorite treats. She had a pleading in her eyes I had never seen before. It’s like she was telling me “it’s over.”

My friend, Tiger, walked into the room. “Erin, I don’t know how to say this, but have you thought about putting her down?” I burst out crying. I wasn’t the only one getting that vibe. My dog was suffering. I had to help her.

Tiger called the vet and two came over to assess the situation. “We can make her comfortable with drugs and keep her alive, but she is going to be bedridden, incontinent, and not happy. The most humane thing to do is to put her down.”

I laid with her as the vets hooked her little leg up to an IV. It was all happening way too fast. I worried about whether I forgot anything or if I needed to do anything. I wanted to scream STOP.

Her favorite tennis ball, stuffed squirrel, and fuzzy blanket were there. I hugged her, and stroked her saying “Good girl, good girl, good girl Mocha” keeping myself under control so she could pass in peace. I regretted not giving her more attention, I couldn’t believe this was the last time I had to show her affection.

She seemed gone. “Is she dead?” I asked the vets, feeling myself about to burst.

“Yes,” they confirmed. A long haunted wail escaped my body and I collapsed.

Tiger’s yard was very rocky and the hole we dug wasn’t deep enough. I sat there for an hour with Mocha’s lifeless body while someone else went and bought a bag of lye. I stroked her ears – they were always so soft like velvet or suede. They still were. I thought about cutting one off. I thought I was gross and crazy.

I placed her body into her grave with her favorite things: her tennis ball, stuffed squirrel, and fuzzy blanket. The vets covered her with a layer of lye, dirt, lye, dirt, until the hole was filled.

And just like that, Mocha was gone.

Goodbye Mocha. You were a good girl.

One of the stones that we dug up while excavating Mocha’s grave was the shape of a dog’s head. For the first time in years, I felt inspired to create real art again. I painted a doggie sugar skull on the rock and made Mocha a tombstone.

Mocha was 5 weeks old when I got her. A Rottweiler Pitt Bull mix rescued from a dog fighting farm, she was the runt of an unwanted litter.

Mocha was the cutest puppy! She chewed through everything, though. She was my first lesson in letting go of material possessions.

Mocha loved to play chase. She would run, I would run after her. She would laugh at me.

That time Mocha and I had the same hairstyle.

Mocha was always a good sport, just happy to be part of the fun, no matter how crazy the humans were being.

Mocha loved the beach!

Everyone wanted a photo of their baby with Mocha when she dressed like this.

Mocha taught Mali everything. Lucky me. Lucky Mali. We both miss her.

This was chapter 5 in my Leaving Costa Rica Saga. Next up I move to another beach in Costa Rica, the last stop before heading to disaster in the US. Subscribe here.

The post Goodbye Mocha appeared first on De la Pura Vida.

Uvita, Costa Rica is laaaaaid back. It’s not overdeveloped like a lot of the other beach towns. I think in part because beach access is tricky. There is so much protected national park in the South Pacific, that it’s hard to find a house to rent that is close to free beach access. There are ways around that, obviously, but they involve cheating or hiking down sketchy trails.

The non-internet-having oven I was in while living in Uvita was next to a trail that led to the beach. Sure it was riddled with crocodiles, too much mud, and mosquitos, but it was free and it was ours.

I would walk every morning with my roommate and the dogs down the muddy path through the jungle to our own private beach entrance. I saw only two other people on that beach the entire time I lived there – 1. a fisherman and 2. a police officer coming to check on a giant crocodile sighting.

Danger: Crocodiles!

Uvita isn’t deserted, though. I actually met more people there than I did in San Isidro de Heredia. There’s a healthy expat community, softball on Saturdays, delicious places to eat, and even the occasional nightlife. For travelers, there are plenty of opportunities to relax, play, or go on adventure travel tours.

There are many reasons to love Uvita, Costa Rica. Here are twelve:

1. The earth makes the shape of a whale’s tail on a coast with a huge population of whales.

There are so many whales in Uvita, it is actually the location for the Annual Whale and Dolphin Festival in September. It’s one of the most popular places to see whales and they’re in the area August – April (so not so much in May, June, July). Getting to Uvita is easy and it’s very accessible as the town is split in two by the Costanera Highway and the coastal side is 2wd friendly.

Home Sweet Home. Marino Ballena National Park, Uvita, Costa Rica from above. You can see why they call it The Whale’s Tail.

Looking back towards land from the Whale’s Tail in Marino Ballena National Park, Costa Rica.

2. Watching sunset from the Whale’s Tail during low tide is like being on another planet.

Watching sunset during low tide from the Whale’s Tail in Uvita is like watching it from a tiny island surrounded by water.

These rocks and all that sand are underwater during high tide. When the water recedes, all kinds of treasures are left behind. For looking, not taking! I’ve found feathers, shells, and turtle bones.

3. The beach looks like this.

Looking towards the Whale’s Tail and the shore of Marino Ballena National Park, Costa Rica.

Our backyard in Uvita, Costa Rica. That’s Nancy chasing her dog out in crocodile territory. :/

Bright colors popping out from everywhere on the beach in Costa Rica.

4. Less people, more animals.

Not that I’m antisocial or anything like that. To me, it just means less cars, less development, and more room for the people who are there to live in harmony with nature. There are actually more expats in Uvita than in San Isidro de Heredia. A lot more. Like a colony. And some of them play softball on Saturdays. Some play in the band with the town doctor.

These cows would walk over and focus an intense gaze on me everyday on my morning walk. In Uvita, I lost my appetite for red meat.

This road in Uvita leads to Marino Ballena National Park entrance. The cows are everywhere. So are a menagerie of brilliant birds, monkeys, and all types of jungle wildlife everywhere you look.

5. Sunsets on the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica are magnificent and different everyday.

Rich orange and black sunset in Marino Ballena National Park, Costa Rica

Sunset in Playa Hermosa, Costa Rica, which is a short drive north of Uvita and free to access.

Walking back to the entrance of Marino Ballena National Park after watching sunset from the Whale’s Tail. The distance doesn’t look so long from the air, but it’s quite a trek.

6. Palm trees and fresh coconut water everyday.

Lush vegetation lines the shore at Marino Ballena National Park, Costa Rica.

7. Waterfalls.

The Uvita Waterfall is super accessible from town, just a short walk down some stairs. It costs 1,000 Colones per person because it’s on private land. It’s small, but the waters are crisp and perfect for cooling down in the sweltering jungle heat.

Nauyaca Waterfall is the most impressive waterfall I’ve ever seen. It’s about thirty minutes up the mountain and then a five kilometer hike in, but it is so beautiful and huge that the trip is totally worth it. The first time I saw it, it took my breath away and I immediately forgot about the blazing hot, uncomfortable, mostly uphill rocky hike.

If you want to ride horses to the waterfall, you can book that tour here.

If you’re hiking, the Nauyaca check in office is on the side of the highway and the cost is $8. Bring plenty of water (it’s hot!) and snacks if you are the hangry type.

Looking at the enormous upper waterfall at Nauyaca Waterfall, Costa Rica. That rock in the foreground to the left of center is like the height of two people!

Looking down at the lower waterfall at Nauyaca Waterfalls, Costa Rica.

8. Abundant nature playgrounds to explore.

Playa Las Ventanas (Window Beach) is not far south of Uvita and has cool caves to explore. There are tons of different types of beaches with all manner of vegetation and rock formation.

Mali and un gordito at the entrance to an ocean cave at Playa Las Ventanas – one of the free beaches along the South Pacific coast of Costa Rica.

9. Endless entertainment for the dogs.

This environment can actually be dangerous for them, too. Lots of opportunities for snake bites, ticks, crocodile chomps, infections, tropical diseases, etc. At least they’re having fun!

Mali waits patiently to pounce on a critter who is totally aware that she is there.

10. A short hike or drive up the mountain for breathtaking views.

The mountains are close to the coast in Uvita and make excellent spots for sunset happy hour.

A bird’s eye view of Uvita is just a few short minutes drive up a mountain. Toucans were flying all around during this sunset.

11. Great places to stay.

There are many different options for all types of travelers. You need to decide whether you want to stay up in the mountains with fresh breezes and stunning views, or down near the coast where it can get hot but you’re closer to the beach. You need 4wd for the mountains. A 2wd might make it to some of these places, but it’s not going to be pretty.

There are a couple of places I recommend searching for house rentals. You can find an entire house on VRBO and sometimes AirBnB. AirBnB is also good for finding an inexpensive room in someone’s home.
VRBO: Vacation rentals starting as low as $55/night – book online today!
AirBnB: Use my special link for a $42 credit on your first trip

These are places I recommend (click the link to go to their website or to Trip Advisor for reviews and pricing):

Hostels:

Flutterby House – awesome atmosphere, very close to beach

Tucan Hotel – chill, near the Uvita Waterfall

Mid Range Hotels:

El Paraiso de Cristian – Close to beach, accessible by 2wd

Hotel Luz De Luna Uvita – Close to beach, accessible by 2wd

Oxygen Jungle Villas – Up in the mountains with amazing views, need 4wd. Special 10% discount for De la Pura Vida readers! Use promo code DELAPURAVIDA when booking with their system here. Copy and paste DELAPURAVIDA into the promotional code box at the top right above the listings and click apply to have the price automatically reduced.

TikiVillas Rainforest Lodge – Adults only, up in mountains with fantastic views, need 4wd

Luxury Villas and Hotels:

These are all in the mountains and you need 4wd to get there.

Rancho Pacifico

Kura Design Villas

Vista Celestial

12. Scrumptious places to eat.

There are some super delicious places to eat in Uvita:

• Wings and margaritas at Jolly Rogers
• The menu of the day at Flutterby House, sometimes the jungle juice hehe
• Envision pizza at La Luna Restaurant
• Sandwiches and Costa Rica craft beer at Roadshack, plus the occasional live music
• Tacos and friendly chats at the Taco Truck
• Donuts from GringO’s Donuts

Plus, thirty minutes south is Ojochal, which is a town full of top notch restaurants (and not much else) serving a variety of international food. It was a lot of fun going to a town in the middle of the jungle, and dining in a restaurant with an exotic luxury aesthetic.

Have you been to Uvita? What was your favorite experience there?

*Some of the links above are affiliate links which means I get a tiny percentage of the sale if you purchase through the link and it doesn’t cost you a cent more. It’s like giving me a free coffee. I only use affiliate links on products, services, or places that I would recommend regardless.

Uvita, Costa Rica, home of the Annual Whale and Dolphin Festival – the best place to see whales! Uvita is great for relaxing, eating out, exploring waterfalls and beaches, and going on adventure tours.

The post 12 Reasons to Love Uvita, Costa Rica + Travel Tips and 19 Photos appeared first on De la Pura Vida.

Because why the heck not. I mean, just look at that photo…

I showed up to my new home by the water’s edge in a tropical rainforest just before sunset. Amidst chattering birds and fluttering butterflies, Nancy ran out to greet me, “Hey! Whoa, I can’t believe how much stuff you still have… I can’t help you unpack, I’m too busy with work.” She ran back inside. I began the tedious task of unpacking a car stuffed with loose items.

One by one I stacked my things in my arms and carried them inside.

I felt a burning need to get everything out of the car. In Costa Rica, it’s just dumb to leave stuff in your car overnight and expect it to be there the next day. I didn’t know then that there wasn’t any traffic by our house. We were living in the middle of nowhere, on the edge of the world.

Our backyard in Uvita, Costa Rica.

“I can’t believe I’m hauling this crap around… but what if I need it later. Ugh don’t be so hard on yourself, it’s only one car full of stuff, but where am I going to put it??” I worry to myself as I swat a mosquito away from my face and wipe sweat from my brow.

I pulled out spatulas, hangers, almost-empty shampoo bottles. I carried it all inside to my room and stacked it on the floor.

The room had a double-sized bed with a cheap foam mattress and scratchy sheets, a wobbly bedside table, and a flickering dolphin lamp that served more as an art piece than a source of light. It had no closet or furniture beyond that. I had no furniture, either. My dogs did, though – they had beds.

The beach house was a sprawling hot box. Imagine a big dark barn, but it’s enclosed in mostly plastic construction materials with just one floor. It had one wall-mounted air conditioning unit near the top of the 20-foot ceiling that only teased us with the idea of cool air, but raised the electricity bill like it actually worked. It had 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a gigantic living room with uncomfortable 90-degree angled wooden furniture, an office/sauna, and a stark kitchen with a fridge that didn’t close all the way.

My new home lacked feng shui. When Nancy and I were looking for a place, our priority was air conditioning and internet. We didn’t ask if the air conditioning worked well or what was the speed of the internet. We didn’t realize that on the beach in Costa Rica, a nice breeze was more important.

This didn’t get us down, though. It was a quick walk to the edge of the water in one of the most beautiful places in the world – Marino Ballena National Park, aka The Whale’s Tail.

We shared the coast with cows, crocodiles, monkeys, and the occasional fisherman. We sat on the porch with our bird books and identified new birds everyday. The dogs were free to roam. Well, most of them. Grandma Mocha didn’t want to go on walks. The vet said she was OK, really old, but OK.

From one beach to another

While I was living in Uvita, I got a message from a friend in another small coastal town “hey Erin. We’re having a pigtails and mustache party this weekend, would you like to come?” Despite not knowing what that was and being eight hours away, I accepted the invitation. Seize the moment. Go with the flow.

Downtown Montezuma, Costa Rica, seen from the water taxi.

I took a tiny speed boat taxi alongside turtles and dolphins across the Gulf of Nicoya to Montezuma. After a scorching yellow school bus ride to the crossroads of Santa Teresa and a walk down the poop-smelling dusty main road, I got an ATV ride from my good friend Crystal to the most magical house I’ve ever stayed in.

“I told you words didn’t do it justice,” said Crystal, as she led me through a wooden door falling off its hinges. The whole house was artfully constructed from a gorgeous oily dark brown wood in various stages of disrepair and termite consumption. It was like stepping onto a shipwreck. A hippie pirate shipwreck.

Art covered the walls, seashells lined the beds in the gardens, and dream catchers spun in the breeze. A spiral staircase supported by tree trunks led up to a well-stocked library and yoga deck that overlooked the beach. Everyone had their own spacious round bedroom with tall hexagonal gazebo style roofs and cool salty ocean breezes.

The front of the house was open to the ocean and a small tropical garden. A river ran alongside the property. Beside it, there was a stone path leading under oversized jungle palms and hibiscus flowers to the beach just 10 meters away.

Like a Costa Rican version of Swiss Family Robinson.

“Watch your head,” came a voice from behind. “This is a dangerous zone here – the coconuts fall quite frequently and you wouldn’t survive a hit to the head.” I sped up and seconds later heard a crack like a cannon. I glanced back to see a fallen coconut rolling off the path, split wide open.

The condemned house had plenty of opportunities for injuries – from loose or missing floor boards, to falling coconuts, to scorpions, to tree roots called pichotes that grew spikes and speared feet.

Despite all that, I managed to avoid injury until I was walking out the door on my way home to Uvita.

“OH SHIT!” I exclaimed as the 90-pound dog, Diablo, ran around my ankle in a circle. The rope he was tethered to tightened, cinching my ankle. I threw my weight on the back of the wild Mexican mutt, thinking only “I have to stop him before the rope cuts my leg!”

His dad put him in a chokehold, saving me from a bite as I unwound the rope and revealed a raw ankle. I assessed it wasn’t serious and hustled to the bus.

The rope burn on my ankle was spotted with blood, covered in dirt, and I waded it through two filthy oceans getting on and off the water taxi. I didn’t think to clean it, though, before passing out after my long travel day.

Dumb.

“Nancy!” I screamed after waking up the next morning to a watermelon where my ankle used to be.

“What is that?!” she yelled when she saw my ankle. There was a gaping hole. I could see the white tissue inside my ankle.

“I think I need to go to the doctor, like now,” I replied. Nancy helped me to the town doctor, who also happened to be the town rock star.

“You have a nasty staph infection. Lay down on your stomach and pull your pants down,” he commanded, colorful tattoos peeking out from under his short-sleeved doctor’s coat.

I got enough shots in my butt to make it painful to sit, plus several weeks worth of antibiotic pills, cleansers, and follow-up appointments. There was no other alternative, and while the antibiotics were saving my ankle, they were killing my gut.

Mali dog playing in the caves that dot the shore at Playa Las Ventanas, near Uvita, Costa Rica.

A couple months later, it was time to leave Uvita. I had already pleaded with Nancy to extend our stay there an extra month. Time was up.

“Do I really want to go back to the US? Am I sabotaging my move?” I wondered as I shoved coffee mugs, pot holders, and old ill-fitting clothes into the nooks and crannies of my car. I wanted to leave it all behind.

During my time at the beach, I didn’t sell anything like I needed to. I had the car advertised for sale, but refused all offers thinking they were below low. I continued shoving things into the car, I felt like I had a duty to haul it all.

Driving back to the Central Valley, I looked over at my pups. Mali the Chihua-mutt was grinning up at me, happy to just be by my side. Mocha, however, didn’t look so good. She looked tired, too tired. She looked like I felt, done. I was too wrapped up in my own indecisions to notice that Mocha was trying to tell me something. After Uvita, I didn’t have a plan past staying with my friend Tiger for a few days. What was I going to do with a car and a car full of stuff? And two dogs?! When was I going to go back to the US? Why couldn’t I just get rid of everything? No one’s going to buy a used pot holder, come on.

This was chapter 3 in my Leaving Costa Rica Saga. Next up is a post about awesome Uvita followed by The Saddest Day I’ve Ever Had. Subscribe here.

The post Leaving Costa Rica, but First, a Move to the Beach appeared first on De la Pura Vida.

Ohhh Craigslist. Home to creeps and trolls, and also where I go sometimes to shop or find housing.

In my article, How to Find a Place to Live in Costa Rica, I talk about how it’s easier/better to find a place to rent by walking around and looking for physical “for rent” signs than it is to find something online. But I’m an introvert who is repulsed at the thought of calling a bunch of people, so I don’t follow my own advice.

So picture a poorly written, vague Craigslist ad with a blurry photo advertising a studio apartment in a town I’ve never been to in the middle of nowhere, and then picture me responding to it and suggesting a viewing day and time.

The response:

Hi erin,

I’ll call   to confirm our meeting  today, Friday at 1;30 pm,  main entrance

iglesia in san isidro ,heredia. If for some reason I can’t talk TO YOU ,

I’ll be waiting there in a big beige ford crown victoria. From the 90’s.

They look like new york taxis !! adrien

I was intrigued.

As I pass the bridge that marks the edge of San Pablo, the town at the base of the mountain, the road begins to narrow and wind upwards. Foliage thickens and greens multiply in a million different hues. Fuschias, yellows, oranges, purples – colors are popping out from all around and the sky blazes a more brilliant blue. The sun shines bright while the air cools and tiny moisture droplets hit my skin, invigorating all my senses.

The closer I get to San Isidro de Heredia, the more alive I feel.

Yellow flower tree, Corteza Amarilla – my favorite.

I pull up to the iglesia, church, and see the big beige Crown Vic occupied by a tall grinning older man with wild, disheveled white hair and a wrinkled threadbare button-up shirt blowing open in the breeze. He yells out of his window in a singsong voice “follow me!”

Wondering if I’m starring in an after school special or a Costa Rican version of Alice in Wonderland, I follow this scruffy stranger further up the mountain to a slipshod gate hidden behind towering bamboo, tropical corn plants, and cold climate evergreens. He opens the gate to reveal a modest property surrounded by a small stream with a few houses that look like they’ve been pieced together with leftover construction materials and pieces of art.

A turquoise crowned motmot is tick-tocking its tail on a branch over the trickling stream. Yellow and blue butterflies flutter by.

He leads me to the “small studio” from the ad. It is actually a tree house.

I was home.

The kitchen in my treehouse

Adrien was originally from Switzerland, but considered himself a man of the world because he’d lived in so many different places. He was an artist and under the influence of Mondrian (bright colors, geometric shapes), he had constructed all the houses on his property. They were not built to any building code for sounds structure, but rather to an outdoorsy artist code for aesthetic. I loved it.

I had hot water from a hot water heater in all the faucets, but I didn’t always have running water. I had a gorgeous view of the Costa Rican wildlife all around me, but no way to keep it out of my house. I had high speed internet, but I didn’t always have electricity.

Spiders would build webs on the ceiling at night. Birds would attack my windows at sunrise. Mice would sneak around my cabinets.

The view from the crapper, complete with soundtrack of bubbling brook and tropical chirping birds.

Besides being in a perfect climate living next door to my best friends, the thing I enjoyed most about my time in San Isidro were the daily challenges like dealing with leaks, figuring out how to live without running water, or fighting off an unwanted creature encroaching on my space.

We dealt with a lot of droughts, but when it rained, it rained hard.

I even enjoyed the time my dog Mocha disappeared.

Well, enjoyed it after the ordeal was over.

Mocha was always by my side and didn’t walk very well. One day she wasn’t there. I looked all over the property. Anxiety increasing, I started screaming her name “Mocha!” My neighbor, Alejandro, heard and came running “what’s the matter?” “I can’t find Mocha!” I’m scared because she could have easily hurt herself to the point that she couldn’t walk back to me, which meant I had to find her in the Costa Rican wilderness. I felt really small.

Then I hear her bark. It sounds like she is in the pasture next door. I run over the bridge and off the property to the farm next door and stop abruptly, the grass is shoulder height. “Ugh, ticks,” I’m thinking as I scream for Mocha again. She barks in response and this time it sounds like she is back on our property. I run back and can’t find her.

Disregarding my fear of ticks, I run back to the farm and push through the tall grass, following her barks. I come to the edge of the steep creek bank and I see her. She is on the edge of the water, barking, and trying to get back up the steep muddy wall on the opposite side.

I’m panicking a bit. The creek is narrow and sometimes water comes rushing down, raising the water level to way over Mocha’s head. I have to get her out of there before that happens or before she hurts herself trying to get out.

Alejandro and I come up with a plan. Since Mocha can’t walk well, much less climb a 30-foot wall of mud, I’m going to climb down and make her a harness out of her walking harness and a rope. Alejandro is going to pull her while I push her. All 70 pounds of her.

Did I mention that the creek also smells like poop? Before we execute our plan, Alejandro and I suit up in long sleeves and pants to protect ourselves from the poop, ticks, rusty barbed wire, and crazy plants growing all over. I wonder how I’m going to get out of the creek after we rescue Mocha.

I descend the mud wall into the creek with the drive of a madwoman rescuing her baby from under a car. “NO! GO AWAY!” I have to scream at Mali because she is scaling up and down the embankment and jumping all over me and Mocha, putting herself in the way. “Play time in the creek is AWESOME!” she says to me with her eyes. I fight off a fit of the giggles, trying to be very stern, while I eventually get Mali to leave us alone.

Mocha is smart, she knows I’m there to help and cooperates as I hook her into the harness contraption. I lose my grip on her slippery body half way up the bank. In slow motion, with panicked eyes and paws grasping at earth, Mocha slides back down the muddy bank. Mali jumps all over her, excited for more play time in the creek.

We got Mocha out on the second try. Alejandro and I had a weird rash for the next few days, I had sore muscles, but no one was hurt. That was a good day.

My time in San Isidro is filled with wonderful memories like that. The perfect climate, perfect friends. I highly recommend living in a ramshackle cabin in the Costa Rican mountains next to your best friends, at least long enough for some adventures.

Mocha and Mali on guard on the front porch of the treehouse.

With each earthquake, these stairs would get more and more shaky until one day we couldn’t use them anymore.

A perfect studio treehouse in Costa Rica.

Mali, my Costa Rican rescue mutt, having a blast out on the roof of my neighbor’s house.

Inside The Octagon studio apartment. This house was on the ground and that’s just dirt underneath the tile floor. I had to move here after an earthquake cracked the support beams under the treehouse and turned it into a jungle bounce house.

The church in San Isidro de Heredia always looked so pretty against the sky.

I would buy fresh-from-the-farm fruits and veggies at this shop everyday.

The town had 3 bars: La Tenampa strictly for the old guys, and Cool Bar and Las Vegas for everyone else.

Main Street, San Isidro de Heredia, Costa Rica

There was always blue sky somewhere, even on rainy days.

For over half the year, a rainbow would rise in the east as the sun set in the west.

The residential streets that climbed into the mountains surrounding downtown were littered with inspirational messages painted on wood. This one says “To be old and wise, first you must be young and stupid.”

The worst prison is a closed heart.

Sentiment about how ungratefulness is the worst defect because you don’t appreciate the efforts of those who came before you. Just a little light roadside reading.

Getting too close to a neighborhood bull with my sobrina.

My neighbors, family, at the Costa Rica Children’s Museum which is just 20 minutes down the mountain.

My neighbors, family, got creative at lunch everyday.

Bright colored plants grew everywhere like weeds.

Bugs were aplenty. Check out my photo essay on all the bugs and creatures here: https://www.delapuravida.com/2013/creatures-crept-through-my-house/

Mocha getting older, liked a good comforting cuddle puddle.

Ash from Turrialba Volcano looms over the cemetery in San Isidro de Heredia.

I left San Isidro just a few weeks after Turrialba Volcano started erupting on a regular basis. Volcanic ash is partly responsible for its beauty, but is deadly when it first comes out of the volcano. I also hear that a construction company tapped into the town’s water supply and they’ve been living on extreme rations. I hate that this beautiful town full of nice people is dealing with all this crap. I’m grateful to have lived there before it all happened, though.

Have you ever found a home in an unlikely place? Comment below, I want to know!

Thanks for reading my post about my perfect little Costa Rican mountain town, part of my Leaving Costa Rica series. Next week I write about my move to one of the most beautiful jungle beaches in the world, how not to find a house to rent at the beach in Costa Rica, and a dumb accident. Stay tuned, subscribe here.

The post Good Living: San Isidro de Heredia, Costa Rica appeared first on De la Pura Vida.