Well, as quiet as the jungle ever gets, with the sounds of beautiful music drifting through the humid air.
The clouds are building and parting, teasing us with the possibility of rain. Whether it will actually arrive tonight is anyone’s guess.
This morning, we heard the sheet of rain coming off the playa. It’s an unusual sound for the morning hours, and one that caught our attention. Chris and I were sitting with our coffee, talking about plans for the day, when suddenly there it was—a low roar growing louder as the heavy drops swept through the trees and hammered against the broad jungle leaves. For a few moments, the conversation gave way to the rain. Sometimes nature has something to say, and you just listen.
I’m getting pretty good at recognizing the bird calls. A year of using Merlin has helped me tuck those sounds away, one by one, until they’ve become familiar friends. Now I find myself drifting off, listening to each individual voice in the canopy. I can pick them out, recognize their songs, and follow the conversations unfolding all around me. There’s something deeply satisfying about realizing that a place you once heard as a wall of sound has slowly become a world of individual voices.
The end of October is here, and we’re nearing the beginning of the dry season, which usually means tourists begin arriving in numbers. And yet, our house has surprisingly few bookings.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think about that. This little home of ours is part of the life we’ve built here, and naturally, we want to share it. But for now, the calendar has more empty spaces than we’d hoped.
Meanwhile, the jungle carries on, completely indifferent to booking calendars and the ebb and flow of tourism.
And I’ll tell you what: it would be nice if it rained this afternoon.
The air is so heavy you can almost feel it resting on your skin. There’s none of the usual stirring that hints at an afternoon storm. No breeze whispering through the palms, no sudden rustling in the canopy, no distant rumble promising relief. Just stillness. Thick, motionless, jungle heat.
Even a walk around the house is enough to send huge droplets of sweat running down my neck and into my eyes. The kind of heat that makes you move a little slower, breathe a little deeper, and question why you thought walking outside was such a good idea in the first place.
And yet, there’s something about days like these.
When the air is still, the floral notes seem to rise from the gardens and the jungle around us. Fragrances that might otherwise go unnoticed drift past, delicate and almost intoxicating. You catch one, then another, and without even realizing it, you begin to breathe more deeply. More slowly.
You stop thinking about what needs to be done. You stop watching the clock. You simply exist in the moment.
The jungle has a way of doing that to you. Of asking you to slow down without ever saying a word. Of reminding you that life doesn’t always have to be measured in accomplishments, plans, or the things we’re waiting to happen.
Sometimes, it’s enough to sit with a cup of coffee, listen to the birds, feel the weight of the humid air, and let the afternoon unfold exactly as it will.
A peace settles over you, and time slows.
And somewhere in that stillness, between the scent of the flowers and the distant calls of the birds, you realize that this life has found its way into you.
Not just the place, but the rhythm of it.
The quiet. The heat. The waiting for rain.
And the beautiful, untamed world that carries on all around us.
I know I’ve said it before, but something has changed. Something deep inside me has shifted, taken root, and begun to grow in ways I’m only now beginning to understand.
Living in Costa Rica, surrounded by the endless, chaotic, magnificent spectacle of nature, has seeped into my very core.
The birds that announce the morning before the sun has even cleared the trees. The iguanas sprawled across warm branches, lizards darting through the undergrowth, insects conducting their nightly symphony, frogs calling out in the darkness, and, of course, the snakes that remind us we are sharing this land with creatures that have been here far longer than we have. And let’s not forget our favorite tree, NatGeo, standing watch over our little piece of paradise.
This isn’t nature viewed through a screen or admired from a comfortable distance. This is nature all around us, all the time. It creeps beneath our doors, climbs our trees, flies through our gardens, and occasionally reminds us that we are not nearly as much in charge as we might like to think.
Here, nature doesn’t ask permission to enter our lives. It simply does.
And somewhere along the way, I began to understand that this was exactly what I needed.
Walking barefoot in the sand, feeling the Pacific wash over my feet, or sinking my toes into the grass in our own backyard has grounded me in ways I am still uncovering. There is something ancient and instinctive about feeling the earth beneath your feet, about being present in a moment that requires nothing of you except that you experience it.
No agenda. No hurry. No need to be anywhere else.
Just me, the earth, and the extraordinary privilege of being alive.
There is something to be said for reconnecting with the natural world. Something that reaches beyond the mind and settles into the soul.
When we bought this house in our little village, close to the sea and sand, we both felt it. That inexplicable pull. That quiet knowing that this place was different.
For almost six years, we had roamed. We had lived a life without anchors, without a permanent address that meant home in the traditional sense. We collected experiences instead of possessions, memories instead of roots, and learned to be comfortable with the uncertainty of never quite knowing where we would be next.
And then we found this place.
A little home tucked into the lushness of the jungle, where the air hangs heavy with moisture, the afternoon skies gather into great dark clouds, and the rain comes down with a ferocity that makes you stop whatever you’re doing and simply listen.
Here, we could settle. Nest for a while. Nurture our souls in a place that felt less like a destination and more like a homecoming.
We didn’t know then just how deeply this place would change us.
Since 2019, so much of my journey has been inward. Years spent trying to understand the voices that haunted me, the fractured pieces of a life shaped by things a child should never have had to navigate. Learning to recognize the parts of myself that once kept me safe but eventually became part of a recurring cycle of destruction. Learning that survival mechanisms can outlive the dangers that created them.
It has been hard, painstaking work. Not the sort of transformation that happens in a weekend retreat or arrives wrapped in a tidy little package of enlightenment.
It has been messy. Uncomfortable. Sometimes heartbreaking.
But slowly, I began to find a way to live alongside those parts of myself rather than be ruled by them. To listen without surrendering. To understand without being pulled backward. To integrate what once felt impossible to reconcile.
Today, for the most part, those voices are quiet. They remain somewhere in the background, observers rather than directors, as I learn to experience life as it unfolds instead of reliving the past.
And here, in this wild, untamed corner of the world, something inside me has finally begun to settle.
Perhaps it is the rhythm of the tides, the moon pulling at the ocean, the daily arrival of rain clouds over the mountains. Perhaps it is the way the jungle refuses to be hurried, how everything grows, decays, transforms, and begins again without asking whether the timing is convenient.
Or perhaps it is simply the gift of being fully present in a place that demands your attention.
Because make no mistake. For all its beauty, life in the jungle is anything but tranquil.
From the outside, our life might look like paradise. A little house near the ocean. Tropical breezes, lush green mountains, colorful birds, and the soothing sound of waves rolling onto the shore.
But step into the middle of it, and you’ll discover that paradise is working its ass off just to stay alive.
The heat is relentless. The humidity wraps around you like a warm, wet blanket. Everything grows, crawls, bites, rots, or sprouts again before you’ve had time to catch your breath. The rain can turn a peaceful afternoon into a thundering spectacle of water, wind, and lightning that illuminates the entire sky.
And everywhere, life is fighting for its place.
Butterflies flutter through the garden, delicate wings catching the sunlight, while tiny hummingbirds dart past with astonishing speed, competing for nectar in a world where even the smallest creature must defend its share.
Iguanas bask in the trees, alert to the movements of snakes that are themselves hunting to survive.
Tiny sea turtles emerge from the sand and make their desperate dash toward the ocean, navigating a gauntlet of predators and obstacles before they ever reach the water. Those that make it face a whole new world of dangers, with no guarantees that they will ever return to the beach where their lives began.
Everywhere you look, something is growing, hunting, hiding, reproducing, adapting, or trying desperately not to become someone else’s dinner.
Every living thing is negotiating its existence.
Sunlight. Water. Food. Shelter. A patch of fertile ground. A safe place to ride out another torrential downpour.
There is no guarantee of tomorrow. No promise that being beautiful or small or strong will be enough.
And yet, life persists.
The jungle doesn’t stop to mourn what has been lost. It doesn’t apologize for the storm or question the arrival of another season. It absorbs, adapts, and carries on. Fallen leaves become nourishment. Dead branches make room for new growth. What ends becomes part of what begins.
There is a brutal honesty in that. A kind of beauty that has nothing to do with perfection and everything to do with persistence.
Here, living is dynamic. Challenging. Unpredictable. And profoundly fulfilling.
It reminds me that life was never meant to be static. That peace doesn’t necessarily mean the absence of struggle. Sometimes peace is learning to exist within the struggle without losing yourself to it.
I watch the jungle, and I see the same complicated dance that has played out inside me for years. Different parts competing for space. Old defenses responding to perceived danger. The constant work of adapting, finding balance, and learning when to fight and when to simply let things unfold.
And I realize that perhaps healing isn’t about making every part of life quiet.
Perhaps it’s about learning to live with the noise.
To recognize the storms for what they are. To understand that not every uncomfortable moment signals disaster. To trust that we can bend without breaking, change without losing ourselves, and find our footing even when the ground beneath us feels uncertain.
The jungle doesn’t promise an easy life.
Neither does healing.
But both offer something far more meaningful than ease.
They offer the opportunity to be fully alive.
This connection to nature has been with me since I was little. Somewhere along the way, through the years of growing up, surviving, traveling, and trying to make sense of the world, I lost pieces of that connection.
Or perhaps I simply forgot how deeply I needed it.
Now, surrounded by the living, breathing, untamed world of Costa Rica, I feel it again.
In the first birdcall of the morning.
In the earthy smell of wet soil after an afternoon storm.
In the thunder that rolls across the mountains and rattles the windows.
In the frogs that sing through the darkness, the insects that fill the night with their electric chorus, and the impossibly green world that seems to grow before my eyes.
In the feel of warm sand between my toes and the ocean washing away whatever I thought I needed to carry.
I find peace here. Not because life is simple, but because it is real. Because nothing in this jungle pretends to be anything other than what it is.
There is struggle, but there is also beauty.
There is uncertainty, but there is also wonder.
There is loss, but there is always the possibility of new growth.
And there is a profound comfort in knowing that I am not separate from any of it.
I am part of this great, messy, extraordinary web of life. Another living creature finding her place beneath the sun, learning to adapt, learning to grow, learning to simply be.
Maybe that’s what this natural progression has been all along.
Not becoming someone new, but returning to something I always knew.
That peace can be found in the simplest things.
That healing can happen in ways we don’t always recognize.
That we don’t have to control every moment to feel safe within it.
And that sometimes, the greatest gift we can give ourselves is the freedom to put our feet on the earth, open our senses to the world around us, and remember that we belong here, too.
Not as observers.
Not as visitors passing through.
But as living, breathing participants in this magnificent, relentless, ever-changing world.
The jungle doesn’t just surround me anymore. It lives in me.
And somewhere between the tides, the storms, the creatures, the chaos, and the quiet moments in our little backyard, I think I’ve finally found a little more of myself.
Grounded.
Calm.
Comforted.
And more ALIVE than I have felt in a very long time.
It’s been a little over a year since we made Costa Rica our full-time home, since we traded snow and seasons for the lushness of the Osa Peninsula and settled into our little piece of paradise in Uvita.
And living here—really living here, not just visiting—has brought a lot into focus about what it means to make a life in a foreign country.
Today, my heart is heavy.
There are days when paradise feels exactly like paradise. And then there are days when the cracks become impossible to ignore.
This morning, I opened my email to find an announcement from OsaInformacion about the opening of the new C-COT-type detention center being built here.
It literally made me sick.
It’s no secret how I feel about the regime that has taken control of so many aspects of life in the United States. And now, watching even the ideas and policies of that regime begin to reach into the political landscape here in Costa Rica is frightening.
I can’t help but wonder:
Who will they round up?What will be next?When does it become about us?Will there be quotas?Will fear become a tool here, too?Will the lawlessness and division we’ve watched consume so much of the United States find its way here?
I know Costa Rica is its own country. I know its politics, its problems, and its history are uniquely Costa Rican.
But I also know how quickly things can change.
And then there are the things happening right in our own sleepy little canton.
Four random drive-by shootings in less than two weeks.
Bandits in the National Marine Park beating and robbing tourists.
And turtle eggs being poached right under our noses, even as the dedicated people from the turtle rescue walk the beaches twice a day trying desperately to protect them.
They save two or three nests, and someone comes along and steals another.
It is infuriating.
Because all around us is the Costa Rica we fell in love with.
Bright-colored birds flashing through the trees. Huge iguanas sunning themselves. Monkeys swinging through the canopy. The ocean. The mountains. The rain. The thunder and lightning rolling across the jungle.
Our little paradise still exists.
But then there is the human factor.
And sometimes, that’s the hardest part.
And honestly?
Today, even the humidity has gotten to me.
We really believed we would adapt to it. We thought our bodies would eventually acclimate, that eventually we would stop noticing the relentless dampness hanging in the air.
But after more than a year, we still find ourselves thinking twice about going outside. Thinking about whether an event is worth getting drenched in sweat for. Looking for shade. Looking for air conditioning. Looking for somewhere—anywhere—where your skin doesn’t feel perpetually wet.
There is no escaping it.
Of course, there are the mountains.
But the mountains come with their own shortcomings.
So today I’m just beside myself.
Not because I suddenly hate Costa Rica.
I don’t.
Not because the year here has been a failure.
It hasn’t.
Quite the opposite.
This year has taught us more than we could have learned from a dozen vacations. It has shown us what we truly need, what we can live without, what we value, and what we are unwilling to compromise.
And maybe that’s the lesson.
Life deals us a hand of cards.
Sometimes we look at that hand and decide we simply don’t want to play it.
And that is one of the beautiful freedoms of retirement.
We don’t have to stay somewhere because we have to.
We don’t have to convince ourselves that something is working when it isn’t.
We don’t have to spend the rest of our lives defending a decision simply because we once made it.
We can change our minds.
We can pack our bags.
We can go.
The wanderlust that has driven us for so many years is still alive and kicking. Maybe even more so now.
And somewhere along this journey, we’ve learned something else:
Stuff is exactly that. Stuff.
Our house is our home because we made it our home.
Just like our two vans were homes.
Just like our “home in the hill” in Bountiful was a home.
The walls don’t make the home.
The address doesn’t make the home.
We do.
Our love, our memories, our laughter, our photographs, our ridiculous collections of things we’ve picked up along the way. The meals we cook. The music we play. The dogs underfoot. The stories we’ve accumulated.
That can be created anywhere.
So today, with a very heavy heart, I am beginning to pack up our little life.
Not because we failed.
Not because Costa Rica failed us.
But because sometimes you have to be honest enough to recognize when the life you’re living isn’t quite the life you want anymore.
And maybe that’s okay.
Maybe paradise isn’t a place.
Maybe it’s simply the place where the next chapter begins.
So here we go again.
Another chapter.Another road.Another adventure.
And somewhere out there, waiting for us, is the next place we’ll turn a building into a home.
It’s an absolutely stunning morning. A week before Christmas. The sun has risen above the mountains, drying out any hint of dampness left behind by the night’s rain. A slight breeze kisses my cheek, inviting me to awaken to the promise of this day. The soulful cry of the toucans drifts through the cool air, igniting joy in my heart and bringing a smile to my face. The day’s activities have already begun.
It’s been three months since we moved to Costa Rica. Every day brings something new – some good, some not so good – but everything offers a chance to learn. We are slowly settling in, and time slips away so easily here. Some days I sit quietly on the back patio, simply taking it all in. Other days are a flurry of activity – from Tai Chi and volunteering, to ferias and multiple shopping stops to gather what’s needed to prepare wonderful meals. And of course, there are beach days. It’s amazing how much time there is once you’ve stopped. Stopped working. Stopped traveling. Stopped worrying.
We move through phases of bliss and phases of WTF are we doing here?!
This is a country of mixed messages. There are moments of total chill – when everything flows effortlessly, without a hitch. And then there are the moments marked by a lack of urgency or commitment to show up on time…if at all. The Tico people are wonderful; there is simply no rush. You can plan your entire day and watch as not one thing unfolds as expected. By day’s end, you may realize you’ve waited and waited, yet nothing has gotten done. It’s frustrating – mostly when we compare life here to life in the States. Every choice carries consequences, both good and bad. This choice was ours.
Then there are the funnies. It’s a bright, sunny day and the power blinks on and off several times within a couple of hours. It’s pouring rain – the power blinks again. This week there’s a leak in this water main line or that one, so sorry, the water will be off for a few hours – not for lack of water, mind you, there’s plenty of that. Huge green Iguanas choose our back deck for make-out sessions, then cool off in the pool afterward. Tiny spiders float endlessly from thing to thing, leaving us to walk through their strands face-first. Each morning I dust every piece of outdoor furniture, trying to stay ahead of yesterday’s web trails. Geckos poop all over everything leaving little mouse poos with white dots looking like an explanation point – guess they are making a statement. And of course, there’s the ongoing adventure of asking and answering in Spanish.
I’m sitting here on my patio watching the rain come down—again. We’ve had a ton of rain since Hurricane Melissa first appeared as a blip in the Caribbean. It must be true that October is the rainiest month in Costa Rica. We’ve had over twenty inches of rain this week, and more is falling.
And let me tell you—it knows how to rain here. It’s never just a “passing shower.” Back in Utah, we’d call these “gully washers.” For example, our pool’s water level usually sits about six inches below the lip, but last night, after just two hours of rain, it reached the overflow drain. For the next four hours, the drain couldn’t keep up, so I had to pull the cover off to let the water escape before it spilled over. Our pool is about eighteen feet long and twelve feet wide. I’m no mathematician, but that’s a lot of water.
Why did I mention Melissa?
Part of learning to live in a new country is learning its weather. We don’t have regular TV here, so most of our information and alerts come through WhatsApp. I saw a question recently posed to a local meteorologist: “If the hurricane is in the Caribbean, why is the Pacific coast getting high tide surges and flooding—while it’s sunny on the Caribbean side?”
Here’s where it gets a little nerdy. A hurricane is a living, breathing, seething wonder of nature. It pulls energy from all around it—even thousands of miles away. Just off the Pacific coast of Central America sits the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), which holds an immense amount of humidity—a marine layer of warm, moist air. The hurricane literally pulls that ITCZ over the nearby countries, where it becomes supercharged by local weather patterns. The result? Torrential rain that can last all day.
During a “normal” rain, you can feel the humidity rising. The air gets heavy and oppressive. It’s no wonder everything here grows so fast, so big, and so green.
This week, we’ve also begun a new path toward better health—a change in diet, shifting old habits, and replacing them with more holistic practices. We’ve started giving back to our small community by volunteering and joining in the local energy and vibe. We’ve taken up Tai Chi, sound healing, and slow forms of yoga and breathing.
Today, I attended a “Morning Melt: Cacao and Devotional Singing Ceremony” at a local shop here in Uvita. There’s always some class or workshop on wellness, spirituality, or healing happening here. It’s about getting well—not just treating symptoms.
We eat fresh produce from the farmers market, grass-fed meats, and organic everything. We know where our food comes from—nothing is trucked in from far away. If it’s in season, we get it fresh. It all adds up to our main reason for moving here.
Here, in Costa Rica, we just might become young and spry again.
Plant a garden, walk on the beach, listen to the new sounds of our home, all of these gifts have been given to us in this transition. Change is for once, welcome in our lives. Days are filled with sun and rain, the yin and yang of the mother. Sometimes this all feels so enormous, and at other times, so quaint.
There’s a sense of anxiety, a little panic even, when we sit down at night, which comes early here, and look around at the little nest we are preparing for ourselves, realizing that we have stopped for a time. Longer than in the last 5+ years. Then we remind ourselves that this is not an ending, but a new beginning. A new jumping off point with a home to come back to.
Travel is in our blood, period. As I’ve said before, it keeps life new. It invigorates our souls. It inspires and challenges us. It is not always easy but always worth it! This little pause will be a time of rejuvenation, healing and relaxation. We’ve seen so much of our tiny world in the last few years of life on the road. We’ve been around the globe, in the Northern hemisphere mainly, dipping down to and just below the equator a time or two. It’s time to explore the southern hemisphere and indulge in all that this part of the world has to offer.
No, we are not done, not until we can no longer walk. Not until the breath no longer moves through us. Travel is in our blood, every inch and fiber of our beings. Even after this life expires, we will continue to travel on a different path. So stay tuned for more adventures. Laugh with us, cry with us, travel with us through our words and photos. Everyone is welcome!
In a world such as we live in, it’s easy to become enveloped in the haste, waste, and turmoil. We are often overloaded with sound, visual violence and opinions spread out on WiFi, TV and podcasts. Social media fans the flames of whatever you choose to search for.
We run around in belching cars and buses, squeeze into tubes of steel shot through tunnels underground like the voles we curse every spring. We jump into flimsy aluminum winged machines and are totally disconnected from the ground itself flung through the air to our next destination. We live in cement towers, scraping the sky, in little wooden boxes and climate controlled rooms. We walk on a foot of cement and steel below our feet. We wrap our feet in shoes and socks. Plug our ears with buds and bury our faces in our phones.
We live in a place that chooses to treat symptoms instead of sorting through to the root cause of our ‘dis-ease’.
STOP! Enough…we had to tell ourselves that this is not making us happy. We chose to become nomads.
Over the last 5 years of travel, we have learned so much. Seen so much. Encountered people and cultures that have enveloped us in their embrace. We’ve managed to become part of and welcomed into strangers’ lives. We’ve given back to the people and embraced new languages, customs and experiences. We have “family” all over the world. Our lives are so much fuller and complete. But…it’s time to stop and get grounded again. To kick off our shoes and walk in the sand, swim in the ocean and streams, become an observer of the life around us rather than being immersed in the doing. Costa Rica has won our hearts.
Seeing a beautiful bird fly through the air, hearing the myriad of sounds that subtly stimulate the senses. Watching Mother Nature unleash her fury in a place built to take it and shake it off like water on a ducks back. Being in a place so alive, where much of living is done outdoors in the abundance of nature that surrounds us. It’s deeply healing to finally be grounded. Surrounded by like minded souls that feed each other rather than take. A place of serenity and deep seated balance with the life around us. A place devoid of the negative stimulation we are so accustomed to.
I think we will find a new family here too. Awakening to a new way of life, new language, new sights and sounds. Not as a traveler or tourist, but a place to call home. Today, five years to the day we started our nomadic life, we settle down and ground ourselves in a new home in Uvita, Costa Rica.
Costa Rica has so much to give. Clean air, clean water, clean power, beautiful flora and fauna. Hell even some of the streets are paved in small towns. A country dedicated to wellness, environment and nature. A slower pace. People so friendly, my face hurts by the end of the day because everyone smiles! Everyone says hello and how are you, while standing still and waiting for your reply. There are no strangers here because once they notice your new, they want to help you in any way. Refreshing!
We woke up early, excited about the day. Being in Costa Rica opens up so many options for the days activities…or lack thereof. Today however, the exercising and yoga we’ve been doing, will come in handy.
We’ve been talking about going to one of the numerous waterfalls in the area, some easier to get to than others. Today we are going to support a local Tico, a soon to be neighbor. Her property hosts the Ojochal Waterfall, a 40’ cascade of water in 3 drops, surrounded by incredible green flora and huge rocks, heavy clad in thick moss, bromeliads, and orchids. It’s a narrow gorge cut deep in the volcanic rock surrounded by jungle. Prime to flash flooding and debris flow, Rio Tortuga, on a calm day can make you forget the outside world exists.
We were met by a sleek all black cat upon exiting the car. I greeted the woman that owned the property, in my best Spanish and paid the $6/pp to enter. She was a kind woman with a lovely home, tidy and clean. She was friendly and as always, shown a smile as big and bright as her heart.
It was a well maintained cinder block trail cut into the hillside, zig and zagging around huge ancient trees. A path that has probably been used for a few generations. The path was the beginning of the adventure, thick with moss and being absorbed back into the hillside jungle. Following close behind and playfully slinking along with us was the black cat. We arrived at the river level quickly and could soon here the crashing of the waterfalls.
The contrasts of incredible greens, heavy shadows, opposing fern covered cliffs, huge old growth trees and a torrent of white water snaking its way between boulders and rocky steps, accented by the filtered sunlight. The water is as pure as the landscape and refreshingly cool but not cold as a river in Utahs Uinta mountains would be. Best part… we had the whole place to ourselves, except for our new cat friend. He bounded around chasing butterflies and geckos. He danced over the rocks, floating from top to top and leaping into the air. He posted himself on the highest rock like a black panther protecting its young.
Being in this space was truly magical. The oneness with nature is felt deeply. The serenity and peace…just really can’t be put into words. It penetrates deeply into your being as you enter the water. A deep breath in a chaotic mind…release…
Another early morning. The torrential rains last night have cut down the humidity, for now. The birds are crying out to the world, its time to get up, in a cacophony of squeaks, chirps, screeches and sweet songs. The sun is climbing steadily up the backside of the jungle covered mountain in the background and the clouds are parting for her like sentient soldiers spreading a veil. A few pockets of mist cling to the verdant trees, adding eerie apparitions floating through the trees like water flowing around rocks in a river. There’s a hint of jasmine in the air.
The days are filled with a flurry of activity early, as the humans try to beat the heat and humidity of the coming day. We scurry about, doing chores, getting those last staples at the stores, running off to work, cleaning up whatever the rains brought down from the trees last night.
It’s a symbiotic relationship one develops with nature when living in Costa Rica. The fertile ground will grow anything and the jungle throws down a lot of things. Even we humans add to the growth with a seed tossed out while on a walk, an upset garbage can can be full of seeds from the copious amount of fruits and veggies we eat. Fresh and organic. There’s not much concern about spots and imperfections on our fruits, no dyes added to the fish or poultry. Beef is not a big thing here nor is cheese. Cheese, in all forms is a delicacy. Beef can run from tough to sublime depending on the region.
Fruits and veggies grow like weeds here. It’s not uncommon to find squash plants growing on the side of the road or in a vacant field that has become a natural compost. Fruit trees are ‘fruitful’ and multiply if left unchecked. Most of these accidental plants become food for the vast variety of wildlife here. Birds, amphibians, mammals small and large, and the insects, all enjoy the bounty.
Costa Rica is wild and wonderful. It’s harsh and gentle. It’s teaming with life. The vibe is one of calmness and a natural rhythm, a stasis between man and nature. A constant battle between water and land, plants and the tiny space one carves out to call home. A hidden world in the lush tropical forests and a world of wonderment. Someplace that we feel alive, small, and acknowledge the heavy weight of being a steward in a country with so much untamed beauty.
When one transitions from van life back to living behind the four walls of a house, believe it or not, it takes quite a bit of adjusting. One might say there’s a bit of separation anxiety or grief. Why do I say that? Perhaps it’s something that can only be understood by someone who has experienced living for more than a month in a custom van. Allow me to explain.
We first moved into “SleepyTurtle”, our self-built Ford Transit, in June of 2020. We transitioned from aprox. 6,000 sq ft to about 40. Now that in itself was actually easier than you’d think. See, living in a van opens up your “home” to all the outdoors. Don’t like the scenery…move. Don’t like the weather… drive to a new location. Your overhead boils down to fuel, both propane and petrol, camp spots, water (in some countries), food, insurance (health/car and travel), repairs and maintenance of your rig and of course connectivity, be it cellphone, internet/WiFi, or satellite radio. Simple.
Living in a van allows you freedom.
Living in a van allows you solitude.
Living in a van allows you to connect with nature and like-minded people. Simple people.
Living in a van there’s no agenda aside from what direction you’ll head, where will you spend Winter this year, Summer?
Living in a van makes you conscientious of trash production, water and power usage.
Nature becomes your front and back yards. Wether beach, mountain, lake or desert, it can all be yours for as long as you choose. Fancy another country for a few months, years? Go for it! You’re mobile!
In the last five years, we’ve owned and lived in 2 different vans. Each served a purpose geared to the trip ahead. “Willow” was built and enhanced for a trek to the Arctic Circle, Alaska, BC and Alberta Canada and finally South Dakota and all the way to the tip of Baja California Sur, Mexico. Willow performed like a champ and is now retired and will be put up for sale soon. We’ve now moved onto Costa Rica where we are AirBnBing it for the next while.
So, back to transitioning. We now reside back inside. I remember the first night back in a walled building. I lie awake listening to the hum of the electricity, the sound of water and flushing toilets. The hiss of central AC and heating units. I missed the silence.
There are the “comforts of home”, TV, WiFi (no longer isolated to brick and mortar), running water, a big fridge and ice cubes, climate control, clean hot showers, a plug on every wall, and beside every table and chair with an unlimited source of power. The price tag for such niceties is pricey and often requires a job or takes a big chunk out of the monthly budget, and takes a chunk of your freedom away. But every now and then, you feel the need to “nest”, meaning to settle down in one place for an extended period of time, or as Chris puts it, “a place to put your stuff…” of which we have little material things left.
I’m currently sitting in my air conditioned room, looking outside. It looks beautiful but I am in a city. There’s no seeking silence out there only in here, with the hum of the mini-split, running water and TV. The transition is tough. The freedom of the road or a “place to put our stuff” and call home? Not all exploration can be done in a van I guess. A new chapter has begun for the chicas.
