wildlife – Two Travelin' Chicas…

A Heavy Heart

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.

Pure Pura Vida

It’s another early morning in Costa Rica, only this time on the Caribbean side.

We drove nearly ten hours over two days to get here, winding our way through the pouring rain and over Cerro de la Muerte—one of the many steep, mountainous roads that carve through the country’s interior. It’s a route notorious for mudslides, fallen trees, and deadly crashes. Massive eighteen-wheelers barrel around blind curves, often straddling the center line, leaving little room for oncoming traffic. It is, to put it mildly, a nail-biter.

Still, we arrived safe and sound around four in the afternoon, just before darkness settled in.

Over the last few days, we’ve been exploring Costa Rica’s southern Caribbean coastline. We kayaked along a swollen mangrove river teeming with life, drifting quietly beneath overhanging branches while birds called from the canopy above. After nearly a year of living here, we’ve begun to notice the things most tourists miss. We’ve trekked through rainforests, wandered coastal jungles, and learned that sometimes the greatest lessons come from simply sitting still. Even our own backyard has become a classroom, revealing new creatures and rhythms of life we once overlooked.

Our first night in the condo brought a torrential downpour so intense it sounded as though we had been transported beneath a roaring waterfall. Lying in bed, we were convinced we’d wake to find the first floor submerged beneath muddy floodwaters. But Costa Rica has a remarkable way of absorbing what the sky delivers. By dawn, the water had vanished, as if the earth itself had quietly sorted everything out while we slept.

We’ve spent our days bobbing in the Caribbean Sea. The waves here are gentle, lazily lapping against the shore. The water is warm and welcoming, inviting you to linger a little longer. The beaches themselves are often just a narrow ribbon of sand pressed between the sea and the jungle, which tumbles right to the water’s edge. The guttural chorus of howler monkeys echoes through the trees while macaws and other tropical birds flash overhead in bursts of color and sound.

The Caribbean side of Costa Rica moves to a different rhythm. Influenced by Jamaican and Afro-Caribbean culture, the atmosphere here feels distinct from the rest of the country. Many homes are simple, single-story cement structures with glassless windows, loosely fitting doors, and corrugated tin roofs that magnify the seasonal rains. During a proper rainstorm, conversation becomes nearly impossible. You simply sit in companionable silence while the rain does all the talking.

The people, too, embody a different kind of ease. They are warm, kind, and wonderfully laid-back. Here, pura vida takes on an even deeper meaning. It’s a greeting, a farewell, an expression of gratitude, and a wish for someone to enjoy the moment. Spoken with fervor and accompanied by a genuine smile, it feels less like a phrase and more like a way of being.

Today, a few friends are making the drive to join us, and tomorrow, a couple more will arrive. As I sit here listening to the morning awaken around me, I can’t help but think what a perfect place this is to gather—with good friends, warm seas, and the untamed beauty of Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast all around us.

And in the end–Patagonia

And so we arrive at the quiet terminus of our northward journey—not with a grand finale, but with that soft, reflective stillness that comes when something beautiful has run its course.

What began on the Futaleufú River–unfolded into 875 kilometers of winding roads and wonder along the Carretera Austral, carrying us south to Puerto Río Tranquilo and then gently back north to Puerto Varas. But distance feels like such a small measure now. What we gathered along the way cannot be mapped in kilometers.

There were days when the sun broke through, spilling gold across jagged peaks and glacial rivers so impossibly turquoise they felt imagined. And then there were the rains—the long, steady Patagonian rains that blurred the edges of the world and pulled us inward. Yet even then, especially then, the landscape held its magic. Mist clung to the mountains like breath, waterfalls awakened everywhere at once, and the road ahead felt like a secret slowly revealing itself.

We were not without our small missteps—a tire with its slow leak interrupted our plans—but even that became part of the story. It led us, unexpectedly, into the warmth and generosity of strangers, into shared laughter and gestures that needed no translation. In those moments, Chile revealed itself not just in its landscapes, but in its people.

The road demanded something of us. It was good, yes—but never easy. It asked for patience, attention, humility. And in return, it offered glimpses into a life shaped by resilience. The places we stayed—simple, weathered, full of character—felt like quiet witnesses to generations who carved out existence in this wild and beautiful edge of the world.

We stumbled through Spanish, sometimes clumsily, sometimes triumphantly, and in doing so found connection. We met people who, for a moment, became part of our story. Some will remain only as flickers in memory—a shared meal, a passing conversation, a smile exchanged on the roadside. Others… perhaps we will meet again, somewhere unexpected, as travelers do.

Because that is the quiet truth we carry with us now—the world, vast as it seems, has a way of folding in on itself. Paths cross. Stories intertwine. And somewhere down another road, in another country, a familiar face may appear again like a gift.

And so we leave this stretch of Patagonia not as we arrived, but fuller—of wonder, of gratitude, of moments that will live on in the hidden corners of our minds and as a steady glow in our hearts.