Why Costa Rica?

Costa Rica is a democratic, peace-loving nation located in a beautiful tropical setting in Central America. Its citizens have set aside approximately 25% of the land as nature preserves. It has no army and spends more on education than it does on national defense.

I first arrived here as a Peace Corp volunteer in 1968. It didn't take long for me to fall in love with the country, particularly the Meseta Central. My assigned location was not in the Meseta, however. It was La Cuesta, a village of 500 people (that was about 120 adults and 380 children) sandwiched between the United Fruit Co. banana plantations at Laurel and the Panamanian border at Paso Canoas (where the InterAmerican Highway crosses). At that time La Cuesta was poor and primitive, with no running water, and the only electricity came from a small generator that provided current to light the local bar, and (most importantly) to run the jukebox (la rockola). The generator ran from sundown till 9 p.m. most nights, and until midnight on Saturday. La Cuesta was hot and flat, muddy most of the year, and dusty for a few months in the dry season. There were about a half dozen cars and trucks. Everyone else walked, or rode a horse or bicycle. La Cuesta got 150 inches of rain a year, which came mostly in torrential downpours in the afternoon. Despite the heat and mud, I loved the rural lifestyle, the forest and the farms, and quickly became endeared to the country folk (campesinos). I fell in love with the first grade school teacher, Maria Ramirez Mora, from San Rafael de Heredia, in the highlands. After a brief courtship we were married in her hometown.

Through Maria I got to know the highland area. San Rafael was, and still is, a coffee growing area. It was much more modern than La Cuesta, and was a lot cooler and less rainy too. That's when I got the idea of staying and living in Costa Rica. But I had no money and no clue about how I might make a livelihood here. I extended my Peace Corp service for a year and then Maria and I moved back to the States.

I dreamed about going back to Costa Rica someday, but continued to follow my new career as an academic librarian. Maria was adamantly opposed to moving back, so I kept my thoughts mostly to myself.  For a five year period (1997 - 2001) my brother Tom and I led an annual hiking tour of Costa Rica for the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club. This really got me thinking (and plotting) about returning to Costa Rica someday.

In 2006 I finally convinced Maria to move back. I would be retiring in a few years, so I didn't need to start a business, although we did give serious thought to running a bed and breakfast. The first question was, where? We both agreed that it was nice to visit the beach once in a while, but we didn't like hot weather, so that ruled that out (plus, we couldn't afford beach-front property, which is quite expensive in Costa Rica). We wanted to live near her family (she had ten brothers and sisters at the time) and did not want to live in the city. We agreed on Concepcion, a rural section of San Rafael.

I had visited Concepcion a couple of times, but under adverse circumstances (once at night and the other time in a rainstorm). In 1999 I saw it in the best possible light, and fell in love with it. Our tour group was staying in a lodge high on the side of Barva Volcano, and from there we were going to drive to Puerto Viejo de Talamanca on the Caribbean coast. I was bemoaning the fact that we would have to go through San Jose (which I LOATHED) to one of my brothers-in-law, when he said, "You don't have to go through San Jose. You can take a shortcut through San Rafael and then through a village called Concepcion." The day we did the drive was one of those blissfully beautiful days -- sunny, warm, breezy with little white puffy clouds just above our heads. We drove over rolling green hills, Barva Volcano towering above us to the left and the Meseta Central and the capital San Jose far below us to the right. We passed cute, colorful farm houses stuck amid coffee plantations, cow pastures, and well-tended vegetable gardens. Tropical flowers were blooming everywhere. Then we came to the village square -- a Catholic church, a pub, soccer field, one small store, and the schoolhouse. It reminded me of a village in Ireland. The only differences were, here the people spoke Spanish and, instead of drinking Guinness, they drank rum. It was then and there that I decided that, gee, this would be a really nice place to retire to.

Happy gardening.