Situation Pura Vida

My dear friends all over the world, it’s a pleasure to tell you all that we arrived safe and sound in Costa Rica almost a month ago. The life of Pura Vida has started vibrantly and to make you understand more why we ended up here and what it looks like I’ll start with some explanations.

Situation Peninsula de Osa:
In the past few years, Zeph (my partner) has lived in Peninsula de Osa several times. He had met Steve four years ago, during his travels through South America with Melanie, his former girlfriend, and was invited to visit Steve’s house in Dos Brasos. Of course he did and the guys became good friends in the three weeks spend together.
In the year that followed Zeph moved to Chilli to start a restaurant with recreational activities in a little town called Cochihuaz. Unfortunately the path of life forced him to aboard his created success in those high mountains and he returned to Paris not really knowing what to do next.
Because of Zephs experience in business and building Steve emailed his friend to come to Peninsula de Osa to help him construct a restaurant with cabina's and a camping on his new, 17 acres, beach front property.
Zeph went for it and lived nine months with Steve on Playa Sombrero, between Puerto Jimenez and Matapalo.
The two guys first constructed a simple house for themselves and secondly a house for the employees. All constructions were made in bamboo and many people in the peninsula loved the look and material, so the idea developed to start a bamboo business. Sheds for storage were added and to build in the rainy season Zeph designed a huge workshop that got started just before he left.
At this point in time Steve met Mariela, a Tica (Costa Rican) architect, in San Jose. He fell madly in love and took action to get her to the peninsula to live with him.
So Zeph had lived on Playa Sombrero nine months and had to go back to Paris. Not for long though, only eight months later he returned to help more and this time live in Steve’s & Mariela’s house, still the house the two guys had build together. Mariela became specialized in bamboo and designed a new house for her and Steve. Construction for their new house and a pretty office started.
Zeph had only planned to stay three weeks but eventually stayed for four months. In those four months Zeph and I met here, in the peninsula (if you’d like to read the story go to: March 2007 and read: ‘Talk and Actions’) and our love story started where it has returned now.
It has been exactly one year since I came here first and I would have never expected that the house I met Zeph in one day would be ours.
Steve and Mariela moved to their new, beautiful, big house a week before we arrived and gave us the Ranchito to live in for free. So now they share their pretty property with their best friend and his partner.
Zephs best friend, Guillaume, is living with us too for at least three months, but if he likes the living and finds a way to support it, he might stay longer.
Zeph has many idea’s and needs to start brainstorming with Steve and Mariela very soon to see what projects can be started to make money. The idea of the restaurant has been aboarded, but many new ones are popping up every day. He is planning to stay here at least three years and is super joyful to really set up and have his own place after several years of hopping from travels to his parents place in Paris.

And me? Well, love has captured me sufficient so that my path is guided by it. I always say that home is not somewhere but with someone, but I have to admit that really settling down for several years in one spot is no music to my ears yet. So I have to bless myself with an understanding partner who planted his life in Central America where traveling is easy and cheap. It’s only a short flight to South America and not too long from now I indeed will go for a few months to explore roads over there. I have no doubt that Zeph and I will investigate a lot together too, besides that, as soon as we leave the property, life here is a real adventure in itself. Over time I will write more about living in the jungle, with extreme humidity, no doors or windows in your house and all the insects and animals. It’s an experience I would not want to miss for the life of me.

Love is a precious thing, for too long I’ve been taking it for granted; wrapped myself with given love and gave true, but selfish love to most of the world. There is a time for everything and your desire shapes a good deal of your path; if you really want something, you’ll get it (so be careful what you wish for). I know what I want at the moment and am fortunate that with the right attention everything is possible.

How to get to Playa Sombrero:

It's fantastic! After seven years traveling I finally have the opportunity to invite all the people I've met before to OUR house. Seriously, if anybody is in need of a good vacation, I recommend coming to Costa Rica for a few weeks to tour around with busses, your own bike or a rented car. And in between the activities a visit to the peninsula should be planned. You can relax here, or hike in beautiful Corcovado National Park (it has the biggest biodiversity in Costa Rica). We can beachcomb for days or drink cervesas at the local farmers market. Finally I can offer my shower as a fresh retreat, a comfortable bed for a good night sleep and home cooked food to start a long evening around the table, maybe followed by some games. Think about it, the option is there, I would love to see any of you.

Where I live is pretty far away from San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica, where most people will probably fly to. If you rent a car the drive to my house is about 400km, but will take you eight hours because of the roads. If you take public transport it will be a full day. There are two options to get to Puerto Jimenez, the first one is to take a direct, ten hour, bus, the last 32km unpaved. The other option is a direct, eight hours, bus to Golfito from where you take a Lancha (boat) for the last 20km to Puerto Jimenez. Of course you can take a little plane too.

Puerto Jimenez is a little tourist town with 7000 inhabitans. You can find most things anybody needs in a comfortable life, four little grocery-stores, little everything-stores, internet cafe's, a bank, a Gallo-mas-Gallo (fridges/stoves/matresses/etc), a building-supply-store, little tourist stores, several restaurants and a police station and post office. It's bustling with tourists and locals every day except Sunday. All around Jimenez there are many resorts and retreats; hidden in the jungle, all with beaches and in every prise range. Whole peninsula de Osa, and especialy along the coast, is taken over by foreiners, buying every piece of property possible. Everybody builds their own house, most live here only several months, few year round.

So along the southern side of the peninsula there is a very bumpy road. Many rivers cross and in the rainy season you're sometimes trapped between two. The maximum speed possible is 40km/h, so although it's only 44km to Carate, the end of the road and one of the entrances to Corcovado Nat. park, it will take you two hours to get there. Our house is 13km down this road and it's about a half hour drive. It's easy to get a safe ride with any passing car, or you can take a bus that leaves town two times a day. Just tell the busdriver to drop you off at Bamboo Steve.

So the five buildings and eight people plus one baby live on four acres of the total land Steve owns. The rest will be devided in lots and sold in the next years to induviduals.

The caretaker, his wife and their little son live in the first house you see when driving onto the property.

Next you will see big storage racks for the bamboo on your right with the new big workshop behind it. On your left you see the new office on top of a cement bodega (shed).

Then, you come to our house......

........hidden behind the Helicona's, the most common flower around here.

Looking the other way from our house, back to the sheds and office.

This is the same house seen from the other side, the side the house is open to, the side we live to.

The entrance of the house, towards the sheds and parkinglot.

There are three 'rooms' in the house: Guillaume's room,

The livingroom with kitchen,

And Zeph's and my bedroom.

From the livingroom.........

.........and our bedroom you can hear and kind of see the sea through the trees 200m away.

The compost toilet (with three people pooping we have to empty it every three weeks) and shower (we're lucky, we have a gass-heated shower besides the cold one, but 90% of the time you really want the cold one) are just off to the side on the edge of the property.

The house seen from the shower.

About 100m further (also accesable by a separate driveway), on the other side of this piece of property, is Steve & Mariela's new house with the same toilet and shower and a pretty garden in progress.

All of those constructions are in the first 100m of the land, after that there is nothing till the beach besides an open area where they constructed a Tiki-Bar, Stage, Camping platforms, a huge BBQ and electric and water connections for past and future parties.

In the far corner, overlooking the beach and sea, the guys build 'The Bench' or 'phonebooth' cause this is the only spot on the property where they can get mobile reception. It's a great place to sit, think and watch stars at night.

The beach that Steve owns is the first 300m on this photo (with the open sea to the South/East and Panama right across the bay to the East).......

.......... and this is what you see when looking into the other direction. You look into Golfo Dulce and towards Puerto Jimenez, a three hour walk along the beach away.

An ambiance photo from our house by night.

Ok Amigos, you have an idea where my head rests at night and my eyes open in the morning, where my body goes for a swim each day and my mind drifts away on the waves. You know how I found it, why I returned and why it will be a base for some time to come, now it's up to you to plan a visit.................