The Planting of A Costa Rican Seed

In my last post, I wrote about having too many options in my plan to to winter in Costa Rica.

Although I cannot finalize my decision until I actually get to Costa Rica, I have managed to prioritize my preferences.

This turned out to be a easier process than I had thought.

All I had to do was to connect each option with my reasons for going to Costa Rica...and bingo. The priorities easily fell into place.

A Vague Dream

Several reasons led to my decision to go to Costa Rica.

Way back when, when I graduated from school, I had a vague dream of living and working somewhere else.

Instead of pursuing that dream, I got involved in other pursuits...practising law, raising a family, earning a living and so forth.

Those aspects of my life worked out very well.

For the most part, I enjoyed practising law. Raising a family has been a real source of pride and joy.

As for earning a living...that is still very much a work in progress. I have been blessed with the ability to do many things well...but cursed with the lack of of resources to do exceptionally well at most of them.

Returning to Puerto Vallarta

In January, 2007 I went to Puerto Vallarta for a couple of weeks to visit a friend from the past.

I had been to PV before...but among the souvenirs I brought back was typhoid fever. Not good!!

However, this time in 'PV' or 'Vallarta' (as the locals call it), was quite a different experience.

For starters I came back healthy.

However, my long-ago dream of living and working somewhere else had be revived. I met many 'gringos'...non-locals...who were happily living and successfully working in PV.

I thought if they could live and work in a different country, so could I. But definitely not PV...somewhere else warm.

As so many of us do, I denied this dream and got on with other things.

Panama!!

In the summer of 2007 I happened to meet someone who was very excited about Panama, a neighbour of Costa Rica to the south.

He raved about the great opportunities available in Panama and suggested that 'if I was thinking about living and working somewhere warm' (which was in fact an idea tucked away at the back of my mind), I should consider Panama.

When I repeated this conversation to friend...who had a condo in Fort Lauderdale ...he told me that he had friend from Costa Rica, who as it turned out was staying with him in Toronto at the time.

The next thing I knew, I was chatting on the phone with Colin who runs Banana Azul on the Caribbean side of Costa Rica.

Although we started talking about Panama, it was only a matter of time until we started to talk about Costa Rica...and it sure sounded good.

A Low Cost Cruise

In the bleak mid-winter of 2008, I was sharing my thoughts about living some where warm...and the apparent attractiveness of Costa Rica with another friend, who worked for a travel company, specializing in cruises.

Some time later, he invited me to go on cruise with him.

He had found a really cheap fare on a 10-day Caribbean cruise, but it was based on double occupancy and invited me to be the other half of the double.

The clincher for me was a full-day stop in Costa Rica.

Like many people visiting Costa Rica for the first time, I fell in love with the country.

After leaving Costa Rica, we spent a day at sea, traveling to our next port of call...Cristobal, Panama, the port on the eastern end of the Panama Canal.

The Planting of A Seed

During this day, I spent a lot of time chatting with Patricia, another passenger, who as it turned out, had been in Cristobal before.

Several years before, she had taught English as a second language there.

During this conversation, Patricia suggested that I could probably “...teach business English in Costa Rica.”

The Costa Rican seed was planted...and planted in fertile soil.