I swear, I WILL get to more relevant topics about Costa Rica that you the reader actually care about, but just need to finish up the story of how we got here and decided to stay. Bare with me-We moved right into the resort we're part owners in- Palo Verde Resort (pic on the right). It's sits almost at the base of Volcan Arenal in La Fortuna and comes with stunning views, and is surrounded by lush vegetation and howler monkeys- we're so excited to jump into our new life. So, we end up making a contract for us to manage the place. The major share holder, the guy I met in Vegas, had been running the place, and how do I put this delicately- he is not the manager type, but he seemed aware that this was the case. Without complaining, whining, or saying how we were deceived, I'll just say- things didn't work out. Luckily it only took us about 4 months to realize we were basically deceived and somewhat manipulated- I did in fact trust him and did think we were friends, so I did believe what he told me. The positive part about this story is our investment into the place and the buying of the land was actually a great deal for us. To this day we still own a 'piece' of Palo Verde, a quarter acre lot and its still a great investment. We just don't have anything really to do with it. Tensions had gotten so bad, we had to leave the resort (which we wanted to do). But this was a big shift, we didn't really have an option B. We had sold everything to make this happen........
Now what? Dreams crushed? Do we move back to the States with our tails between our legs? I think not and actually it was never an option- that was almost 3 years ago. We moved to the center of La Fortuna, right next to the park. We have a small apartment overlooking the park- and it's great. But what do we do now as we are not wealthy and we need to make money. I'll get to that later....
What't this mean to YOU? In your decision to make a major move, you really do need an option B, C, D, and probably an E just to be on the safe side. Things don't always work out as planned, especially here, where you run into A LOT of unanticiapted obstacles- especially in the areas of shading gringos, shady investments, shady tico's looking to take advantage (gringo pricing), and just plain bad information that could not have been foreseen. Looking back I'm not sure I would have done anything different, like I said, the investment was sound and it wasn't a 'shady' deal- and I really thought we were kindered spirits of sorts. But the BEST part- I (we) live in Costa Rica and I (we) wouldn't have it any other way.
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