Why not Costa Rica?

Those of us of a "certain" age remember the ads promising that one could "live like a king" in Costa Rica for only $400.00 a month. At one time that was true, and a lot of gringos bought into it and retired there. Costa Rica had a lot to offer back then, too. It was the most stable of the Central American countries. It had no military and still doesn't. The country was environmentally conscious and dedicated a lot of land to National Parks which was a wonderful thing. Costa Rica had an excellent educational system and a high rate of literacy not just for a Banana Republic but for anywhere in the world. It also didn't hurt for us guys that the women were as pretty as any you could find anywhere. It used to be said that the ugliest woman in Costa Rica was pretty and the prettiest were outstanding.

Back in the mid 70s while living in New Orleans there was a young man in my apartment building whose father had retired from the Air Force and had moved to Playas del Coco on the Pacific side along with three of his four sons, all whose first names began with the letter R: Roy, Ray, Richard and Rusty. Ray, Richard and Rusty had developed a thriving sport fishing business there, and they had all married Ticas. Roy, too, was marrying a Tica and when his brothers and their wives came to the Big Easy for his weddings I had no doubt about the beauty of the country's women.

At that time, though, I was over 20 years away from retirement age, but filed the information away and got on with life.

Fast forward to the mid 90s. I was living on my lovely little sailboat, Nancy Dawson, in Fort Lauderdale and working at a small boat yard only steps away from my dock. One hot, sticky day a client of ours came in to the office to cool down in the air conditioning for a bit and mentioned in an off-hand remark that he owned land in Costa Rica. This, of course, pricked my interest. Thorny said that he owned a teak plantation that the government paid him not to cut down as well as some 50 acres of land right on the beach south of Quepos on the Pacific coast that he was looking to sell.

Later that day I dropped in on another marina resident, Mark, that I knew who had business interests in the country and told him about Thorny's land.

Mark said he knew of a small group of businessmen from New Jersey who were looking for some land in Costa Rica where they could build a hotel and casino and he was certain they'd be interested in getting more information and that perhaps we could put together a deal and make a little something for putting the two parties together. It was only a couple of days later when Thorny made another appearance at the yard and I asked him if he had any photos or information about the land he wanted to sell and that I might be able to hook him up with a potential buyer.

He expressed his regret that he had nothing at hand and was not scheduled to go down to Costa Rica for several more months. I questioned him about how seriously he wanted to unload the property and he said he really wanted to divest himself ASAP if he could get the right price and realized that not having pictures, etc. was a real drawback. I said, "why don't you send me down there and I'll get pictures and put together a presentation for those potential investors." I explained to him that I hadn't always worked at jobs where I was covered in dirt and dust and that I had, in fact, been a magazine editor and public relations director of a large hospital here in Fort Lauderdale.

Thorny liked the idea and we worked out an agreement. He would pay for my flight down to Costa Rica and if the deal came to fruition he would pay me $25,000.00 as a finder's fee and cut off an acre for me. Sounded good. Put the money in the bank and let it sit for the next 15 years while waiting to reitre and then go down, build my little retirement bungalow and be set for the rest of my life.

Mark was scheduled to go down to San Jose in a couple of weeks and we agreed to fly down together. He also had a part-interest in a hotel/bar in the city and so the only money we'd have to spend was when we flew to Quepos to look at Thorny's property which we did on the third day in the country. On the way from the small Quepos airport to a nice clean and brand new hotel hard up against Park National Manuel Antonio we made arrangements for the cab driver to pick us up the next morning and take us to Thorny's property.

The drive to Thorny's beach took us through the center of the Panama Jack palm plantation where the majority of the coconut oil for Jack's sun tan lotion came from. When we got out of the cab and stepped onto the beach my breath was taken away. It is, to this day, one of the three most beautiful places I've ever been in my life. (The other two are the haute corniche between Monaco and Nice in France and the gorge of the Rio Dulce in Guatemala) As far north and south as the eye could see there wasn't a footprint in the sand. Huge driftwood trees were scattered along the tide line. Perfect waves for surfing broke a considerable way off the beach and several islands dotted the near horizon. I snapped several rolls of film and then we were back up to Quepos just in time to catch the last flight of the day back to San Jose.

I've never been real crazy about flying, especially after landing in Providence, Rhode Island back in '61 in a blinding snow storm and one of the engines not working. This is back in the prop plane days and I could see the one engine just sitting there on the wing outside my window. In Quepos I got my first tast of Bush Flying. The small twin-engine prop plane sat at the very end of the runway with the tail in the bushes. The pilot revved the engines to the redline until the whole plane shook so hard I was waiting for parts to fall off before releasing the brakes and off we went into the wild blue yonder.

We spent another two days having fun in San Jose and then returned to Fort Lauderdale. I spent the next two weeks putting a presentation together. This was pre-PowerPoint days so I had photos blown up and pasted on poster board and put together a nice prospectus.
Then Thorny, Mark and I made out pitch to his guys from New Jersey. Actually the meeting didn't last much past the introductions. They potential investors took one look at the photos and said: "Black sand? We don't want black sand!"

"ut Central America is all volcanic and all the sand is black."
"We don't want black sand."

"Well, import some white sand" I wanted to scream as I saw my comfortable retirement going down in flames right before my eyes. But all our talk was in vain.

I don't know if Thorny ever sold that land since the yard closed shortly after that and I was back out on the job market. All I do know is that there won't be a Tica on my retirement agenda.

And today there are so many gringos in Costa Rica that with the exception of a terrific meal at a restaurant you might as well be in the States.