TRAVEL | COSTA RICA | NOMAD LIFE

Touchdown in Costa Rica — Part Two

Arriving at the first housesitting job on our nomadic journey.

The view to our beach from the back veranda of the house that we were housesitting in. Photo Credit: Author

After a couple of weeks of moving around in Costa Rica, we were more than ready to settle into our two-month housesitting gig in Matapalo. We knew that Matapalo was a beachside town, and we knew that we wouldn’t be far from the beach, but we were really excited when we arrived at the house to find it RIGHT ON THE BEACH!

This is Part 2 of our arrival in Costa Rica and the beginning of our nomadic life in 2017. To read part one, click below.

Touchdown In Costa Rica — Part One

The first stop of our new nomadic life.

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The house was nestled back in some palm trees, but 100 yards from our veranda door and we were right out there playing in the waves. Not to mention the house was beautiful! Modern woodwork, a fully functioning kitchen, 2 bedrooms with bathrooms, a washing machine, and hot water! We were truly blessed to have landed in such a great spot.

The back veranda, the kitchen, and the living room. It was quite dark in the house during the day which kept it cool. Photo Credits: Author

We enjoyed sunsets every evening and took early morning and late afternoon walks with Omber, the dog we were taking care of, down the beach, and back. When the tide would go out, we were blessed with huge tidal flats that had nothing but perfect sand to walk on. It was stunning.

I’m sure this is one of the last undiscovered beaches in all of Costa Rica. We aren’t exactly sure of the reasons why, because it is truly breathtaking and full of wildlife, but there were hardly any people. It was magical.

Omber on the beach. It was so stunning when the tide went out. It was like walking on glass. Did I mention that this beach is 12km long!? Photo Credits: Author

There was a river estuary at the end of the beach that was closest to us, meaning that we could see tons of birdlife at any given moment of the day. It was in this part of our journey that Chris realized that he is a birder.

“Am I a birder now?” He asked me disdainfully one day.

“Yes, I would have to say so”, I told him.

To solidify his newfound love, he drew an amazing picture of some of his favorites in the area.

Drawing done by Chris DeCap. Posted with permission.

But it wasn’t just the birds that were amazing! Almost every day we had a troop of white capuchin monkeys that would come and play on the roof and chase all over the trees around the house, and we constantly heard iguanas falling out of the trees and landing on the roof.

At first, the loud noises on the roof would startle us, but we got used to it pretty quickly and would race outside to see what the commotion was about.

Our favorite visitor to the beach, though, was the sloths. There were numerous sloths that hung out in the surrounding trees, and we had many close encounters with them, including one that fell out of a tree on the neighbor's property, then walked all the way around our house before it found a new tree to climb up.

We saw many sloths in Matapalo. This Egret was hanging out in the estuary at the end of our beach. To see the sloth that fell out of the tree in a video, click here. Photo Credits: Author

About two weeks before our housesit was to end, we started lamenting that we didn’t want to leave. We weren’t ready yet. We had truly fallen in love with the area, and we felt that we were just starting to get into a routine and finding our groove in this new life.

Well, a couple of days after that discussion, we got word that a neighbor just down the beach, had to leave for unexpected circumstances. He had a small cabin rental with 2 units, and of course, he needed somebody to step in and manage it for a few days while he was away. He also had three dogs that had already taken a liking to us and would go with us on our walks when we took Omber out. In fact, quite often he would come over to our house looking for his dogs during the day, because they were all lounging right outside our gate, eagerly waiting for the next walk.

Obviously, we stepped up to the task, and after a few days of that, he told us that he wasn’t going to be back any time soon.

As our housesit was coming to a close, we told him that we could take over running his place for him when we were finished with the first one. We took care of both places in the interim, then moved into his place just before the 2018 New Year.

Our new view and some celebratory martinis! Photo Credits: Author

Because we were managing his cabina rental, he offered to pay us half of whatever income was brought in. He had a young Costa Rican lady that came and cooked breakfast for the guests, plus she cleaned the rooms and did the laundry.

It was a perfect scenario!

Not only did we have another free place to stay, but we were now also making money! Already, only 2 months into our new life, we were already in love with it.

We stayed at Matapalo Beach and managed the cabinas for another 2.5 months. At about the 4-month mark, we started to get antsy. I mean we were supposed to be traveling, and here we were, just sitting in this one place. Because of our responsibilities, we also hadn’t been able to leave for more than just a few hours, and we were eager to travel more and see more of the country.

We even had a produce delivery man, meaning that we barely had to go anywhere at all. A good and bad thing! Photo Credit: Author

Manolo was one of the dogs we cared for at the cabina rental. He would get very frightened when we would go swimming and would try and swim out to rescue us. He was pretty neurotic. It was so cute! Photo Credit: Author

We had also secured our next housesitting job in Nicaragua and started feeling like we should do some traveling before we settled back into one place again. The next housesit was for 4 months, and it was to start in May.

We announced our intention to the homeowner and he begged us to try and find a replacement for ourselves. We talked about it a few times and didn’t know how that was going to work. That is until a Canadian friend that we had made while in Costa Rica, came by with his friend to visit us. It just so happened that the friend, also from Canada, knew some of our friends from back home, as he is from the same area of the country. We bonded with him straight away.

He was in a transition phase as he was just coming back from a stint in Peru and needed to make some money before heading back to Canada. One thing led to the other, and this new friend jumped on the chance to take over this lucrative life that we had found for ourselves. We handed the keys over to him in mid-March, and we were on our way to a new adventure.

Thank you for reading! I will be posting continuing posts about our nomadic journey to fill in all the gaps. But I can’t say when that will happen for sure. When I do post the next part of the story, I will post the link in this space. Stay tuned:)

Hi there, we are 2 Canadians, Jill and Chris from Artistic Voyages. We have been nomadic since 2017 living in numerous different countries, and experiencing the life and diversity of our planet on the ground and firsthand. We have now been on the African continent for over 2 years! Join our adventure by hitting the links below! Subscribe to Medium to get full access to my writing plus thousands of others’!