By Sandra Kahale
If you’ve been following Dive Logz you’ll know that we recently spent a few weeks in Costa Rica on a Dive Logz work-ation. Dive Logz is a family business, so that kind of thing is easy for us to do. As it happens, our intern, Jolene, has just finished university, and was free to come along. So, we gathered our troops, our scuba gear, and our sense of adventure, and went off to work on new plans, new products, and new content for our fans, away from the distractions of daily life and the deep freeze of Canadian winter.
We had some serious work to do, so we chose a place a little bit off the beaten path: Montezuma, near the southern tip of the Nicoya Peninsula. It’s a small town with some great beaches, amazing waterfalls, lush jungle, and, of course, diving nearby.
Getting there is, as they say, half the fun. We flew into Liberia, packed ourselves into a rather rough-looking 4×4, and hit the road for the 4 ½ hour drive.
Things started smoothly, the paved highway almost empty as we headed out early on a Sunday morning. The paving didn’t last, though, and we soon found ourselves on rough, rocky dirt roads with a few precarious drops and many, many construction stops.
Dusty but excited, we arrived at Casa Maya, a pretty swanky house just up the hill from “downtown” Montezuma. The internet was strong, the garden lush and lively, and the plunge pool inviting. It was perfect.
We quickly settled into a routine of early mornings, inspired brainstorms, and twice-a-day trips to the beach to play in waves, snorkel, and explore. It’s the kind of rhythm that digital nomads like us love… an easy, natural lifestyle with lots of room for work and play.
The area offers lots to explore. One memorable morning involved a hike to the famous Montezuma Waterfall, followed by a swim in clear, cool waters.
Another found us at the small pier in nearby Cobano, where fisherman sell their daily catches. But mostly, we could be found at the beach, where the waves rocked or rolled us, depending on the day.
Eating is one of my favorite things, and Costa Rica, it turns out, is a great place to do that. In fact, the Nicoya Peninsula is one of the world’s five “Blue Zones” – where people commonly live past the age of 100. A Costa Rican 60-year old is more likely to reach the age of 90 than anybody else in the world. Fruits, vegetables and fish abound, and the local cuisine showcases them in simple, delicious ways.
We did our part by making starfruit ginger jam with the fruits growing in the yard.
The sun, the sea, the flavours, the pace… we love it all. We were happy. And then, one day, we weren’t.
We’d been in Montezuma about 10 days when two friends from Toronto came to join us. They brought the party, arriving with tons of luggage and some duty-free booze from the airport. We celebrated by going out for dinner – something we hadn’t done yet, since night falls fast and early in Montezuma, and we’d gotten into the habit of working at night so that we could enjoy the beach during the day.
Little did we know what would happen next…!
We returned, laughing, two hours later. We were piling into the kitchen, pouring night caps, when Peter, suddenly said “where are all the computers?!” We’d left them secured in the safe. But he was standing in front of the safe and the door was jacked open. The computers – four of them in total – were gone. So were the cameras, a phone, an iPad, and some cash. We’d been robbed!
taking statements and soothing our fears as best they could.
When everyone had finally gone, we were left in the stillness of a crime scene, with instructions not to touch anything before the police returned the next morning to take fingerprints. They needn’t have worried – we retired to our respective beds, and spent the night sleepless but still, alert to every sound. When the sun finally rose around 5, we’d already been up for hours.
The next morning, Peter and I headed to the police station to make another report. By the time the police followed us home to take fingerprints, we figured the worst of the experience was behind us, and started to relax into the new, unexpected reality that we’d now have no choice but to just be on vacation.
If you’ve ever been robbed, especially in a faraway land where policing is…uh… relaxed, you know that there’s no hope of getting your things back. We had to let go of the “stuff” we’d lost, and so we did, right after a frenzied day or two of changing passwords and securing accounts.
Harder to let go was the emotional side of being robbed – the feeling of not being safe, of not knowing who to trust, of being vulnerable at every turn. We began, without meaning to, to sleep in shifts, so somebody was always awake to the noises in the house. We stopped staying home alone, naturally falling into a high-alert buddy system.
But we also reached out for community, not just with each other, but with the people we’d met, the property manager, the Americans next door, and the very welcoming community of retired expats in Montezuma. We allowed ourselves to be taken under their wings, consoled, and cared for.
We recognized that in a country where poverty is rampant, we’re lucky that we have such valuable things to steal. And while the theft certainly disrupted our lives for several weeks, it’s probably nothing in comparison to the daily lives of people who feel like stealing is their best option.
We decided that the best revenge – and the path to redemption – was to laugh. So that’s what we set out to do.
We started with a bang, chartering Montezuma Crew’s private yacht for a day on the water. It was the perfect antidote to the harrowing days we’d had. They thought of everything and handled all the details. All we had to do was relax.
A private yacht day was just what we needed to put the break-in behind us.
As the crew shared with us, Costa Rica is a great place to learn to dive. So, we sent our intern, Jolene, out on her first dive that day. You can read about her magical experience with Miguel here. Peter got a dive in, too, and even logged his dive in our new waterproof dive log, which was a big hit with the crew.
From there we left Montezuma and the drama of it all behind, and headed to Santa Theresa where we booked into a little hotel in an enclosed compound with security. Finally sleeping again, we were able to enjoy the beach and really drop into the vacation vibe at last.
We ended our trip 10 days early and headed home to set ourselves up again with computers, and phones, and all of the other gadgets we’d lost. We’re oddly both more and less relaxed than we might have been if we hadn’t been robbed, but we’ve certainly learned a great deal about resilience and how laughter and love really do conquer all.
