Imagine that you are 26 years old, female, recently promoted to the job of Operations Manager at Banco Promérica in Manuel Antonio.  You are about to have your first meeting with other bank executives in San José.  You’ve arrived from Quepos early that morning and you walk into the room carrying your agenda and a pen.  There you confront a group of officials, mostly middle-aged men with laptops slung over their shoulders, talking on cell phones.  That was Gina Jimenez’s introduction to her professional peers in 2005.

Gina admits that she felt a little intimidated.  But when a question was posed by the moderator, she looked around and realized that no one else was going to answer.  Gina put up her hand and gave the right response. That, she says, taught her an important lesson – what you know will take you a lot further than what you own.  She said to herself, “I may not have a computer, but, hey, I know the answer!”

Gina grew up with seven siblings on her father’s farm in Purescal. She fondly remembers her childhood in a rural environment where her main concern was getting up to go to school in the mornings.   Gina says that even as a small child she liked commerce, especially helping her father grow and market his products such as bananas, apples and guavas.  When she finished high school, she moved to San José where she worked full time and studied at night. “Hard times,” she comments.

Gina says that one of her biggest dreams was to travel, and at the age of 19, she found herself living in Nanaimo, Canada, with a young couple and their children.  “The idea was that I would teach them Spanish and they would teach me English. But it didn’t work out that way,” she smiles. “After six months in Nanaimo they hadn’t learned Spanish and I hadn’t learned English.”  She renewed her visa for another six months, but knew she would have to make a change if she was to meet her goal.  She found out about a cultural centre that taught English and helped newcomers to the area.  There she met other Latin Americans and was introduced to many aspects of Canadian life, including museums, restaurants and malls.  “I really learned a lot,” she says. “It was a great experience that made me grow as a person and see things from other points of view.”  In order to renew her visa a second time, she had to return to Costa Rica.  ”I came back with the firm intention of returning to Canada,” she says.

Life took a different turn for her, however.  Back in Purescal, her father had a stroke, and Gina realized that going to Nanaimo would make it too difficult to return to Costa Rica quickly if his health worsened.  There was another reason as well.  In Quepos, where she found a job with Bluefin Sportfishing, she met her future husband, Luis Aguilar, and married him.

Gina stayed with Bluefin for four and a half years working and studying part-time.   “They (from Bluefin) opened the door for me,” she says. Through them she met many people and improved her English.  She met people who invited her to visit them in Texas, where she spent two weeks seeing different places – San Antonio, the Alamo, Austin.   She marvels at the huge servings of food in Texas. “I gained four kilos!” she recalls.  She also visited the Panama Canal and other places in Panama.  All this time she took business classes and received her B.A. from the University of Florencia del Castillo in Cartago.

In 2004, she joined the Banco Promérica as a teller. It gave her a chance to practice what she had studied, but she confides that what attracted her most were the uniforms. “I thought they were so elegant!” she says.  Gina moved from teller to Operations Manager in 2005 and in 2006, she was promoted to Bank Manager. “I didn’t expect it, and when they called to offer me the job I was really overwhelmed by the confidence that they placed in me,” she says. “My job gives me an opportunity to grow. It is very satisfying.”

Gina faced many challenges as a young woman in such a responsible position. But she focuses on the positive aspects of her work, including the support of her colleagues and the many people she meets.  What has served her well, she says, is her ability to speak English, something that distinguishes her from other Promérica branch managers who sometimes call her to help them with English-speaking clients.  Every year of the branches of the Bank have a target for the number of “Marchamo” payments they obtain during the period of December to mid-January.  In 2010 the Quepos-Manuel Antonio branch won first prize out of the 14 branches, and in 2011 it was the only branch to reach its target. Gina also feels satisfied with the growth in Bank’s portfolio and clientele over the years since she has been Manager. She smiles and says, “In a certain way I find myself doing the same thing I did as a child, only with different products and clients.”

Gina feels that foreigners have benefitted the Manuel Antonio area through tourism and investments.  Nonetheless, she says, many people object to what they perceive as unnecessary bureaucracy and questioning on the part of the bank.  Trying not to offend them, while adhering to the legal requirements of Costa Rica’s fiscal system, can be a challenge, she notes.

Two years ago, Gina and Luis had their first child, Fabricio.  “I am blessed to be a mother,” Gina says. “ It’s a 360 degree change in my life, but it’s worth it.  A little person who waits for my return from work, who depends on his Dad and Mom, and seeing him grow in every way, day by day, is a gift from God.”  She says she has often wished for a manual on how to raise a child and keep up with “this little box of surprises”.   But she says she has learned along with he and his Dad.  “I think I’ll be better with my second child,” Gina smiles.

Gina says that she is thankful to her parents for teaching her to believe in herself, and for always moving forward, regardless of difficulties.  She says her parents had little education: in fact, her mother never attended school and her father had only three years’ education. Yet both of them believed strongly in schooling for their children, despite the many obstacles they faced. Now, although partly paralyzed, her father continues to work, planting rice, potatoes and beans.  “I learned from him that you have to struggle to achieve your goals. Everyone has capacity and everything is possible with effort and dedication.”

Picture a modern-day combination of Paul Gaugin, Pablo Picasso and Jacques Cousteau living in Manuel Antonio, and you may be imagining a real personality in our midst.  Adrián Valli, known to most as “Adrián, the artist from Argentina,” paints, sculpts,  carves and experiments with different art forms in his jungle studio in El Lirio, Manuel Antonio.

I maneuver through a narrow hole in a V-shaped barbed wire fence (“to keep the horses out,”  Adrián explains), cross a large patch of grass and descend into a green oasis beyond which a small concrete house nestles in a grove of palms, haleconia blooms and mango trees, dripping orchids and moss.  He pulls out a green plastic chair on his patio studio and goes to make coffee while I gaze around me at a paint-spattered canvas, piles of carved fishes, a partially completed Easter Island sculpture, tiles of different colors in plastic water jugs, and a heap of metal objects in the corner.  Paint cans of different sizes fill the space below the canvas.  It strikes me that, despite an air of casual disarray, there is complete order here.  Adrián returns with the coffee, he takes a bite of the doughnut I’ve picked up for him in Quepos, and assures me that the noisy scrambling overhead is just a pair of iguanas fighting on the roof.

Born in Rosario, Argentina, Adrián grew up in the United States.  He tells me that his father decided to leave Argentina in 1959, when Adrián was only two, to escape the military junta. Thanks to help from an Argentine friend in California., his father worked as a sign painter to make ends meet. Eventually he purchased a sign shop where Adrián learned the ropes. “We ran the business from home,” Adrián recalls, “by adding an extension to our garage.  We did big wall murals, vehicles, all types of signs, everything hand painted. I learned how to do lettering and started doing murals on my own.”  At the age of 22 he opened up his own shop, the North County Sign Company, in Leucadia, a coastal town in North San Diego County.

Vallí says he always loved the sea and dreamed of moving somewhere far from the pressures and stress of urban life. Fiji was high on his list.  He did visit Fiji where, he confesses, he fell in love with the crystal clear water and the coral.  ” It felt like living in a salt water aquarium. I almost leased an island.”  One day, though, a Fijian chief paid him a visit and claimed part of the land. “I changed my mind about leasing it,” he laughs. “Who knew how many more chiefs might still show up?”

In 1990 he visited Manuel Antonio on vacation.  He says he liked the peninsula, the coast and the bays and started asking around about the cost of property here. Someone showed him a plot of land in El Lirio and that was the beginning of his attachment to Costa Rica.  “Here you can actually hear the waves when they break,” he tells me. He points up at a hill in the distance and says, “There is the Kilamanjaro of Manuel Antonio. It’s higher than the Plinio tower. ”   He returned to California, where he sold his shop and moved to Costa Rica in 1992.

I ask how he got started in his business.  ”I did signs at first, hand lettering on fishing boats, signs for businesses, things like that.  Then I started getting into fish sculptures, walls murals, then cement sculptures, waterfalls, even artificial rocks.  I learned how to make them look natural with lichen growing on them.”  He has never had a marketing plan, nor any means of promoting his art, but he says that his business has survived through word of mouth and referrals. “Most of my paintings have ended up outside the country,” he says.

Adrián says he is stimulated by the environment.  “ I’m not stressed out here.  I can concentrate. I love to paint so much!  It just energizes me. Painting requires light, subject matter, composition, texture. It’s a full time job to create an interesting piece of art that people want to buy.”   One of the things he likes best about working here is meeting people from all over the world.  He mentions selling art to a group of people from Iceland, a place he has never been, and thinking of them looking at it on the wall and remembering Costa Rica.  He often receives messages from people who have bought his art.  ”One client I shipped an order to wrote and said how pleased he was with the piece, and told me that even the tube I sent it in smelled like Costa Rica.”

Although he continues to receive orders for specific projects, Adrián says he likes to try new things, research new art forms.  Currently he is experimenting with Giclée prints, or high quality ink-jet prints, to make reproductions of his original paintings.  He is making three series of these, on the ocean, jungle and reptiles.  His inspiration for his art comes mainly from Costa Rica and his immediate surroundings, including the Manuel Antonio coast where he dives and surfs when the swell is high.  (Later he shows me his magnificent collection of seashells, some of which he collected locally, that he curates and trades.)

He says that the best experience in his professional life was a vernissage in Paris, complete with press coverage.  “For me it was a big thing! Parisians bought my stuff!”  Altogether he sold five pieces. He also loved Paris, especially the Picasso museum.  Picasso, he says, is his biggest inspiration because he changed art more profoundly than any other artist of this century. During his career, he created thousands of works, not only paintings but also sculptures, prints and ceramics, using all kinds of materials. First famous for his pioneering role in Cubism, Picasso continued to develop his art, each change embodying a radical new idea. “He said there is no substitute for good drawing,” Vallí remarks.  ”I always remember this.”

I ask about the changes he has seen in the area over his 19 years here. He glances at the trunk of a huge mango tree next to his house and says that there has been too much development in area, development that has not been properly controlled.  “I don’t believe in ripping out the jungle.  I like to keep my trees.”  On the positive side, he mentions meeting visitors to Costa Rica, most of  whom are nature lovers, interested in preserving the environment. Another positive aspect is the greater availability of things today, such as a variety of art supplies. “Just look at all these colors,” he says, sweeping his arm in the direction of his many paint cans. “You can make your own colors. Thousands of shades of colors!”

So what about the future? How long does he plan to continue his life in the jungle of Manuel Antonio?  Adrián hesitates. “We all have a life span. It’s coming up on 20 years since I’ve been here. The ocean keeps drawing me. I love the South Seas.”  And then he looks around and smiles, “But this is my little garden of Eden.”

After saying goodbye, I turn back to look at the artist’s small cottage and I am struck by a paradox in what I’ve been told.  Vallí claims to have patterned his career after Picasso’s, and indeed there are parallels. Yet in his fascination with the sea, his seashell collection, his intricately crafted wooden fish, his painting of a Medusa jellyfish, he shares a deep connection with  Cousteau.  The brilliant colors that fill his canvas, painting in a grotto of green and reminiscing of the South Seas, bear a strong resemblance to Gaugin.  And I think how fortunate we are to live here where, only a short distance from Quepos or Manuel Antonio Beach, we can find such a person as Adrián Vallí, whose art is known throughout the Americas and in parts of Europe, and that he has chosen to live among us.

*The artist can be contacted at oddiercr@yahoo.com. Watch a short video of Adrián at work here.

From the moment she set foot in her friend’s sports fishing boat, Jeannette Pérez fell in love. She sweeps an arm toward her front window, with a view of the Pacific waterfront, directly across the street from her second floor office in a modest Quepos building.  “That’s what I loved,” she smiles. “I will never forget my first sailfish. It was the most beautiful thing!”

Fifty year old Pérez also remembers her first taste of Quepos in1989. She had been living in the United States and returned to visit her mother in San José with her ten year old twin sons, Manuel and Carlos. When she was offered a job as manager of Sports Fishing Costa Rica she decided to take a look.

“It was quite a trip, on a very bad road. I drove into town in my little car and my seven inch heels, all dressed up like an executive.  When I saw the place I almost turned around. But people were so nice, smiling, so kind, that I decided to stay.”

She laughs and tells me that, little by little, she learned how to live here, and that little by little, she “undressed”.  “I literally peeled off layers of my city clothes and replaced my heels for sandals.” Looking at her now, barefoot and tanned in a light T shirt and short cotton skirt, she looks like a true “Quepeña”.

But life was not without its difficulties.  Jeannette made the tough decision to leave her sons in San José.  Born in Costa Rica and raised in the United States, they spoke only English, and she made arrangements for them to attend a private school. She drove back and forth to San José once or twice a week, a minimum of four hours each way.

As a young woman in the sports fishing industry, Pérez faced the challenge of asserting her authority, while at the same time, acknowledging that she needed to learn everything about the business. “Gaining respect and trust was a challenge,” she says. “From wholesalers in the U.S. and Europe to my foreign clients and Tico employees. ‘How can a woman do sportfishing business in Costa Rica?’ they would ask. ‘What does she know about reels, lures, whatever?’  I had to learn.”

She learned by watching and asking a lot of questions, she explains, always looking over the captain’s shoulder, asking the crew what they were doing and why. “Sometimes they would tell me, ‘Ma’am, you’re making me nervous.’  Would you please go down?”

Whenever she felt that she was being challenged, she firmly asserted her admittedly “strong personality”.  If an employee resisted an order, she would show them by doing the work herself. “I often picked up a paint brush, for example, and started painting the boat, so they would know I saw myself as equal,” she says. Once, she had to fire a foreign employee. After this, she says, her employees realized she meant business.

Jeannette worked with Sports Fishing Costa Rica from 1989 until 1993, booking and organizing tours, training and supervising staff, and looking after clients, including accompanying them on three day expeditions to Drake Bay and overnight camping arrangements. Because few clients spoke Spanish, she says, she had to take them everywhere, translating in restaurants and shops.  She even took them dancing at a Quepos disco at night, so that they would have something to do. “It was like babysitting kids,” she says.

Training local Quepeños to work with foreign clients was a task Perez took very seriously.  She taught them to be courteous and presentable, how to serve a meal on a boat and even taught them English in her home at night. With the help of seasoned sports fishermen, she taught them how to be mates and captains.  “Ticos learned quickly,” she says. “Now I have many good friends.”

I ask whether she had any Tico clients. Jeannette raises an eyebrow and shakes her head. “Oh no. Sports fishing is not a football.” Anyway, she adds, it’s a very expensive sport.

In 1994 Perez started her own company, J.P. Sportsfishing, with her first boat, Sea Lady, and one computer.  Steadily, she built up her business, and in 1998, purchased her second boat, Wild Lady. “My sons named it,” she smiles. “They said, ‘Mom, it’s the perfect name for you’.”  Now her Manuel and Carlos are part of the business, Manuel handling website and marketing with Carlos handling all sales, reservations and operation assistant for the boats.

Jeannette says she thanks God every day for the life she has had, for her foreign mentors Jerry Ruhlow, Hustler Larry and Bill Gannon, her Tico friends, her staff, who have given her “so many experiences and memories”.  But what she is most thankful for, she says, is having her two sons supporting her all along the way. It was  their encouragement, their saying, ‘Momma, you can do it,’ she claims, that has been a constant source of strength.  “We have grown this business together,” she says, “and at the same time, we remain such good, unconditional friends.”

Although it has grown, her company retains its personal touch. Jeannette does her own cooking, and hot meals on the boat have become part of her trademark.  She tells me it all began with a request from one of her all time great captains, Roberto Mcguinness, who told her that everyone was getting tired of sandwiches. “Why don’t you cook a hot meal? You cook so well,” he said. When Jeannette protested that there was no room on the boat for a microwave to heat it up, Roberto said they could keep it on top of the engine. “I thought it would smell,” she says, “but Roberto said no, and he was right. Now clients are so happy! Some even order their favourite meals when they book their tours.”

Now, Jeannette says, her company organizes day trips and fishing packages that include hotel reservations, local airfare and ground transfers along with any other tour needs ,  She tells me how, a year ago, she was asked to participate in “The Catch Costa Rica”, a reality sportfishing tournament held in Drake Bay that was sponsored by Standoff Studio and Outdoors TV channel. “I went with them, thinking I would love it,” she recalls, but she soon learned that roughing it no longer appealed to her.  The small boats that were needed to take her to shore, slicing the water and driving right into the beach, the lack of electricity at night time, and a tedious meal of fish and chayote, morning, noon and night reminded Pérez that she was not as adventurous as she used to be.  “How aging changes you,” she laughs. “Now, after work, I look forward to a good book, and a good glass of wine.”

Pérez faced her most difficult moment in her career two years ago in May when Tropical Storm Alma ravaged the Central Pacific coast. With her fellow fishermen, she watched the boats being pounded by the waves and one another. Ten of them were lost, battered to pieces by the storm.  Miraculously, she said, Sea Lady and Wild Lady were saved. It was a time of coming together, she says. “It really changed our mentality. If we [the sports fishing companies] were in competition before, we aren’t any longer. We are better friends now.”

A concerned environmentalist, Jeannette is heavily involved in local conservation and development activities. She is President of the Sportfishing Association of Quepos (ANOTAQ), and together with the Chamber of Commerce, ICT and the Municipality of Aguirre, we are developing a sustainable development project for Aguirre canton, one of five cantons selected for a government grant. The objectives include promoting the catch and release policy for sailfish and marlin, promoting responsible fishing that complies with the laws, including the 40 sea mile limit on long line fishing and on the exportation of sailfish.

Her current passion, and one that is taking up much of her time, is how to assure access of local Quepos fishermen to the new marina.  She is quick to emphasize that she is not against the marina and was very supportive of the idea when first approached about it. Now, Jeannette says, “we are now meeting regularly with Harold Lovelady, owner of the Marina Pez Vela. Mr. Lovelady is working with the US company to secure better pricing for our boats. As of this moment, we are working together to find ways where we can all benefit.”

Probably the first thing to strike you when you meet Krissia Rodriguez, General Manager of the largest supermarket in Quepos, Super Mas, is that she looks so young. And she is young – only 31 years old – but she has been working in her father’s store since she was a child.

She laughs as she remembers how she and her sister organized their three month summer vacations: “We agreed to take one month of holiday and spend the other two working in the store. We thought we were working very hard, always begging the cashiers to let us help, but now I realize that we really weren’t.”

In fact, she says, one of the misconceptions people have about working in a family business is that you have to work “excessively”. But this was not the case with her. She says her commitment to the business grew gradually, out her own interest, not from family pressures. In fact, when she was in high school, Krissia wanted to pursue a different kind of career. Attracted to languages and photography, she continued to pursue these interests after graduation, working part time at the store on weekends. At that time was located in front of the Quepos park, near where Gollo store is today.

Krissia’s father, Alvaro Rodriguez, was always entrepreneurial, she says. He did not have a lot of money when he was young, but he always found a way to succeed in business. Besides the supermarket that he ran with his brother, he started a mechanic’s shop where Super Mas is now located. He began to see the potential of the location for a larger supermarket. “It was near the bus station and a market area was being planned across the road,” Krissia explains. “So in 1991 he moved the business here.”

It was a gradual process, Krissia says. “First he started a butchery, selling meat along with machinery, engine oil and car parts. Then my father began to think of selling eggs, so we got eggs. Later we bought bread from a local bakery, then sacks of rice and beans. That’s how the store started. People kept asking for more and more things and we went out and found them.”

This openness to new products, to what the customer wants – is a trademark of Super Mas, Krissia says. “At first the managers of the Compañía Bananera would come and ask for special things they liked – can goods especially – so my father would get them.” Whereas other stores in town sell mainly the staples that people need on a daily basis, Super Mas has always tried different things. The store’s slogan, in fact, says it all: “We give you more than other stores” (“Super Mas le da mas que los demas”).

“It’s what I like best about the business,” Krissia remarks. “Experimenting with items the client may suggest, comparing recipes, things like that. Even if we buy only two or three articles of an item, we try to have it for the loyal customer.” Even Ticos, who she admits frequent the store less than extranjeros, recognize this. “They know if they want something that’s hard to find, they will find it here,” she says.

When Krissia was 19, still studying photography, her father asked her to come and manage the store full time. She accepted, but was concerned that people would think she obtained the position because of her family connections. For this reason and because she knew there were many things she did not know about management, she enrolled in a business degree. Working full time and studying weekends and nights, she completed her degree in 2006. “And that,” she smiles, “was the end of everything.” Business, she discovered, was what she wanted to do.

But it wasn’t easy at first, she recalls, trying to compete in a man’s world. “It was very uncommon for a woman to be a manager in those days,” she says. People would come to the store looking for “Don Christian”, not believing they would have to deal with a woman. She talks about one of her most trying experiences supervising a man in his 50′s who simply refused to listen to her. Though he good at his work, his habits were shabby and disorganized. One day, when she tried to talk with him, he told her, “I cannot take orders from a woman.”

Krissia says her father always listened to her ideas and often took them a step further. For example, four years ago Krissia suggested that they buy an oven to cook premade, frozen bread. Her father agreed, but after some time she noticed that the oven he was building was much bigger than necessary to accommodate her idea. When she protested, he told her that they were going to make their own bread “just like old times”. He brought in Don Aldo, a local baker, to show them the recipes and baking methods.

I ask Krissia what it was like growing up in Quepos. She acknowledges that it was quiet and that she enjoyed going to San José for entertainment, but says that she always liked living in a small place. She points out that, in Quepos, you can go to the beach or the river, take a hike, enjoy the outdoors. “I’d miss that in the city,” she says, adding that she appreciates having everything nearby. “I don’t like to have to drive everywhere.”

She was able to pursue her studies in Quepos with excellent professors from San José. She studied English under a special program with the Instituto Nacional de Aprendizaje (Institute of Learning) that provides further education on a competitive basis to people in local communities who demonstrate merit and commitment. She also completed her business degree right here in Quepos from the San José based Universidad Autónoma de Centro América (UACA) and Universidad Magister, thanks to its extension program.

But though Krissia loves Quepos, she does like to travel. She has vacationed extensively – in Europe, North America and other Latin American countries. She still hasn’t seen all the countries of Central America, she says. Belize is next on her agenda. And what does Krissia like to do on her vacations? She giggles, “You guessed it. I love to visit supermarkets!” She describes some of the stores she has seen in Italy and France, and how she can pass two hours walking the aisles “trying everything.” “After all,” she says, “what is France if you don’t eat? Chocolates, cheese, wine!”

These trips, especially the grouping or “matching” of products by region or taste, have inspired the Super Mas shelves where, for example, you will find all the Oriental products in one place. Krissia says she would like to do more matching – Italian pastas with Italian wines, for instance – if she had the space. As it is, the store has little room for expansion.

I ask about the economic recession, and its impact on her business. Krissia says the store took a participatory approach to the crisis, meeting with employees and explaining that they could not expect extra hours, and that salaries, already a little higher than elsewhere, would not be increased. Her main aim was to keep the business stable rather than expecting profits over this period, she notes. “With 20 families depending on the store, my main concern was how to sustain them.”

The employees themselves came up with suggestions for cost saving, she says. Their suggestions included turning off lights when it was sunny and reusing plastic bags from large shipments. Although business has picked up recently, these cost saving measures are still followed, she points out.

Krissia says she has been inspired in her work by her father, and in her life values by her mother, Lígia Porras, who saw the need for “a spiritual structure” for the family, Krissia explains. She was never satisfied just to go through the rituals of Catholicism, but questioned and studied the Bible, eventually becoming a Jehovah Witness. Krissia is deeply committed to this faith which she says had shaped the lives of their whole family. She says that it has taught her not to expect things of others but to find joy in spontaneity, and that there is more happiness in giving than in receiving.

Krissia says that she is happy now that her staff and clients treat her with respect. “Now they come looking for me and not for my father. I feel I have accomplished my goal.”

It is hard to imagine that the quiet, self-assured person sitting at his posh desk in Manuel Antonio Estates once stood, cold and penniless, on the Trans-Canada Highway on a December night, pinning his hopes on a ride to Vancouver and a new life. That was Richard Lemire, now a respected leader and businessman in the Quepos-Manuel Antonio area, 29 years ago.

Richard remembers what it felt like that night. He had lost all his money at a casino in Edmonton, including the money he had saved for a car and trip back to Quebec to see his family at Christmas.  “I remember being stuck in the mountains in the middle of the night, half frozen. I was happy that I got out of there not owing anybody any money, but I realized I had a serious problem.” Friends had advised him to go to Vancouver, so he hitch-hiked there and slept in a hostel. He found work the next day in a car wash, re recalls, and eventually got a job in construction. “I got myself back on track,” he says, “and I was glad I came to my senses at an early stage in my life. Now I don’t have a gambling problem.”

Lemire is known to most long-time residents of the Quepos-Manuel Antonio area, whether Quepeño or extranjero, as a businessman, community advocate, and local personality.  His project, Manuel Antonio Estates, which he manages himself, is a gated community with luxury villas, homes and apartments for sale or rent, located between Quepos and Manuel Antonio. Its Rain Drop Spa, overlooking a tropical garden and bamboo forest, and managed by Richard’s partner,  Martha Chinchilla, offers a tropical treat to residents of the Estates and the public as well.

Lemire grew up in Quebec. He tells me that his father passed away when he was ten years old, and that he helped his family by doing odd jobs – washing dishes in restaurants, shovelling snow, delivering newspapers.  He played hockey and, with the money he earned, was able to buy his own equipment. “I liked to be self-sufficient,” he adds “and it made me a little business oriented.”

Lemire worked in Vancouver for ten years in construction. That is where he got his start in the building trade, where he learned new skills and became aware of “new horizons”.  “I eventually got tired of long, grey winters lasting weeks and months at a time,” he says. He began to look for somewhere warm, and that is how he ended up in Costa Rica.

Richard says he had always been fascinated by Asia, where he had travelled extensively – to India, Thailand, China and Indonesia. His Asian inspiration is obvious from the gracious design of his office, its carved woodwork, sitting Buddha and Balinese painting of Manuel Antonio Estates.

Lemire says he seriously considered moving to Asia, but he was concerned that making a living there would be challenging. “Asia is beautiful,” he smiles, “but it is difficult to make a living there. Things are cheap, so it’s a great place to spend money.” But for the same reason, he says, it is not a good place to make money.

Richard had visited Costa Rica on vacation and liked it “because of its natural beauty, small population and environmental orientation. “I also liked its peaceful environment and that it had no army,” he adds. Moreover, he saw opportunities for putting his construction experience to use. In 1991 he moved to Quepos to start a new life.

In Quepos Lemire went into partnership with two other Canadians to develop the Manuel Antonio Estates residential community. “Things did not work out so well,” he says.  He decided to leave the project alone for awhile and began to construct the Hotel California.

Richard had planned to build the hotel and sell it immediately, but it took him nine years to find a buyer. He didn’t mind, though, because he remembers these years as among the best in his life. He enjoyed decorating the new hotel rooms, each of which had a different mural of the parks of Costa Rica on its walls. But more than this, he liked meeting the guests and helping them get the most out of their stay.

“I guess I was happy meeting all these people from around the world,” he says. “For some – take the businessmen, for example – it was the only time they really got to spend with their wives. Sometimes they hardly knew each other anymore.”

He tells me that the name, Hotel California, came to him as an inspiration one day early in the morning. “It was one of the few great ideas I ever got from watching the sunrise,” he grins. “After long  talks and many drinks, I came up with that name.” And it served him well, because nine years after he built it, he sold the hotel to its present owner, Roberta Felix, a Californian.

After selling the hotel in 2000, Lemire says he was again free to travel, and once again, assessed his personal goals. “I analyzed my situation, and recommitted to Quepos,” he says. “I feel comfortable here and like what I do. You can do a lot to make a difference in this community. In a lot of places that’s hard to do.”

Lemire bought out his partners and began to build Manuel Antonio Estates, luxury homes and apartments, as well as Raindrop Spa, all, he says with an Asian ambience. “When we bought it in 1991,” he recalls, “this place was cow pasture. Now the forest has been restored and I have made trails through the property.”

Richard also has another residential development project in Palma Pacifica across from Layla Casino, not far from the Quepos airport.  He says that one of the reasons he bought the property is because it’s the only remaining piece of primary rainforest in Quepos. And he wants to keep it that way.

Currently completing two years as President of the Chamber of Commerce Board, Lemire is an active proponent of environmental preservation. Improving Manuel Antonio National Park has been his focus because, he argues, it is Costa Rica’s most popular park and it should be a “five star facility”.

Richard has worked closely with the Quepos community to come up with a plan for the Park and arguments to secure more funding for its expansion, infrastructure and services. The group recently prepared a plan to develop the infrastructure for Playa Rey with a second entrance to the Park, thus easing somewhat the pressure on the existing Manuel Antonio facilities and giving visitors a second entrance and different part of the Park to enjoy.

The park currently encompasses close to 2000 hectares, Lemire points out. “With the new highway tourists could easily spend one day in each location. Even with the economic crisis, Manuel Antonio has still had the same number of visitors this year as last. This indicates that it is one of the best, cheapest options for tourists. Manuel Antonio is the most visited park in Costa Rica and receives the most revenue.”

Another part of the Manuel Antonio project focuses on ecological development – to connect the existing Park, as well as Rios Naranjo, Sevegre and Portalon, to the Central Corridor, thus expanding the territory for Titi monkeys and other wildlife.

But it’s not only about the park, Richard argues. The park is also a landmark of the Quepos community and as such, Quepos should benefit more from the park’s income. “It is clear in my mind,” he says, “that what happens in the park is a reflection of the town of Quepos. Obviously, we have to work on improving both. An important part of sustainable development is to ensure that part of the revenues of the park are reinvested in the community – in making Quepos greener and more environmentally sound.”

Richard is proud to tell me that he and Martha are expecting a baby girl very soon. We speculate for awhile on what Quepos will be like when she grows up. Lemire considers prospects for the area to be positive overall. The new marina, for example, will create employment and promote opportunities for training of the local people and attract new businesses and skills to the area.  One of the biggest challenges, he says, is proper local government planning, especially given the amount of foreign immigration to the area.  He mentions the problems of lack of zoning, grey water disposal and contamination of many of the creeks in the area.

Still, he feels that the impact of foreigners has been good for Quepos and Manuel Antonio. He reminds me that they spearheaded reforestation, making Manuel Antonio the lush forested place it is today. They have also brought fresh ideas and a stimulating atmosphere. “In a little town like this,” he says, “you need the energy and intellectual flow that outsiders bring. Without this contact with foreigners here I am not sure that I could live here indefinitely.”

Richard finds other sources of stimulation from morning hikes in the hills around the area and a weekly golf game at Los Suenos. For all these reasons he is content with his decision to make his life here in Costa Rica.  “I am always happy to be stuck in this beautiful town of Quepos,” he says. And with a baby on the way, it looks like he plans to be stuck here for quite awhile.

Manuel Antonio Estates:
Sales: 1-800-346 9724; Rentals: 1-800-381 3770
Costa Rica Phone: (506) 2777-3339
rentals@ManuelAntonioEstates.com; sales@ManuelAntonioEstates.com

Dr. Alfonso Gaspar Martinez del Pino, born and educated in Cuba, says that he planned to stay in Costa Rica from the time he accepted an invitation to attend a conference here in 1995. Leaving his friends and family, with 63 pounds of luggage (59 pounds of it books) and $145 in his pocket, he set out to establish a new life here.  He gave several lectures at the Escuela de Veterinaria de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma en el Barreal de Heredia, and then, he says, “I stayed.”

To make ends meet, he says, he worked as an administrator in an animal hospital in San José, and lived on the premises.  He appealed for refugee status and validated his veterinarian certificate in record time.  He did everything in three months -   between May and July, 1995.   ”It went very fast,” he smiles.  “I had to work. Life was very difficult.”

I knew that I wanted to interview Dr. Martinez from the time he saved the life of my 20 year old cat, Salvo.  Completely paralyzed by a scorpion sting and unable to eat, I shakily handed Salvo to Dr. Martinez, expecting the worst.  Indeed, he explained, he couldn’t promise anything, mainly because of the animal’s age. But three injections and a few words of encouragement later, Salvo was noticeably better.  After returning three times for more injections, Dr. Martinez showed my husband how to give the needles himself, and Salvo recovered!

Dr. Martinez was raised in a rural village in Cuba where his father, a mechanical engineer, ran a dairy business.  After graduating as a veterinarian, Martinez did two years of social service, and then joined the Universidad de Camagüey where he worked for 17 years as a professor and researcher in Veterinary Pathology. He spent his last five years in Cuba working in aquaculture, livestock and as a doctor to fighting cocks for export. Cock fighting, he says, is illegal in Cuba (as it is in Costa Rica).

In Costa Rica Dr. Martinez took a different career path, moving from academics to practice. He says he had to relearn many things – to reorient his specialty – because he hadn’t been a practicing veterinarian for many years.  His experience in the fish industry served him well. He was offeed for the position of Regent Veterinarian in Martec Industries, S.A., in Quepos and moved here in 1997.   After learning the ropes at Martec, he joined Vetecom on a part time basis. “Dr. Jorge Rojas helped me a great deal. He gave me a magnificent job! I worked from 2:00-6:00 p.m. – 50% of my time.”  The two veterinarians saw the  clinic  grow  from only a handful of clients to a thriving business.

In 1999 he opened his first private clinic in Manuel Antonio, where COSI  Language School now stands.  ”It was a humble place,” he says, “open at night and outdoors.   I needed light but the bulb attracted bugs that interfered with my work. So I installed a mosquito net and light over my table and operated there.” He moved back to Quepos in 2001, starting his clinic where Chikas is now, next door to his current location.  Dr. Martinez built up a bustling enterprise at his Quepos clinic.  He now splits his time between Martec in the morning, his private clinic in the afternoon, and his clinic in Immaculada in the evening.

What differences does he find  in veterinarian practice between Costa Rica and Cuba?  He replies that, unlike in other fields such as law, there are no essential differences in medical science from one place to another. An advantage of medicine is that people and animals are essentially the same everywhere, he says. However, the approach to animal health of the two countries is completely different, he says. In Cuba, the philosophy is almost entirely preventative – parasite control, vaccination, avoidance of disease -  whereas in Costa Rica, it is almost entirely curative. In Cuba, veterinary practice focuses on productive species with minimal attention to domestic pets.  It is a government service and private clinics do not exist.  In Costa Rica, he says, veterinarian services are essentially private and specialize more in treatment than in prevention. Care of domestic pats pay an important role in veterinary work here and this specialization is more developed than in Cuba.  ”In Cuba it is concerned with the public health of animals whereas in Costa Rica the focus is on the individual animal.”

I ask Dr. Martinez why he works so hard. Surely three shifts a day, with a demanding workload, must be exhausting. He answers that he is rarely tired, that he prefers to do something useful to society, rather than wasting time watching television or surfing  the internet.

I turn the conversation to his work in Immaculada, the poorest area of Quepos. He replies that he sees this as a social service because, for Immaculada residents, taking a taxi to Quepos to go to a veterinarian is very costly. By offering services locally, he says, everyone can afford to have a pet.   “It’s the social service of a veterinarian,”  he argues. Why should a child or a pensioner be denied the pleasure of having an animal because they don’t have money? he asks.  Everyone should have a right to enjoy a healthy pet, not just rich people. “Medicine should be within everyone’s reach and for everyone,” he says.

Asked what changes he has seen in Quepos, he mentions economic progress, jobs, improvements in infrastructure and the rise in tourism. Over the years, too, he says, he has observed a difference in the behavior of the local people towards animals.  At first clients came mainly to pick up a prescription for an ailing pet.  “The culture of taking your pet to the veterinarian didn’t exist when I first came here,” he remarks. Now, he says, it’s a common sight.  He attributes this change to the greater disposable income in the local economy and to the influence of foreigners in the area. Tourism isn’t just about having fun and creating local jobs.  “A tourist also brings his culture and this culture little by little permeates the local community.”

He notes that there have also been negative changes, especially the growth in drugs and crime. These problems need to be urgently addressed, he says, because how we deal with them now will determine the future of Quepos. “If we don’t control them tourists will stop coming. When people see that it isn’t safe here they will go elsewhere.”

Dr. Martinez employs four people in his business; his wife, Doña Rosa Williamson, his youngest daughter, Leticia, and two employees.  Doña  Rosa administers his financial affairs. “This is very  important, isn’t it?”  he laughs.  Leticia looks after the banking, and the two employees attend to the public and the store. Dr. Martinez’s other two children, Harris and Dayami, are famliar figures around Quepos. Harris works as a waiter in the Gran Escape and Dayami is the owner of Lynch Travel.  Leticia is studying to become a veterinarian. The other members of the family are their dogs, Princesa, Zeus and Pinky, and their cat, Miniú.

Dr. Martinez says that his favorite animals are dogs and horses, but that he also likes cats. He says that he had many cats in his family when he was growing up. They lived under the house and ate in a big plate under a mango tree. “It was a paradise for cats!” he smiles. I ask if there is any truth to the adage that dogs are smarter than cats. Dr. Martinez shakes his head. He says that there is no difference, but because dogs are closer to humans and less independent, people think they are more like them. He adds that there is absolutely no truth to the saying – “fighting like dogs and cats”.    In fact, they get along just fine, he says.

Dr. Martinez still visits Cuba whenever he can. Now a Costa Rican national, he says he has experienced no difficulties in moving between the two countries.  In fact, he says, he and his wife spent a wonderful holiday there earlier this year.

Constant Boshoff  – chiropractor, conservationist, coffee farmer and owner of Rafiki - was born in German East Africa, Tanganika.  His ancestors moved to South Africa when he was a child because of “political storms over Africa”, as he puts it.  Boshoff ‘s father was a big game hunting outfitter. Equipped with luxury tents and a portable kitchen, his father and his party would pitch their camp under the trees at night.  He watched his business grow into a very popular tourist destination for high end clients. This is the background that shaped Constant Boshoff’s own trajectory in life.

Constant’s parents eventually moved to South Africa where they bought a 35,000 acre cattle ranch and battled droughts, ticks and predators.  Constant attended Pretoria University with the plan of becoming a doctor. When he was in the premedical program, he saw how people  with lower back problems were treated in hospitals. The only way of treating them, he says, was through using traction.  One of the patients, tired of hospital care, told Constant that he was going to a chiropractor in town.  Constant remembers saying,  “I hear those people are dangerous. But the guy left all crippled and came back swinging his cane.”  When Constant went to see for himself he was in for a surprise.   ”I saw that they didn’t look like witch doctors -  just clinicians,” he says, “and six months later I was in the United States, enrolled in Lincoln Chiropractic College.”

Constant completed his B.Sc.D.C.  in 1969 and went back to South Africa and set up a chiropractic clinic.  In 1970 he met his wife, Ralene, on a blind date and they were married the same year.  He returned with her to the United States for further studies, including research on acupuncture with two Oriental practitioners.  “I thought it was voodoo at first, but it turned out to be pretty good! I’ve been using this in conjunction with my practice ever since,” he says.  He and Ralene returned to South Africa where they stayed for 14 years, practicing chiropractic medicine and acupuncture and taking up farming as a hobby.  In 1987 they returned to the United States, this time ending up in Rapid City, South Dakota, where the Boshoffs built up a successful chiropractic business.

The Boshoff family first came to Costa Rica on vacation in 1991 and “fell in love with it”.  They engaged a Costa Rican driver, Roy Torres, to take them to see the country.  They returned to Costa Rica several times, always thinking of eventually purchasing a property here. Finally, in 2000, they got the opportunity they’d been waiting for in a phone call from Roy, telling them that a large property on the Savegre River was for sale. Constant says that his sons were in Costa Rica surfing at the time and he called them and asked them to go and look at the property. They called back to say that the road had been wiped out by the 1996 floods but, from the distance, they had seen a wonderful panorama of mountains and the river.  Constant remembers questioning them about the quality of the water in the area. “Dad, there’s water everywhere,” one of them replied.  But Constant insisted on being assured a good source of drinking water. “My grandpa always said, ‘With water and a brick you can’t go wrong,’” he smiles.

In 2001 the family began the laborious task of rebuilding the road leading to what they planned to be a unique, African style wildlife camp.  His three sons, Carlo, Nel and Loki, all worked on the project. “Without them, I could never have built the place,” he says.  He recalls having a six wheel drive military truck.  His sons would take it down to the river, hand load it, go back to the road, dump the rocks and watch them disappear into the clay. One evening, he says, they were sitting around the camp tired and aching from blisters, dreaming of having a Bobcat to make their work easier.  Ralene came to the rescue by selling her 3.5 carat diamond ring and buying the front end loader.  “She doesn’t have that ring anymore,” Boshoff says, “but the family got a lot of pleasure out of it.”   By 2002 the lodge was built and Constant imported his tents from South Africa and installed the bathrooms.  At the end of 2002, he says, they saw their first guests.

Those guests were in for a real treat.  I think of my recent stay at Rafiki – relaxing on the open porch of the thatched-roofed lodge overlooking a large expanse of grass, bordered by red haleconia bushes, forested mountains and a pond shared by brilliant white wood storks and colorful birds such as kingfishers, jacanas and blue-winged teal. I think of my friend zipping bravely down the steep water slide into the cold (chemical-free) pool, fed by a mountain stream. I think of splashing through the rapids on a Savegre rafting tour with a purple flower in my hair that the guide has given me.  I think of sipping one of Ralene’s special margaritas at dusk, followed by dinner at a gourmet table set with a white table cloth and a stunning centerpiece of native flowers grown on the property.  And finally, after gorging ourselves on spicy South African sausages from the barbeque, I think of settling in for the night in our comfortable tent lulled by an orchestra of cicadas and frogs.  The Boshoffs’ efforts have been rewarded recently by being chosen by a local television channel as one of the three most unique hotels in Costa Rica.

But what really excites Boshoff is a project to save the tapirs (precursors of the rhinoceros) that his family has started at Rafiki. He says that only forty years ago there were plenty of tapirs in the area but that now they are rarely seen. However, one tapir has been spotted around Rafiki and cameras have been installed to pick up tracks.  The idea is to start a breeding program on 100 acres of their land in semi-captivity and then release the offspring into the wild.  His dream is to see Rafiki as the beginning of a tapir corridor from which the animals could migrate all the way to the Osa.   As a model, he cites a project in South Africa where a biologist, Ian Parker, restored the white rhinoceros population through a similar breeding program. Started in 1954, the program became a huge success, he says.  Now the animals are no longer endangered.  ”It worked so well in Africa,” he argues, “so why shouldn’t it work in Costa Rica? If it succeeds it would be the first such program ever.”

Besides being good for the animals, Rafiki has been good for the people.  The Boshoffs employ 22 staff and, Constant says, the local people have started to associate tourism with their own wellbeing. This, in turn, helps the environment, and people no longer need to go into the forest and cut, hunt and gather. “To make it work for yourself you have to make it work for everyone. So you aren’t just saving the tapirs and the birds. You are helping people too.”

I ask Boshoff what he likes best about being a chiropractor.  ”Seeing people crawl in and walk out. It’s instant satisfaction!” he replies.  He says what he dislikes about it (in his earlier practice in the United States) is the bureaucracy of the health care system which tends to bog you down in legalities.  “In the old days of fee for service, it was much easier.  If you messed up you didn’t get paid.”

I want to know if there are times when he isn’t able to help a patient.  Occasionally, he replies, he needs to refer someone to another specialist – something that has been a challenge in Manuel Antonio.  He tells me about a young girl who came to him with pain in her side and lower back.  He examined her and didn’t know for sure what the problem was but he suspected an ectopic pregnancy or a tumor. Fortunately he referred the girl to a doctor visiting from Uruguay who rushed her to a hospital in San José and saved her life. Later that day, he says, a surgeon confirmed that it was an ectopic pregnancy that had ruptured. “I went oh my God! I need contacts in San José.”  The most important thing in being a chiropractor is to know your limitations, he adds.

Asked who inspired him most in his life, he doesn’t hesitate. “My wife!  She is my best friend.  She is always quietly in the background keeping everything together.  She is an unbelievable person, and raised our kids with so much love and compassion.”  Ralene and Constant’s three sons have all inherited their parents’ hunger for adventure and the outdoors. Carlo, the eldest, and his wife Jannel spent four years working with the family to build Rafiki. They are now back in Montana running a fly fishing lodge on the Bighorn River. His middle son, Nel, lives in Panama with his wife, Vanessa, whom he met on a Savegre River tour.  Now he is cinematographer and Vanessa works for Animal Planet and Discovery channels.   Loki, the youngest, is married to Mauren, a Costa Rican.  Together they manage Rafiki with the support and guidance of Constant and Ralene.

I think how Constant was never satisfied with the medical bureaucracy – he always longed to get back to the bush. With the magical Rafiki,* saving the tapir and his skillful hands, he has been able to put it altogether and we are the beneficiaries. www.rafikisafari.com,   phone 506-2777-2250 or 2777-HELP

Don Gilberto Gomez Barquero, dressed in a wide brimmed hat, cowboy boots and blue jeans, a knife and cell phone tucked into his leather belt, is a familiar personality around Quepos.  He can also be seen riding along the beach on Damas Island at sunset or in the hills around Londres guiding a group of sunburned tourists.  He usually appears animated as he points out highlights of the area.  But as we settle into his office at Iguana Tours he strikes me as a shy man, perhaps more comfortable with groups than in one to one conversations.

It’s easy to see that Gilberto is a multi-tasker. He doesn’t waste a minute.  He speaks on his cell phone while leafing through the newspaper, all the time keeping up a steady conversation and motioning to me to be patient.

Don Gilberto, born in Purescal, completed his Bachelor of Education degree from La Escuela Normal de Costa Rica in 1973.  He says the school gave him a profound education “in the sense that all the professors there were very strict – from teaching us how to dress – to how to look after a child. We had to wear grey pants and a grey tie. If your tie wasn’t properly knotted you would be reminded about it. The second time you would be sent home.”

After teaching for four years he was promoted to supervisor of schools and, in this capacity, he came to Quepos in 1977. At that time, he recounts, there were only two school supervisors for the whole of Aguirre county.  He had one secondary and 30 primary schools under him, and about 60 teachers.

Gilberto moved to Quepos with his wife, Elizabeth Pinera Cordoba, and his son Henry.  His wife worked as a teacher, first in the Korea School, then in Manuel Antonio and her last position was Director of Maria Luisa de Castro in Boca Vieja.  At that time, Gomez says, “When I arrived here Quepos was really nice, safe and quiet. But because there were no tourists there was very little employment.  People had to go to San José for work and, as a result, families were often split up.”   It was very hard for people to undertake part time university studies, he points out, especially for women, who constituted the bulk of the teaching profession.  Few local teachers were able to graduate from university.  Transportation by road to San José was difficult and time consuming.  Sometimes it took the whole night to get there, Gilberto says, because of the state of the roads.

“I was always preoccupied with the stagnation of the teaching profession, not because of lack of desire to study on the part of the teacher, but because of the difficulty of traveling to San José,” he says.   He and others in the community worked hard to pressure the government to provide opportunities for studying locally, to better prepare teachers for their profession.  He says that their efforts paid off during the first term of President Oscar Arias, who put considerable emphasis on education. During his administration the Quepos branch of the National University of Costa Rica was opened, allowing many teachers to graduate with degrees who could not otherwise have done so.  Gilberto also acknowledges the help of Dionisio Miranda, President Arias’ assistant, who gave constant guidance in setting up the university.

It was a great challenge to set up the Quepos site, he says, but it succeeded. The first group of Bachelors graduates in 1989 included Gilberto’s wife, Elizabeth.  Gilberto proudly notes that Dionicio Miranda attended this event. “That was one of the best moments in my life, seeing such a big group – approximately 15 graduates – here.”     After that, he says, education began to take off.  More and more institutions of higher education were founded in San Isidro, Quepos and Parrita.

Gomez says he has only traveled outside Costa Rica once – to Guadalajara, Mexico in 1973 – on a six month training grant to study various aspects of education, including administration and special learning problems.  He says he has no desire to visit other places.  “I feel very good here,” he explains. “Every day I am happy in my work because I am in the field that I like.”

Gilberto retired from his educational career in 1988 and, on Henry’s suggestion, he began Turistica Naranjo, dedicated to horseback tours and raising horses.   He says that he had always loved horses because he had grown up with them on his father’s farm.  When he raises a horse himself, he explains, they are like his children, and he does everything he can to keep them healthy and strong.  They started with five horses and five saddles, he recalls, and a small farm in Londres.   But times were hard and economic and material resources were scarce.

In 1992 Gilberto and Henry agreed to join two colleagues, Jorge and Gilberth Cruz, to purchase Iguana Tours.  Don Gilberto says that he had never had much faith in partnerships or societies.   In this case, the company was having economic problems, its building was in bad condition and it had only two vehicles.  “This was the big challenge because perhaps we weren’t  prepared for it, nor for the conditions that the company was in.”

Nevertheless, Gilberto says that the four partners were very committed, and together with their respective families, they established the basic operating principles of working together.  He explains that they worked as one body to build a strong enterprise.  “Iguana is an example of how people can join forces to work together. We are four partners and none of us could have accomplished what we have on our own.”

He explains that each business partner has his own area of specialization. Henry looks after the legal aspects, Gilberth is the administrator and logistical organizer, Jorge is in charge water sports and Gilberto takes care of the horseback tours.  “I think the key to our success is that we are four partners, all very engaged in what we do,” he says. “Take the rafting team, for example. They know the river like their own hands because they were practically born there.”

Don Gilberto tells me that the company now has 15 buses, and organizes transport for tourists throughout Costa Rica, as well as in Panama and Nicaragua.  It has 50 employees, including guides and administrative staff.  The company also has four fincas for breeding and raising horses for horseback tours, as well as facilities for organizing tours in the mangrove areas and three restaurants. At present the company is in the process of starting to develop a real estate project on their property as well.

I ask why is he still guiding tours  himself, now that the business is successful and others could do this strenuous work. He acknowledges that he could delegate the tours and other activities to others, and indeed does so if there are many groups, but he prefers to take the tours himself.  “It’s where I make my living,” he replies.

Gilberto talks about the changes he has seen in Quepos in the past  three decades.  The biggest positive change is economic.  “The amount of work we have here is a blessing from God,” he says.  “Today there is work here for everybody who wants it.”   He adds that 90% of women in Quepos have work, directly or indirectly in the tourist sector.  “To my way of thinking, tourism has been a blessing to our communities.”  Contrary to the situation 30 years ago, he says, now people from San José are coming  to work in Quepos.

Gilberto expresses confidence about the developments taking place in the Manuel Antonio-Quepos area.  It is one of the few parts of the country, he says, that is growing and has a future. He feels that the marina will have a positive impact in terms of job provision and attracting qualified people to the area.  In this respect he argues that the local universities should be more strategic in providing courses that will be useful for the development of the region. Languages, he notes, are particularly important.  ”If I was 40 years old I would study two languages, French and Mandarin,” he says. “Our tour guides manage fairly well in English but they are lost when it comes to other languages.”

Despite his optimism concerning the progress of the Quepos-Manuel Antonio area, he is concerned about drug abuse and the attendant issues of crime and violence.  He also mentions the problem of traffic congestion and the lack of discipline of drivers in the area. He says that these issues should be of high priority for the local government, and stresses that the local population should be vigilant in electing government officials who are well trained, competent, honest and committed to local development.

After an hour has passed Don Gilberto begins to fidget.  He is clearly anxious to get on with the next item on his agenda, whatever it may be.  Perhaps he is anxious to return the calls of the people who have telephoned during our interview, perhaps to attend to the three or four clients waiting outside his office, or perhaps just to enjoy an ice cream with his grandson.

Barry Biesanz pulls into my driveway, hops out of his car and wastes no time settling onto a patio chair for our interview. He does not need any prompting: he clearly has a message to share.

“People ask me,” he says, “I bet you’ve seen a lot of changes here over the last 40 years. They assume they have all been for the worse – but they haven’t. Sure, there are some ill-conceived projects, drugs, prostitution and corruption. But there are far more monkeys than there were in 1971, and much more prosperity.” Most of Manuel Antonio, he continues, was being converted to pasture and crops, even much of what is now the park, and all the mangroves near town were cut to make charcoal.

“The United Fruit Company was the only employer aside from two huge and many small cattle farms. With the switch to tourism, forest cover increased and species that were been gone for decades have returned. Living standards are very much better for Quepeños.”

Barry’s parents, Mavis and John Biesanz, were anthropologists who came here from Minnesota in the 1940s with the idea of researching a little known country. They hitchhiked through Central America, ending up in Heredia.  They began to write about Costa Rican customs and life, a project that eventually extended over three books, 55 years, and two generations, Costa Rican Life was published in 1944; The Costa Ricans in 1979 and  The Ticos in 1999.  Mavis also wrote many other books.  “My father used to say that he’d been in over 100 countries, and Costa Rica was far and away his favorite,” Barry recalls.

Born in New Orleans, Barry first came to Costa Rica as a teenager in 1963 – the year that President John F. Kennedy visited and that Irazú Volcano erupted. Barry and his parents moved back to Costa Rica in 1971, all eventually becoming naturalized Ticos.  On a trip in 1969 his father bought Punta Quepos from Willie Hug, the regional United Fruit Company manager, who John would say “ruled the area like a benevolent dictator… well, a dictator, anyway.” Barry settled on Punta Quepos, armed with a copy of The Last Whole Earth Catalog.

“In those days it was a was a five hour ride on three different buses to reach Quepos from San José,” Barry recalls, “and it was a good hour’s walk from Quepos to Manuel Antonio.” Barry made the trip with his then wife, Cathy, and two year old son, Jeremy.  They lived in an rustic shack on Playa Paraíso, later named Biesanz  Beach (Playa Vizan on area buses).  Barry carried ten gallons of water a day from a fresh water stream while Jeremy ran around naked in rubber boots.  The little blond haired boy, “Jeremías “, as the locals called him, was a rarity in the area and very popular with the shop ladies at La Garza.

“We made our lemonade from a tree growing into our kitchen,” Biesanz laughs. “When the lemons eventually ran out, we felt quite inconvenienced at having to go outside for more.  I used to spear fish and catch lobster that we cooked on a wooden table full of sand. My wife got tired of eating lobster.”

Barry used to walk to Quepos for supplies, calculating what provisions were really essential because he had to carry them back.  At night they would read by Aladdin lamps while vampire bats flew in and out. “The trick was to keep your toes covered,” he chuckles.

After about eight months of beach homesteading Cathy had had her fill of the wild. They rented a house in Moravia and Barry commuted back and forth to Manuel Antonio where he tried his hand at cattle ranching, planting soybeans and harvesting avocados. “The iguanas ate the soybeans and after a few years the monkeys came back and ate all the avocados.  Tourism seemed the only answer, so I built two rustic cabins out of beach stones to rent.  But no one in our family wanted tourism development to be at the expense of wildlife, so we started thinking of the farm as a place to plant trees, to feed monkeys, to attract tourists.”

Barry soon learned that land goes back to forest very unevenly unless you reintroduce what used to be here. “Passive reforestation doesn’t lead to diversity,” he says. “We went to Zoo Ave and asked about reintroducing macaws, and they said we would need to show that we had enough trees and palms to feed a macaw population.  So that became a sub-project that is now literally bearing fruit.”  Back then, he continues, there was little interest in forest restoration and almost all the literature was for conventional plantations. “Then we found a copy of The Ecology of a Tropical Forest, Studies from Barra Colorado Island in Panama, not too dissimilar to Manuel Antonio. This reported that only 5% of the trees fed about 90% of the birds and animals, so that made things easier – concentrate on those species.”

Barry explains that the wildlife population had been severely stressed by land clearing and cattle ranching, exacerbated by the local practice of hunting. “Some people shot monkeys and macaws just because they could,” he says. “The whole relationship with Nature was very different back then.  The forest was seen as a frightening place, full of snakes and dangers.  Banks would not lend money to a farmer unless he improved the land – by cutting the forest – which was often burned or left to rot, for lack of roads and markets.  Costa Rica was very lucky, in that the appreciation of wildlife and forests began to grow while there was still something left to protect.  And creating the Manuel Antonio Park was a tremendous achievement.”

So when Biesanz speaks of the positive impact of foreign influence he is speaking from experience. “The change in prosperity is striking,” he says.“In the old days a dog could sleep in the middle of the road in Quepos uninterrupted. You had to travel on washboard, dusty roads, with 33 rickety one-lane bridges between Quepos and Parrita.”

He remembers how his farm worker’s daughter was diagnosed with polio, and sent home from the hospital untreated, with a bag of penicillin ampules for home injection.  A peon made 102 colones a week, about $12.  There was still malaria. The howler monkeys in the area were wiped out by yellow fever in the 1950s.  “They were reintroduced here recently,” he remarks, “and I don’t think that would have happened without tourism.  People often complain about foreign development but it saved Manuel Antonio.

Biesanz argues that many in the environmental movement exaggerate the damage done by tourist development to raise funds, yet uncontrolled agriculture without proper zoning has done far more damage, with less economic benefit per land unit.  “There is a nationalistic and anti-capital element in much of the ostensible environmental opposition,” he argues, “and you have circuses like the hysteria over Arenas Del Mar, one of the best designed and greenest projects in the country.”

In addition to planting trees on his property, Biesanz started two non-profit nurseries in Manuel Antonio and San José to encourage people to purchase and plant species for the habitat restoration of wildlife. He supplies them to schools and non-governmental organizations free of charge and for only $1.00 per tree to the public.  (Anyone wishing to see the nurseries or purchase trees should contact Ramon Espinoza  at 8390-8250.)

Based on the reforestation of Punta Quepos, Biesanz was invited to join the group, composed of representatives from the parks, MINAET, ICE, private reforesters, and rural associations working to establish biological corridors linking the parks and protected areas of the Central and South Pacific coasts, called the Paso de la Lapa, or Path of the Macaw.  “I’ve met a lot of interesting people who are very serious about getting this done, both for its own sake, and as a means of bringing small scale eco-tourism to their rural villages,” he says.  “It turns out that there are significant populations of Titi monkeys outside Manuel Antonio that just need a little help to reunite with other populations.”

Since the mid-1970’s, Barry has also learned and practiced woodworking, concentrating on high quality craftsmanship and the use of local woods, especially cocobolo and lesser known species.  He has a successful business, Biesanz Woodworks, in Escazú which sells exquisite boxes of all kinds – jewelry boxes, some with roll tops, humidors, cremation urns, even condom boxes.

Biesanz displays his products in galleries throughout Costa Rica and internationally. They can also be ordered from the Biesanz Woodworks website, biesanz.com. His wooden treasures adorn the homes of many famous people including the Pope, the Queen of Spain, four United States Presidents and other heads of state.

Barry has continued to pursue music and started his own band, “Harmony Roads”, that entertains in San José. He unwittingly gives me a sample of his talents when he breaks into the national anthem after telling me he became a Tico eleven years ago. He is clearly an avid reader, citing book after book he considers “must reads”, especially on nature, entrepreneurship and the environment.

I ask about his dream for the future of his much-coveted oceanfront property.  He says that the tip of Punta Quepos is primary forest and it will stay  that way.  The rest, he says, is secondary forest or a mixture, and he could envision half of it dedicated to low impact environmental tourism, the rest a reserve.

“There are more environmentalist developers now,” he says, and gives some examples.  “I could imagine a botanically themed project with light structures, little or no earth moving, electric carts, raised walkways and filtered views like those of Makanda and Mango Moon.  No golf!  There is nothing like that in the country and it could be a real jewel.”

Barry has three children who have evidently inherited the Biesanz creative and academic propensities.  Jesse, the oldest, who went to school in Escazu and ran the first horseback tours in the Manuel Antonio area, is now a successful stoneworker in Oregon with his own company, Biesanz Stoneworks.  Jeremy is a research psychologist at the University of British Colombia, and Jana, his only daughter, is a creative writer living on the East Coast.  He and his second wife, Sarah Blanchette, have six grandchildren.

Born in Limon on July 10, 1922, Don Carlos moved to Quepos when he was 18. He remembers the date exactly – it was March 19, 1940.  He says that his father was a foreman of the Compañía Bananera de Costa Rica, a subsidiary of the United Fruit Company.  In the mid-1930′s the company, based in Limon, began amassing large landholdings in the Central Pacific and by 1940, its production exceeded that of the Atlantic region.

The young Carlos told his father that he wanted to move to Quepos to take advantage of the new opportunities there. His father, not wanting to see his son go alone, asked him to wait for three months and he would transfer to Quepos and accompany him.  Don Carlos recalls that when they arrived in Quepos three months later, there were only banana plantations from Parrita to Quepos – everything concentrated on the banana industry. “There were banana plantations from Parrita to Quepos,” he says. In the same year, the Parrita – Quepos railway was completed and the company began exporting bananas from the port of Quepos instead of Limon.

Over the next few months the rest of the family joined Carlos and his father. Because Carlos’ father was a foreman of the company, they were given a company house, whereas the laborers were provided only straw huts.   Carlos followed in his father’s footsteps, starting in the company as a peon, and working his way up to eventually becoming a foreman.  He married María de los Ángeles Fonseca Peraza in 1942.

But Don Carlos says that times were tough. Quepos was a hardship post because of backward socioeconomic conditions, including low levels of education, outbreaks of malaria and the poor quality of the water that they had to pump out of the ground.  ”Ninety-five percent of the inhabitants of Quepos were Nicaraguans,” he recalls.

López left the company after 11 years, at the age of 29. With the money he earned he bought the land in Manuel Antonio in 1950, and moved there in 1951. His father and brothers remained with the Compañia Bananera, he says. Curious, I ask him why he stopped working there.  He answers that, unlike his brothers, he has a very strong character. “I was always fighting with the Americans,” he says. “Don’t get me wrong. I admire the North Americans for their vision, their progressiveness and their long-term thinking.  But I didn’t like their politics. They lacked humanity in their work. They treated us Central Americans very badly.”

He proceeds to name several of the directors with whom he differed, and to recount an incident of a foreign boss slandering one of the workers while waiting at a railway switch stop. Later, López told his co-workers that he was going to talk with the boss about his behavior, but  his friends advised him not to do so, because he could be dismissed from his job. Nonetheless,  Don Carlos did reprimanded the boss who assured him that he did not feel that way about Carlos. Still, Don Carlos insisted on an apology, and the man did apologize to López, though not to the man he had offended.

After leaving the company, he acquired 45 hectares of land in Manuel Antonio, with the help of his father.  Asked why he decided to go into farming, he says that his father, who was from San Ramon, and had a farm in Silencio, encouraged him.  Over time, he purchased a total of 91 hectares, approximately 225 acres.

He remembers his early days as a campesino as difficult but rewarding. He cleared and cultivated the land, on which he planted staples such as rice, beans, corn and yuca, as well as plantains and green vegetables.  He also purchased dairy cattle from Guanacaste.

Don Carlos, who himself had only three years of schooling, built the first school in Manuel Antonio in 1952. “We built it in 22 days, of mud and palm,” he recalls. He is proud to say he was the first President of the School Board, then jokes, “In a country of blind people anyone who has one eye is a king!”

By 1959, he says, his situation had become very difficult. He had six children and was having difficulty supporting his family. He considered looking for work in San José but his father advised him to start a business in Quepos. When Carlos replied that he had no money his father pointed out that he could get credit. He remembers that he rented a spot in the market with 2,000 colones worth of merchandise, 500 mangos and 45 centavos in his pocket to give change.

In the mornings, he would milk the cows and deliver milk to neighbors, then ride his bicycle to Quepos with his produce to sell in his small store, open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.  Later he bought a bullock cart to transport his products and, in 1960, he bought a car, a 1958 Toyota. He recalls that it was one of the first cars in the whole area and the first Toyota in Quepos. His son, Eduardo, now a lawyer but then a small boy, nicknamed him, “Toyota”.

I comment that he must be under much pressure to sell his land. His bright eyes flash.  ”Have you heard that?” he says. “I don’t want to sell for several reasons. I worked hard to get this land and I don’t like to sell it.  I have enough to live, after all. I didn’t buy my land to make money. I bought it so that I could bring up my children, to give them a place to live and a future. Maybe this idea seems strange, but it’s my opinion.”  He says that  if he sells with a real estate agency, the agency will take a percentage of the sale and he doesn’t want to make others rich with his land. He adds that he is thinking of keeping 30 hectares as natural hillside, so that no one will ever be able to sell it. When I nod enthusiastically, he smiles. “Many people like it that I don’t sell my land.”

I ask him how he sees all the changes in the Manuel Antonio area over the years, and he offers an original perspective.  Quepos has always been a transient place, he says. “It’s never had its own identity.  Previously it was a place for Central Americans, now there are races of all kinds.”

He goes on to talk about Manuel Antonio, now owned mostly by extranjeros.  With an ironic smile he points out that the local people “practically gave away their land” to foreigners. He claims that the foreigners who came into the area were more educated than the original property owners and disposed of their land easily. As a result, many former proprietors are left without any money and are working in low-level service posts. He adds that some are even working for the people they sold their land to, and declares, “I never want to serve others.”

Don Carlos pulls out a long, narrow sheet of paper. It’s a map of Manuel Antonio in 1950 that he prepared, showing all the original owners. He goes through their names, one by one. “This one is dead,” he said, “and this one too. This one sold to a foreigner and this one is dead as well.  The only one who is still alive and still cultivating his original property is Carlos López.

I ask him what was the biggest challenge he faced in his professional life, and he replies that everything in life is a challenge, especially when you don’t have money, only the desire to work.  He says he has always gone slowly, never wanting to make a fortune, only to look after his family and live.  However, he has continued to learn and to better himself.  He has studied throughout his life, availing of every opportunity to learn from others and reading avidly.  He is especially interested in world history.

He says that the happiest moment in his career was when he was able to resolve a very difficult situation. In 1988 he had acted as a guarantor for a loan to a person who eventually left the country without honoring his debts.  Consequently Don Carlos was obligated to return 21 million colones to the creditor. “This was a terrible time,” he admits, “because I was going to lose everything I had worked hard to achieve”.

Fortunately, some Russian visitors to Manuel Antonio offered to lend López the necessary funds based on a mortgage of his land for a value of $15 per acre.  The Russians did not return to Manuel Antonio over the next two years, and as a result, López was advised by his lawyer that he was not legally obliged to pay them. However, Don Carlos felt morally bound to return their loan and, in addition, he gave them 2.5 hectares of land which now are part of the prestigious Tulemar development.

Don Carlos and Doña María de los Ángeles had ten children, two girls and eight boys. All of them received a good education and one of them studied in the United States. Now all of them live and work in Costa Rica. Two sons, Lionel and Luis Alberto, work with him on the farm.  His wife passed away five years ago. I ask him how many grandchildren he has and he answers, “un monton” (a lot).

Asked who he admires most, he replies, “God and my father. God, because of all He has created, nature and all He has given to us, and my father, because he was, and still is, my guide – even now.”