As some of you know, I am living in Costa Rica right now with my friend and fellow coach, Natalie.  We’ve been experimenting with a new way of living.  I.e. Living in Costa Rica as we continue to work as coaches, seeing how it goes to continue to build our practices as we also continue to build our life experiences.  We sorta figured, if we can coach from anywhere with a phone/internet, why not go live somewhere else amazing and try? So far, so (very) good.  It has spawned so many other crazy fun ideas (that I will share with you soon).

I have to tell you though, this is especially cool for me because I’ve never been much of a traveler.  I’ve never been the girl that has to do everything and see everything wherever I go and has to be out and about the whole time.  I like to think of myself as mostly a chiller, who loves to have bouts of crazy experiences and adventures and exploration.  AND, I’ve always thought of myself as very attached to things (home, car, city I live).  So this experiment has all been so interesting to me.  Questioning everything I’ve come so accustomed to thinking about myself.  Out here, now, it all feels different.

I, of course, have been loving all the adventures that I’ve been having and the things I have seen, but what I love the most about my experience in Costa Rica so far are the little moments.  The perfect song playing in the background as the breeze passes through the apartment.  The rustling leaves on the tree outside, or the friendly, knowing face of the cow on our property, as he looks straight in my eyes, as if to say “hello, again, friend.”  Or the neighbor’s dogs that comes to hang out in our house.   The local at the beach bar asking me to dance, understanding nothing the other says, but being perfectly in sync as we Cumbia through the night.  The building of our community in a small beach town.  Teaching the locals country line dancing while hearing the ocean waves crashing mere feet away.

It’s in the afternoon walks me and Natalie take, the conversations that spring up as we’re cooking dinner together. Hanging the laundry on the line or picking fruit off the trees on our property.  Playing horses or soccer with the little girl who lives upstairs.  Catching a ride into town in the back of a stranger’s truck.

These quiet moments, as I’m writing, with the fan blowing on my face, looking out the window on our property, blue skies above, trees ahead.  It’s in a moment, realizing that this is my life, and having the knowingness of how special that is.

Of course, there have been amazing things we’ve done that are share-worthy.  Moments other than the simple exchanges.  Or people we’ve met.  We’ve had wild nights of skinny dipping, drinking bottles of wine on the beach, hitchhiking .  But it’s in the passing moments, getting rained on and having to seek quick shelter in a nearby bar, running through the streets, slipping and laughing that remain in the forefront of my mind.

For a long time I’ve had this thing about trying to remember every single detail of everything.  It used to overwhelm me, to think of time just passing and me not remembering the details of what happened.  I’ve mellowed out a bit since then, realizing that I didn’t want to live my life so worried I wouldn’t remember the moments, that I wasn’t actually LIVING the moments.  Well, now I’m in Costa Rica, living my moments AND also wanting to share some of them with you.  It’s kinda long, so feel free to ditch the reading.  Hahah.

So here goes:

Things I’ve Learned So Far

1)    I really need to learn Spanish again

2)    Monkeys here tend to make this really odd and weird loud noise when a storm is about a day away

3)    Natalie and I live and travel very well together

4)    You should NOT spray giant ants with cockroach killing spray and that when ants die they emit a scent that attracts other ants to flee their safe home (and descend upon your entire kitchen floor)

5)    I’m an Internet junkie (duh)

6)    The Spanish words for “chips and salsa” is “chips and salsa”

7)    Even though I have a “base tan” I still need to wear sunscreen

8)    The word for a native Costa Rican is Tico

9)    I slack, super bad, when it comes to stretching and yoga

Things I’ve Seen

1)    A sea of black ants taking over our kitchen floor

2)    An iguana passing through our back porch

3)    Wild cows and horses

4)    The vastness of the open dirt road against the baby blue, sky filled with white clouds as we walk to town

5)    The ocean, from the top of the hill after our hour walk into Montezuma

6)    Waterfalls

7)    Jungle

8)    Monkeys playing in the trees

9)    Lizards that live in my closet

10) Our little frog friend, who we named Doug

11) Children on the front of dirtbikes riding with their parents into town

12) Wild butterflies

Things That Could Have Been Very Dangerous But We Came Out Alive (Mom, don’t read)

1)    Getting into a “taxi” from the airport.  And by “taxi” I mean an old beat up Toyota with the windows missing and the stereo ripped out

2)    Getting into another “taxi” from the nearest town (Cobano) to our apartment on the first day (that we had no idea where it actually was) and having the feeling that the guy also didn’t know where it was either, driving around unknown dirt roads

3)    Swimming in the ocean in the pitch black night on a beach where people had said they had seen several stingrays earlier, TWICE (pssssh)

4)    Getting on the back of a small quad with our neighbor who had been drinking (and continued to drink as he was driving me home) who drove me up the worst roads (unpaved, rocky, steep, dirty) in Costa Rica (according to Costa Ricans), in order to get home because there weren’t any taxis in town AND leaving Natalie in town alone so he could go back and pick her up

Things That Have Scared The Shit Out of Me

1)    See: Things that could have been very dangerous but we came out alive anyway

2)    When I woke up at 2:30 in the morning of the night I left Natalie in town only to find that she hadn’t returned yet, was not in the house, but her shoes were mysteriously waiting on the dirt road outside the house.

3)    Said ants taking over our house, that we thought were bees since they had wings

Things I’ve Never Done Before

1)    Eaten deer (I’m sorry veggie friends…just wanted to try it once…and just so you know, I’ve been veggie most of the rest of the time)

2)    Hung laundry on a line

3)    Picked wild fruit

4)    Danced salsa and cumbia

5)    Skinny dipped in the ocean (I know…I’m surprised this hasn’t happened before too)

It’s not necessarily that I’m doing or seeing anything absolutely, mind-blowingly spectacular at every moment.  I haven’t jumped out of a plane or off an 80 foot cliff, and most the time I’m just relishing in quite or relaxing moments.  But rather, the spectacular things I’ve noticed are that by simply doing life a little bit differently, living in another country, working, writing, reading, that my life is enriched.  More interesting.  More fun.  More colorful.  And more spectacular.  I still don’t consider myself to be someone who LOVES traveling.  But I can say, that so far, I love living here, right now, in this moment.

I’m glad to be able to share it with you.

Leave me a comment and answer this…what would make YOUR life more interesting, more fun, more spectacular?  :-)