In this Daily: Living in Costa Rica, and When Las Catalinas Starts to Feel Like Home
It’s difficult to forget your first moment arriving in Las Catalinas, sweeping along the coastal roads overlooking Potrero Bay before finally cresting the hill at Casa Chameleon. Morning, noon and night town unfolds beneath you -- ready to wake, shining in the afternoon sun, or softly lit in the evening.
There’s a moment that comes after you’ve spent some time in town, a moment where Las Catalinas stops feeling like a place for vacation and starts feeling like home. It happens almost imperceptibly, and it often takes leaving and coming back for that feeling to click, but it happens all the same. The feelings of newness and wonder don’t go away, but in time you come to truly know this place, our little beach town in Costa Rica.
We talked a few weeks ago about how you can see town come to life in the tiny details. Over time here, you pick up an eye for those details, and you also start to appreciate town in a subtly different way.
Like the joy of watching town’s frontier steadily transform from cleared ground into new places to live and explore. The rooftops are going in on Plaza del Mercado, and each storefront will bring a new energy to town.
You learn to love the high tide and the low tide each in their own way, to watch the swell and the waves to understand what the ocean calls for. Pay attention and it will help you choose between paddleboard or boogie boarding or even surfing, snorkeling or a quest among the tide pools, lounging in the morning sands or setting out for a low tide barbecue.
The trails change in a smoother rhythm than the sea, their temperamental neighbor, but speak just as loudly to inspire the day. A stroll along the trails after rainfall is the forest at its most active, with the little rivers and waterfalls running and our native animal life boldly moving through the greenery. And then, as the trails pack in and the weather cools, conditions are perfect to fly along the hillside.
Walking through town, you start to notice each of the many species of flower as they bloom and spring into life. The flowers of Las Catalinas are mostly perennial, and each week brings a different blend of colors that dot the way.
And every day the streets seem to grow more full of life. No matter what time of year, there are always new people to meet along the streets, but over time it seems that town grows fuller and fuller of old friends, until you can scarcely walk out of your door without waving to a familiar face and stopping to chat.
Here’s to many more days in town.