Shift Happens

By Tom
Santa Teresa, Costa Rica

The last time I was in Costa Rica was summer of 2004 when I led outdoor trips for American teenagers. During a week between trips, my friend Lisa Ridenour and I, along with our co-leader Jenn, took the journey to the remote town of Santa Teresa. To get to Santa Teresa, we took a bus, a ferry, another bus, and then a taxi, finishing on a lonely one-lane dirt road that frequently became impassible due to flooding. When we arrived, we found the town of Santa Teresa charming and quaint. The town was a one lane dirt road that ran parallel with the beach. There were a few surf shops, a couple of smoothie places or burrito places, and some cheap hostels. Lisa, Jenn and I rented surf boards and spent our days falling off them into the ocean. For breakfast, lunch, and dinner, we walked up the street and had delicious smoothies that cost less than $1. The town was small and forgotten by all except a few hard-core surfers, and everything was cheap enough that we felt wealthy by comparison.

On that trip we stayed at a hostel by the beach owned by a guy named Juan. Juan was a friendly, middle-aged Argentine who lived at the hostel. He performed magic tricks to impress the patrons who passed through the hostel, surfed a bit, and could usually be found most afternoons taking a nap on the couch with the TV on. The patrons of the hostel were from all over the world and stayed for weeks or months at a time. Their daily routine consisted of surfing in the morning, watching a movie or a soccer game while it rained in the afternoon, and going out to the bars to party in the evening. And Juan only charged $8 a night because his philosophy was that he really didn't need much more than that to live off. It was a simple life; one that I personally would not care for in the long run, but still a way of life that I admired for the few days of my stay.

Since I've left Costa Rica, I've heard stories from friends that things have changed. Prices have gone up so that they are more comparable with prices in the United States. Towns that were once small and sparsely visited have become built up and now have chain stores. I thought there was no way Santa Teresa could be affected by these changes. But when we pulled in yesterday, I was amazed to see that the main street corner now had 15 or twenty buildings where before there were only two. One had a big Budget rent-a-car sign out front. As we walked along the dirt road through town, I noted that what had once been unoccupied rainforest now had hotels and real estate offices! And the $1 smoothie place is still there, but the smoothies now cost closer to $3.

Luckily, we found Juan's hostel, La Brunella. While the hostel has gotten bigger and the price is now $9 rather than $8, the place seems exactly as I left it. People from all over the world still gather around to surf, party, watch movies, and take naps. Grilled cheese sandwhiches remain the cuisine of choice. Juan seems to be wearing the same faded board shorts he was six years ago and he still hasn't put on a shirt. They haven´t upgraded to air conditioning, using only a few dusty fans to keep the place cool, and Juan performs magic tricks for anyone who asks. It's good to see that some things never change.