We have all been confronted with radically altered “normals” these past few months. Back in early March.

I knew this virus meant business when the globally revered rock band Pearl Jam announced the cancellation of their highly anticipated world concert tour.

My longtime friend Bud from North Carolina was on the last flight out of Liberia (to Atlanta) on March 17. “It was so surreal”, he told me, “it felt strangely apocalyptic being on that plane, like life as we knew it was about to change”.

Boy was he right. Bud and his loyal group of surfing buddies (doctors, lawyers, bankers, fathers, sons) have been religiously making their annual bro-down surf trip to Nosara for the last 26 years and counting.

Suddenly borders were closed and governments around the world were appealing to their citizens to return to their homelands via special “repatriation flights”.

Being quarantined at home with family initially felt like a welcome change in contrast to the hectic busy lives we all were living. But as the months ticked along, the realities of our isolation, lack of work and routine, and general worry about everything began to take its toll.

The world had been experiencing decades of unprecedented gain and prosperity, almost excessive and limitless in too many ways, while mother nature took a back seat to man’s relentless pursuit of power, wealth, and progress.

It has been inspiring to hear stories of nature rebounding during this pandemic; cleaner oceans and air, animal populations spiking, and new-growth forest ecosystems flourishing once again.

I like to think of this as a time of RESET.

We have been racing along at full speed for so long, this pause has given us a much needed time to refocus our priorities and perspectives.

The unbridled growth and prosperity in Nosara, in tourism, investment, construction, population explosion, etc. comes at a cost: pollution, crime, destruction of refuge habitat, greed, corruption, etc.

Fortunately, we have been given a reprieve; a time to regroup. Through all of this we have realized our very nature. Costa Ricans are people of heart and soul.

We love to share our sense of peaceful well-being and reverence of nature with others. We have dearly missed our guests from around the world. On August 1^st, the government of Costa Rica will begin welcoming a limited number of international flights from Europe, Canada, and the United Kingdom.  We look forward to sharing our beautiful land with you with our unmatched spirit of Pura Vida!

Let us handle with care and savor each moment together as we rebuild a new world.