A New Year, and New Life In Monteverde

I don’t know if the genius said that or not… But, never mind its origins. Let’s try to answer the question in Monteverde at the end of the worst crisis ever lived in this place and to start a new year with the best attitude there is in life: Gratitude.  

Coming to answer that question, living in Monteverde and planning to stay, my answer is, “Yeah, it seems nice.” 

2022 is almost here and we are to face new challenges knowing that we thrived in the hardest of circumstances throughout 2020 and 2021. 

We are left with many questions without an answer after so much suffering. But looking out the window at the impassible rainforest, all I can see is life permanently reinventing itself in more ways than we can imagine. 

We are just a tiny ant on a bromeliad lost in a huge forest trying to explain the ways and reasons of the infinite. 

But in this smallness lies all life and all possibilities, as it lies in every seed and every speck of pollen. Nothing is ever really gone. Nothing really stops changing form. 

A Place Where Giving Thanks is Found In Every Day 

We start the year by giving thanks, to life, to our families and friends, to our visitors, and to everything! 

Regardless of our beliefs, gratitude is a state of mind where we give witness to all the wonder, we recognize the loving, the amazing, the tender, and the joyful. 

It is a recognition of what’s truly valuable in our lives. The invisible and the powerful. 

Never mind if you recognize it to someone called God, or to nature, life, or spirit. Or if you simply acknowledge the possibility of the collective that we all are. The fact is that our individuality is of little importance because we are indeed a “we”. 

So, let’s start by looking at what we must recognize as some of our greatest gifts, realizing of course that those that we might see now as our worst losses could be also our greatest earnings for the years to come.  

New Appreciation of Each Other

The pandemic is getting to its end finally and with the majority of the population already vaccinated, we’re hopeful that we are going back to normality in the next few months.

However, we must never forget all we learned, all we lived, and especially, all we ought to be thankful for. 

This breakdown turned into a breakthrough and taught us all more about ourselves, and what is really valuable in life. 

I think what we are most thankful for, is life itself. 

The chance of experiencing so much beauty, and passion; the chance to see the glow of happiness in people’s faces; the amazing power of a smile that brings out the child within.  The atonement that lies in shared genuine laughter. 

The senses bring in all the colors, the movement, the breathtaking landscapes where the beauty lies, even hidden. 

But beyond perceiving through our senses all the amazing things around us, we are thankful for knowing that all that comes in, is received in an open attitude of joy and discovery. Because whatever beauty we perceive in the world is just a reflection of our inner infinite.  

We are thankful for being a part of such a perfect system as life is, where even if we don’t see it, or even know about it, everything is well synchronized and it is entirely possible that all of us have purposes and functions that we don’t even know of. 

We are thankful because what we don’t know is happening too. 

Becoming Part of a Greater Family

This year was a great lesson in friendship and true family values. It was a time to realize what was truly important for us. 

In Monteverde, we learned to take time to drink in the beauty of sunrises and sunsets and the great relevance it gives to a walk greeting everyone we meet on a sidewalk or on a trail. 

And we all learned somehow that the travel industry goes beyond profit into a true sharing of what is best of the places we love. Seeing the gleeful faces of the visitors in Monteverde is such a joy for all of us! 

We might have thought differently a couple of years ago, but now that groups are all around; cafes and restaurants are alive and noisy again and the trails are bustling with the wonder of all their visitors, we realize that the best of this industry is all about providing true experiences of freedom and joy. 

A Thanks From Us To Our Visitors

And also appreciate all the people that make these dreams possible for thousands of other people. The absolute certainty that smiles and happiness are what make our work a successful deed is absolutely fantastic! 

We are also thankful for all the time we shared talking, thinking, pondering, wondering, anguishing, fearing, and laughing at the end! 

If I am still writing this, I have to become grateful myself for each breathe, for each heartbeat. 

If you are reading this please look at yourself, alive and kicking, maybe planning already a wonderful vacation! Isn’t that marvelous after all we’ve been through? 

For me, as a writer just picturing you, somewhere in the World reading my words and thinking about living a bit of the harmony and peace I live daily is a gift big enough as to give thanks to you and life. 

Ocotea Boutique Hotel Philosophy During the Pandemic

On March 6th, 2021, the first Covid 19 case was confirmed in Costa Rica. Nothing could prepare us for what was about to come. Ten days later, on the day Ocotea Hotel started its construction, Costa Rica closed its borders. 

In less than a month the area of Monteverde had an 80% unemployment rate.  It was a very surreal landscape to see this usually bustling place empty of tourists, buses, and microbuses; hotels and restaurants closed. Even our dear preserves and trails had to close down. 

The first thing that happened after the last tourists fled and all businesses had to close doors was that all the young floating population that worked in these businesses also left. As they departed, the great sort of apartments and houses that are usually rented by all the outsiders that come to live here were also emptied. 

The beautiful wilderness of Monteverde, absent of all humans, seemed to feel lonely; waiting to be recognized and praised as always. 

It was like the planet had stopped, and Monteverde with it, while the vulnerable community just didn’t know what to do with all the frustration and uncertainty. 

It was a very surreal, almost dystopian time. It was, overall, very sad. 

For the people of Monteverde, at first, it was a shock that we did not know how to react to. Somehow we all entered the same game as the rest of the World… “Oh Come’n this will only last a couple of months!”. But as time passed and the airports remained closed we could see that this slow-motion time we were living was here to stay for longer than we expected. 

Some of the businesses tried to keep some of the employees for as long as they could. But in Monteverde, there is a very large population of independent workers and small family-owned companies. 

Fortunately, and again, we say this in a spirit of enormous gratitude, the community is well organized, and before March ended Monteverde had created an organization to deal with the crisis, and we made a poll to acknowledge the situation of the families of the region. 

We -as a community- found who had a real basic need that was not met, and also learned about the people who had savings, or other ways to survive while the situation came to an end.

For us, at Ocotea Boutique Hotel, our objective was to keep building for a future beyond this tragedy. We never stopped, we kept all our construction crew. A bit slower than we thought it was going to be but we had to keep it going. 

We’re blessed and grateful that we didn’t let go of any of our workers and managed to meet the payroll every month. 

And the result of it is having the hotel ready exactly at the time when everything is coming back.  

We are filled with gratitude for being able to finish the hotel amidst the hardest of circumstances. We weathered these hard times together with our family, and together we’re ready to move into the future. 

And that is probably our biggest bulk of gratitude. To have had the courage and support of our family to keep going and to have succeeded after all. 

To A Joyous Year in Monteverde

We are facing new challenges. New risks are getting to our doors, and fear is always around the corner whispering its ugly tune… But gratitude scares it away. No monster thrives where the recognition of love lives. 

Care and thankfulness flourish every day in Monteverde, whether that’s in the simple appreciation of the nature around you, the joy of sharing a smile with a stranger walking down the street or getting to explore this magical place together.

So! Happy New Year to all! We are waiting for you with open arms! 

Marilyn Atkinson. "A Life Lesson From Einstein." Erickson Coaching International. 28 Aug. 2012. Web. 19 Nov. 2021. <https://erickson.edu/blog/einstein-on-the-porch>