Last weekend we visited our neighboring country. Friends of our friends had moved there just two weeks earlier after spending four years in Mexico. We decided it was a great excuse to return to Costa Rica, almost four years after our first visit. During that first trip, we spent most of our time in the north, exploring mountains and volcanoes, and a short while on the northern Pacific coast.
This time we were invited to visit the Uvita region in Puntarenas Province. Since Uvita is relatively close to the Panamanian border, my original plan was for Kasia and Victor to fly west to David, Panama, on Thursday after school. I wanted to leave Panama City early that same morning, drive across the country in our car, pick them up at the airport, and then continue another two and a half hours to our destination.
After some research, however, I discovered that our car did not have international insurance. On top of that, crossing the Panama–Costa Rica border is nothing like driving from Switzerland to France. It can take up to three hours, followed by additional time to “import” the car into Costa Rica and complete the necessary paperwork.
In the end, we decided to fly to San José and rent a car there. Although there is a smaller airport closer to Uvita, there are no direct flights from Panama.
The San José metropolitan area has a population of about two million, but it is not an especially impressive city. While Victor stayed in the hotel room attending his Friday classes, we ventured into the city center, though we were not particularly impressed.
One advantage of landing in San José was that one of Victor’s teachers lives there. We took the opportunity to invite Miss Mariana for dinner and spent a lovely evening together. Although she has been teaching at The Socratic Experience for five years, this was apparently the first time she had met one of her students in person. She shared her story and explained her mission in San José, where her family, together with other families, supports underprivileged local children by helping provide access to better education.
The next day we checked out of our hotel in cool San José, where it was only 18 degrees, and headed toward Uvita. Although the straight-line distance is just 85 kilometers, the road stretches to 188 kilometers and took us nearly five hours to drive through the mountains.
Uvita de Osa, nicknamed “Bitcoin Jungle,” is a small town in southern Costa Rica, located along the Bahía Ballena coastline. Many expatriates from North America and Europe, particularly those interested in Bitcoin, have settled there. As we descended from the mountains toward the coastal highway, it felt like entering a different country. The roads were wide and well maintained. The names of bars and restaurants were in English, most roadside advertisements were in English, and everywhere we went we could communicate easily in English.
Our new friends Ania and Piotrek showed us around and strongly encouraged us to consider moving there for the next year. We are genuinely tempted. The temperature is similar to Panama, but the weather feels sunnier and the beaches are stunning. The difficult part for us is the distance from a major international airport and the lack of big-city amenities.
We plan to return around Easter to see whether we truly like the place, or whether it was simply a one-time infatuation.
