What do you think of when you hear the word luxury? Sleeping wrapped in satin sheets? Sipping Dom Perignon while soaking in a bubble bath? Shopping online while enjoying the view from your enclosed climate-controlled living room? My friend Tara has her own question: Does the word luxury even belong in the same sentence with Costa Rica? Tara recently left a job where she attempted to sell Costa Rica as a luxury destination, both in tourism and real estate. She has lived here for over 20 years, worked a variety of jobs, and was ready, in her words, to make some real money. In recent years she worked as a one-person tour company, handling reservations, pick-ups, and also served as the tour guide herself.
I once went on one of her tours, a full day of hiking up and down hills to see , sloths, , and more in areas where few tourists ventured. It was a down-and-dirty tour, slogging through jungle areas of the Southern Pacific Coast and the Osa Peninsula. It was not a tour for the faint of heart.
Now we met for breakfast. “I live in a cabin in the campo, no a/c, most of it open to the surrounding nature,” she told me. “I am not sure what I was thinking.
I have nothing in common with anyone looking for luxury. I was like – Can a person with no feet sell shoes? Can an illiterate review books? I felt like an impostor, an actor playing a role and not doing it particularly well.” She had arrived for breakfast driving the same car she has had for years, a battered 1999 Pathfinder.