– Expats in Costa Rica –
When Frank Witter, 57, a freelance cameraman, left the plane in Myanmar, he knew it was not the country he was looking for, too hot and too humid. Neither was South America, which he had traveled from top to bottom.
„Then my wife’s sister came up with Costa Rica“, he recalled. „We’ve never been there, so we decided to go to Costa Rica with some friends“. That was 2014.
Where in Costa Rica? The Caribbean was out of the question for both because they like to sleep in in the mornings and prefer to enjoy sunsets rather than sunrises.
Tamarindo, Jaco, tourist centers, also not what they wanted: „We can find that anywhere in the world“. Frank and his wife Joke just wanted to live a relaxed life.
Seven months later. They bought the Restaurant El Barco on the Costa de Oro in Guanacaste. At that time, Joke had a good job as Editor-in-Chief of a music magazine and initially stayed in Germany for another year. „First we wanted to see if everything went as we had planned“.
Now, after three years, he is convinced that „we have a quality of life here that I would never have been able to put together in Germany“.
Virus Costa Rica. At home, in Francfort and Munich, they had a large circle of friends. „But it turned out that all my friends have been here at least once in the last three years, some three times“. Some of his friends have even bought the neighboring property.
The friends are back, „but the Costa Rica virus had fully invaded us“, Frank says, „we live here secluded in a still unknown paradise“.
Today, they have a solid customer base. „Even families who live in Samara or Santa Teresa come to this idyll to spend a relaxing day on the beach“.
How about vacation? In October, Frank and Joke were in the mountains above Manual Antonio. They stayed three days at 5,413 ft, then went shopping in San Jose and quickly returned to Guanacaste. „We finally vacationed on the beach in front of our restaurant“, Frank smiled.
Homesick? „If I look at the atmosphere in Germany, at reinforced concrete bollard to protect Christmas markets, the problem with foreigners, then I don’t want to grow old in Germany“.