“Experienced, dependable rentista family seeks long-term lease situation for bed & breakfast or small hotel. Hablamos español. Will consider caretaking/managing position. Will also consider caretaking larger property.

Experience
includes property management for others plus owning/operating
guesthouses, a residential holistic health spa, a fitness/yoga studio,
vacation rentals and restaurants.

Will consider a property listed for sale as long as there is a reasonable time to move on sale if the new owners did not want us to continue managing.

For details and more information, please email us.”

This is a very serious offering. I need to be productive. Hal, too. And the boys. To complete a task and be rewarded. Preferably with money, but almost anything will do at this point.

The idea came about when I was talking to a friend who owns a guesthouse. She has a friend who also owns a guesthouse. This friend, Toby, lives in the states and answers the reservation line from there. Toby’s cousin lives on-site and greets and cooks for the guests. This arrangement has worked pretty well for them for a couple of years, but nobody is making any money. They see room for improvement and would like to have it be a more personal, home-like B&B.

We visited the property. It’s very nice, big with plenty of rooms to live and work, nice-sized kitchen and a really good floorplan. But, from the front yard (where, ok, no one hangs out) there is a mostly unobstructed view of a garbage dump. This has apparently not been a problem for guests there for a week, they do get repeat business. We like the idea and the property so much, we almost said yes. But the recent doggy-do mist experience is still too fresh. So to speak. The thought of sharing an acre of air space with… well, we said no.

But the idea is brilliant. Perfect. We are all quite enthusiastic about this. We have the perfect skill set, the experience, the desire, we love having people over, yet understand the critical need to have a private space (oh, yes, we’ve done this before). Running a guesthouse is being the ultimate host. Welcoming guests into your home, making them comfy, answering questions, feeding them scrumptious food, showing them the good spots… we are all worked up over this idea!

So… I guess we aren’t leaving. Not until Don Oscar throws us out anyway. As much as the crime scares me here, when it comes right down to it, living in the U.S. scares me more. Things are bad there and getting worse for the time being. We just don’t have enough money to insulate ourselves there. Our lives are 99% good here and to pick up and move into that uncertainty seems a little nuts. Not to mention financially risky.

We thought about moving to another country and there are a few places we’d love to try out. But the entire world is pretty uncertain right now. Besides, we added it up and moving would be prohibitively expensive. Somehow, selling all our trinkets and clothes and major stuff three years ago was refreshing and cleansing. But I’m not ready yet to part with my Costa Rica stuff.

Let’s face it: we’re comfortable.

You know what made us the saddest about possibly moving away? Not speaking Spanish. Isn’t that weird? Speaking Spanish, hearing it spoken, even struggling to find the word (ok, I’m the only one who still struggles), we’d miss that so much. Weird.

Oh, about the job. It’s not really a “job” job. I was approached about writing reviews for local small businesses. You know: eat at a restaurant and then write up what I think. If I don’t like it, I won’t write anything. But if I love the joint, I’m positively effusive! This is another idea I’m wild about. Imagine how thrilled I’d be to actually make a dime being a critic???? Wow. I gotta lay down.

But first, I want to ask you: next time you are talking to all the Costa Rica guesthouse owners you know who are ready to do something else but not ready to sell, or who are trying to be an owner from afar and need a trustworthy fun family to manage their investment, think of us. Then come visit.