| In the 1992, when I arrive the for the first time in Costa Rica, I was looking for a place were find quiet, pristine nature, little impact due to the massive tourism and opportunity to develop some low impact activity in the tourism area. I did a two month tour of the country visiting all the areas that, in that moment were in the “top ten list”, and I remained a little disappointed about the situation I found, but a couple of weeks before leaving, I arrived in the Osa Peninsula and I fell in love with it! The Osa Peninsula is the southern and farer area, from the capital city, of the country, with a very basic road web, no industrial plants, the lowest density of population and highest amount of rain per year, if you see it by the window of a small airplane, it looks like a vivid green diamond lying on the cobalt blue of the ocean! The long list of: “not available” for everything that was a little bit more than the very basic services at disposition in the area, instead of scaring me about buying a land here, just increased the “ sense of challenge” and two years later, after returning for a time to Italy, to close the activity I run there, I was owning and running a really secluded lodge, build by myself and few local workers, in the upper Sierpe river, one of the more pristine location of the whole peninsula. Few years later I moved to P.to Jimenez where the company is located now, and where I am operating with the essential help of my wife Cecilia. Cecilia began her activity in the real estates, more than 15 years ago, owning the first office in the peninsula with a wide area of activities, ranging form the tourism information, to the properties management, to the public fax service, the very first one in the Osa Peninsula!! Later she enter in the environmental movement aimed to save the pristine nature of the Peninsula from the savage exploitation of the forest by the timber industry and the construction of a high environmental impact mill, and the relative port, for a paper company. After this period, having won both battles!!, she returned to the real estates and properties management offering her wide knowledge of the norms and law that rule the buying and the ownership of a land in the different zones of the Osa Peninsula. Thing are much more easy now, we have broadband internet connection in town and at the local drugstores
is possible to find almost everything; big difference if you thing that in ’92 the stuff you could find at the “pulperias” were almost
only: rice, beans, onions, battery for the torch, machetes and some kind of nails, and, even a regular phone line, was impossible
to have, a cellular phone was present only in the movies and the word” internet” was unknown. The
regulation of the property owning is now much more clear than ten years ago and is possible, if supported by a legal advisor with
up to date knowledge of the matter, avoid the mistakes that turn in a nightmare the purchase of that “ dream property” that would
assure to you and your family years of enjoying of nature, climate and society. Giulio Ranalli & Cecilia Solano Calderon |
