Welcome to a special place in Costa Rica where the jungle meets the Pacific and the monkeys out number their cousins for a change. This special place is called Nosara and it is where an expatriate community staked their flag in the ground and declared, enough. Enough destruction of the very reason why they moved to Costa Rica in the first place. Nosara is itself an accident that bloomed into the Orchid of Costa Rica.

In the 1960’s much of what we now call Nosara was purchased and a planed development was on the way. Lots were drawn up for houses, the handful of golf courses were laid out and yes even the occasional shopping center marked off. Local roads were built, an electrical grid hoisted into the sky and big plans for the future were described to all who would listen. But the developers dream met reality when he failed to foresee the lack of interest in an isolated area with no roads in or out and the fact that it was far from what little of Costa Rica was developed in the 1960’s. As a result everything was for sale and large sections were bought up by various individuals with one common focus, preservation of the Costa Rica they saw was withering away.

Today, Nosara is best described as a lush jungle garden, with a controlled human presence and the expatriate community of Nosara deserves most if not all of the credit. Much of what Nosara is about is largely what Nosara is not about. You will not find any high-rise condominium developments. There are and will never be any shopping centers. Most important, there are no buildings within 200 meters of the ocean and there is an organization to oversee the preservation of this special place called the Nosara Civic association.

The Nosara Civic Association is not your garden variety, tree hugging, pacifist, extra crunchy granola crowd but rather a croup of individuals from all walks of life and nationality. They have yet to use violence in their efforts to keep rampant development out of Nosara, but they have come close and they are often held up as an example of citizen sponsored controlled development. These folks are dead serious and the developers who have tried to develop in Nosara have left and have learned a valuable lesson. Concrete and Nosara don’t mix!

Perhaps the best way to appreciate Nosara is to drive through Tamarindo and see all of the high rise buildings towering over the beaches and the hoards of people compressed together on the beeches below. Then drive to Nosara where the concrete is substituted for the towering jungle canopy and the droves of howler monkeys watching their cousins returning from the beach with little more than a pair of shorts and a surf board and it's going to stay that way!

Enjoy,

Dave Caywood July 2007

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