Once Upon a Time I Dreamed of Living by The Beach.

“What do you like more, beach or mountains?”, a common travel question people asked. As a little girl, my instant answer used to be, “beach”.

Looking back, my first meeting with the beach was when I was one year old, and several encounters thereafter, over the years, in various parts of India. On the other hand, I had not been to a mountain town until I was ten years old. So, may be the beach was an obvious choice?

Now, many sunsets later, if you ask me the “mountains or beaches” question, my answer will be “nature”. I will take whatever is wild.

I digress.

This story is not about my destination type preferences. Instead, it is about my dream of living by the beach.

Dream of Living by the Beach

The husband and I are fortunate to have had the chance to travel to several beach destinations in India, as well as in other countries of Asia, Caribbean, and North and South America. But, living in big cities, we always returned to our urban life.

The beach life seemed to me the good life. It allured me. The swaying palm trees, the sand beneath my feet, the waves glistening under the sun, the smiling people, the fresh beverages, the stunning sunsets – what if I could get all of that, everyday? I dreamed of living by the beach.

Living by the Beach in Dominical, Costa Rica

2023: Over the last few months, the husband and I spent more than half of our time dwelling in beach towns, split over different stays at different places. The longest of those was when we were volunteering at Dominical, a small beach town on the South Pacific coast of Costa Rica.

When we signed up for the two-month long volunteering commitment, little did we know what to expect. But that’s a story for another day. This story is about our experience of living by the beach in Dominical, Costa Rica.

Beach Weather

We started the volunteering assignment when Costa Rica was in a transition phase from dry season to rainy season. So, the days in Dominical were still hot.

For more than a decade, we had been living in cities with mild tropical climates – not too hot, not too cold, tropical showers in the afternoon for many months of the year. So, at this beach town, just being out and about under the sun had its impact. The skin looked dull; the hair turned rough. But beyond all that surface level damage, the heat and humidity extracted all my energy.

“Why do people choose to live by the beach!”, I would ask myself during the day.

Beach Sunset

But every day, as the day progressed, I soon forgot about my battle with the sun. Holding hands with the husband, I would take little steps to walk to the beach and watch the fierce waves crash on the rocky shore, as the sun bathed the sky and the earth in a golden glow with its last rays.

“I feel like pinching myself”, I often told Indranil, “we are getting to see a beach sunset every day, like a dream.”

Small Beach Town Infrastructure

Soon, the hot summer days made way for the rainy season. Fresh tropical showers make the daytime temperatures more bearable. But, with the onset of the rainy season, arrived new challenges.

The first big rain of the season created leaks on the ceiling of our room. Several leaks. That night, rain water fell on our bed so fast and furious, as if someone had opened a few taps on the ceiling.

But the infrastructure in a little beach town in a remote part of Costa Rica may not be what we are used to in the cities. The repairing of the leaks had to wait until the next morning, which turned out to be a couple of days.

So, Indranil and I spent the night moving the bed and other furniture across the room, and laying out several utensils on the wooden floor to collect rain water, emptying them and then putting them back in the correct positions.

“I want to go back to the city!”, I exclaimed. But only on the first night the leakages happened. Yes, there were new leakages on other nights, but by then we knew the drill and laughed it off.

Beach Vibe

One fine afternoon, we were sitting at the balcony, with lunch plates in our hands.

The blue ocean peeked through the line of beach-almond and palm trees across the street. Scarlet macaws hung out on the trees next to our balcony. Popular Latin songs played one after the other on the playlist of the Café downstairs.

I took another bite from my plate and pondered, “This moment in time – isn’t this a real-life snippet from the life I had once dreamed of?”

Wildlife

No story from Costa Rica can be complete without the mention of wildlife.

The Scarlet Macaws that we saw during lunch that day were not a one-time chance spotting. The Central and South Pacific region of Costa Rica is known to be home to a healthy population of Scarlet Macaws. That includes Dominical. So, the odds of spotting Scarlet Macaws are pretty high, even without taking a tour or going in to a national park.

Our time in Dominical coincided with the breeding season of the Scarlet Macaws. So, every morning, we saw dozens of Scarlet Macaws in the trees around where we were staying. We got to see these exotic red birds with blue and yellow wings, in action, feeding, flying, loving or just chilling. Not one or two. Dozens of them! On some days, Indranil and I tried counting. We usually lost count after seventeen or eighteen, in just ONE tree!

There was a sloth who always snuggled the top branch of the tree on the right side of our volunteer house. So, every morning, it was an exciting “to-do” for Indranil and me to check if the sloth was still up there or if it had moved to another tree. On most occasions, it stuck to the same tree, only changing branches occasionally.

Our volunteer house was located next to where the Baru River joined the Pacific Ocean. So, we sometimes spotted river turtles hanging out near the river bank. We were also mindful while walking on the street, lest we stepped on the beautiful orange and purple land crabs. On our coffee dates by the river, we had the company of iguanas slinking in the grasses by the water.

Both of us find childlike thrill while spotting animals and birds in the wild. So, living in Dominical, we felt blessed to be surrounded by so much wildlife.

Beach Community

Dominical is one wild beauty and the best part of living here is getting the opportunity to embrace its community.

We got along well with the other volunteer couple from Holland. From Day 1, they helped us settle in comfortably and we soon became one strong team together, sharing amazing camaraderie. We exchanged many fascinating stories about our travels, as well as shared deep discussions about making important life choices. Other members of the staff, from Costa Rica as well as other countries like El Salvador and Argentina, became friends too. We either got to spend time with some of them individually, or in groups. But, when everyone got together, it was one big party, little too many beers and several smiling souls.

Our community in Dominical even extended beyond this group. The painter who sells his paintings on the street, the girl who sells ice-creams at the local shop, the people who come from nearby towns to sell their handmade products at the Dominical eco-feria, the woman who runs a local family soda, the artist who makes string bracelets and others whom we had met on this journey – everyone became a familiar face.

The last afternoon and evening, Indranil and I bid goodbye to everyone and exchanged hugs, smiles and hearty conversations. I may have had glistening eye corners during the farewell party that night, which extended till wee hours of the morning.

This is the most difficult part of staying longer at one place while traveling. You build connections with people, only for them to stay in memories, and probably to never meet many of them ever again in real life. You get attached and then suddenly it’s time to let go.

In almost two months’ time in Dominical, I did not even realize, when we had become one of their own, a tiny part of the close-knit community of this lovely beach town.

Final Thoughts on Living by the Beach

With the volunteering work, we accumulated an unforgettable experience but being new to this life, it was not easy for us. By the time we started our last week in Dominical, Indranil and I were almost dragging ourselves. We counted days to get back to the city life. Oh, how I missed my urban comforts, pleasant weather and movies in the multiplex.

But that feeling, that urge to get back to urban life, vanished during our last two days in Dominical.

Human nature. We value something more only when it is over or is about to end, isn’t it?

The beach walks, the riverside silent dates, the ice-cream takeaways, the beach sunsets, the salt in the air, the little town, the hugs and smiles of people – we would not get any of these from the day after. As soon as that thought sunk in, I felt a lump in my throat.

Over the next two days, everything about Dominical seemed more precious than they had during the past seven weeks. We tried to absorb as much as we could, and immersed ourselves in the love that this little beach town gave us. The final morning, we packed our bags and set sail for our next destination, albeit with heavy hearts and incredible memories.

Once upon a time, I dreamed of living by the beach and in those two months of volunteering in Dominical, I lived my dream.

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