SIMONE  LIVES  IN  COSTA  RICA    ----   In the morning monkeys are swinging by.

 For a year she has been volunteering in Central America and lives there now for more than 6 years since. Simone: "I feel so good here, I never doubted that this is my home".

Sometimes she feels like Jane, you know, the one of Tarzan, when she finds her way through the jungle with a machete, for example. Or when she is balancing on trunks and climbing waterfalls.
And especially when she was putting leaves at the ridge of a roof or preparing food on an open fire. Primitive? A rut? Never. “My life is one big adventure since living in Costa Rica.
In the Netherlands so much luxury exists. Everything is possible.

Do you need something beautiful for your window-sill? Go and seek it. Here this is the last thing you're doing. But precisely the lack of luxury makes you appreciate what is available. Recently my parents were visiting us. My dad is really used to luxury. Because the electricical power failure here, we couldn’t make coffee. That he found boring, but later I could still serve him with coffee and he was immediately put on a lot happier mode.
More than anything I've learned to be grateful. There are so many things that you take for granted too easily. I can still appreciate when my toilet is flushing. And then we finally got electricity. I played with the light switch : On, Off, On, Off. Of course it is not funny if you just go for dinner and there is a electrical power failure. It could take hours before the electrical power is back. You can then complain how annoying it is, but you can also choose to quickly let go ".

Not everyone is born to live in the jungle, Simone has seen that. "I've seen people go crazy, because not everything went as they had planned, because here you have to live by the day”. “You can still make an appointment with a handyman, but when his brother has just caught a load of fish, than he will help his brother first. That is frustrating. Sure. But it does not help you to be frustrated about it”.

When she was sixteen Simone traveled down to Costa Rica for the first time. While other girls went partying in Salou, Spain, Simone chose to spend her holidays in Central America. "My parents are both world travelers and have always encouraged me to follow my heart”. “From a previous holiday with my mother I knew a woman who wanted to start a hotel in Costa Rica. She is as old as my mother, but in some ways younger than me. A "Young Spirit". I decided to visit her.

It was my first encounter with the jungle. This dense forest, the monkeys, the giant butterflies. I thought it was one big fascinating world. There is such a mystical atmosphere. When you see the dew ascending from the ground in the morning..... Just magical. With a great holiday behind Simone was quickly swallowed up by life in the Netherlands. “I went to college, found a job. But it continued to haunt my head: is this it? Should I get my happiness from a one time per year holiday? Wouldn’t I rather live at the place where I be on holiday all the time? In conversations with friends I noticed that they were not interested in those questions. However, it even encouraged me more. Apparently I was not thinking about this without a reason, I had to act also.
One year volunteering, that was the intention, but it appeared to become different. It is never a conscious decision to stay here. It just happened to me. Every day I went a step further along. I feel so good about the fact that I never have doubted whether this is my home ".

But love is involved here too. Simone: "Yes, I am terribly in love with a Costa Rican. I was here less than a year when I met him at the hotel where I worked as a night manager. He was a Chef, so we worked together a lot. He decorated the plates by writing our names with sauce and made hearts of guacamole for me, but I didn’t want to know about it. I was here in Costa Rica for myself, wanted to my own thing. I had heard terrible stories about Latino’s seducing women and leaving them behind empty handed. Yet I became increasingly fascinated by Vladimir. His way of doing things was appealing to me a lot.  I was positively surprised about his goals in life. He dares to go for it fully, take risks. So he traded his car for just a piece of  land. Simone: "Well, we had no car, but by exchanging continuously and working very hard we now have 70 hectares of primary forest. With Vladimir I dare to take risks, instead of going for the 'safe' way.

We started a hotel 3 years ago. In the middle of the jungle, still close to the ocean. In the beginning we had no electricity, there was nothing. It was obvious that we had a very primitive life in the beginning, but I knew what we were doing. My only first real requirement was a toilet. I'm sure it was a shock for family and friends, how we sat there in the beginning with nothing. They thought that we might have to live for the rest of our lives in a hut. From zero Vladimir and I have built up everything together. We now have electricity, running water, 3 bungalows, a private house, a restaurant and even a pool. After all the hard work it’s so nice to have a dive in our pool. Jumanji Bungalows is the name we have given to our hotel. Named after the book where fantasy became reality, because that is what happened to our hotel.

We now have space for up to 9 people and focus on somewhat wealthier audience. People who primarily want privacy, want to relax fully and enjoy plenty of nature. Vladimir is a chef, running the kitchen and I run around all day to get things done. I get up at 5 AM and often go to bed at around 9 PM. It’s the same what the birds do, but I’m never bored. Sometimes when I am at work I see a monkey passing by.….

Who can say this when at work ?
Simone can miss her friends in Europe. Simone: "Luckily I go back to The Netherlands for a few weeks, once a year. It is great to see my friends again and go shopping with my mother. In Costa Rica, as a tall blonde – I am a kind of attraction. In Amsterdam I am one of many". Yet Simone does not always have to travel to the Netherlands for a meeting with her loved ones. Simone: "It might sound strange, but when I imagine that yesterday I drank a cup of coffee with my mother in Breda, The Netherlands, and I imagine that this is real, than it feels that way. Yes, it is  fooling yourself, but it sometimes feels so good!