🇺🇸001: Charles Herwig, USA, 30 years
Photos (left to right):
Chuck enjoying the Costa Rican jungle, 1991 Legends Event By Surf Costa Rica and Da Bull (Chuck is on the far left),
About this surfboard photo Chuck says ‘Shaped this board for Diego with a cheese grater with jungle lamination sanded by hand etc. This was core bro! 1989 or 1990. No padlocks on the factory door then! Hahahaa’
and The Ticos Culture and Social Change in Costa Rica by authors Mavis Hiltunen Biesanz, Richard Biesanz, Karen Zubris Biesanz (book mentioned in the podcast)
In this very first episode, we kick off with Charles Herwig. Charles, also known as Chuck, made his way from Florida to Costa Rica almost 30 years ago. Chuck chats about quitting his factory job in the USA, what Costa Rica looked like in the 80s and what it feels like to be a patriot of two countries.
Full name: Charles Herwig
Age: 50s
City of birth: Hawaii, USA
Residence in Costa Rica: Playa Jaco, Puntarenas
Instagram: @chucks_w.o.w_surf
Email: chucks@wowsurf.com
Additional links:
Episode Transcript:
Anisa [0:06]:
G'Day friends. I'm Anisa Hill and welcome to the Move to Costa Rica podcast. Here we tell the stories of people who have done just that, moved to Costa Rica. In Episode One, we kick off with Charles Herwig. Charles, also known as Chuck made his way from Florida to Costa Rica almost 30 years ago. Chuck chats about quitting his factory job in the USA, while Costa Rica looked like in the 80s, and what it feels like to be a patriot of two countries. If you like this episode, please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts by searching for Move to Costa Rica podcast. Before we dive in, remember to subscribe for new episodes released every Thursday, head to triple W dot move to Costa Rica podcast.com. This podcast was recorded in the office of Atlas Trust and Escrow in Playas Del Coco Costa Rica. Without any further delay, here is your host, Malcolm Hill.
Malcolm [1:14]:
G'Day friends, welcome to the Move to Costa Rica podcast. This week, the guest that I have with me is Chuck Herwig.
Chuck [1:24]:
Charles. Yeah, I’m a Charles. My son is Charles, my father is Charles, my grandfather's Charles, whatever, it's whatever it is what it is.
Malcolm [1:34]:
Why don't we start off with a few quick facts? How many years have you been in Costa Rica now? Just to hit everybody with that fact.
Chuck [1:43]:
Okay, my first residency was in April of 1991. And it took me a few years to get my residency. I made a decision in November of 1987 that I wanted to live in Costa Rica. And that following year, I ended up in Costa Rica and pretty much haven't left.
Malcolm [2:08]:
Wow since 91, that's a good amount of time. So let's talk a little bit about I guess, life before Costa Rica. Where about in North America was home for you growing up and I guess, like the bits of your adult life that you did live outside of Costa Rica. How did all of that happen?
Chuck [2:31]:
I was born originally in Honolulu, Hawaii. My dad's a marine. He was stationed in Honolulu. My mom flew over to be with him because he had a place on base for ship verta calm. He was doing Indochina back then, which was pre-Vietnam stuff. And so we were in Honolulu for a number of years. But I don't remember much. I was just a little dude. But there's a lot of stories to be told. And I'm thinking an hour we could fit them all. But my dad his nickname was the Bantam Rooster.
Malcolm [3:06]:
Okay.
Chuck [3:07]:
As a little five foot eight marine, he went up against all the big books and everything that wanted to hit on my mom so. And he has shocking red hair and he doesn't have it anymore but a shock of red hair and this whatever, you know, the Bathroom Rooster thing. And so, I think part of my gig, my world gig is that my dad actually had me surfing before I was born. So why Kiki mom out aboard. My mom do actually stood up and rode the waves. Buddy of mine says that shucks while surf the name of the surf shop. If you turn it over, says Chuck's mom serves. Okay, based on that story, but whatever. And I grew up in New York State upstate New York of all crazy places and Rochester, big industrial city.
Malcolm [4:00]:
So, at what age did you transition out of like from Hawaii over to New York?
Chuck [4:07]:
Six years old. So I don't remember any of it. I remember getting to New York at seven, probably because my little brother would have been about five because he would have gone to kindergarten in New York. Then my dad, you know, got everything all together and kind of started making the nest again. Bought a colonial home on the outside outskirts of the city. And that's where I grew up until I was 17 years old. Then we moved to Florida when I was 17. After high school, I lived there till 1987 and moved to Costa Rica in 1988 so.
Malcolm [4:50]:
I guess when you lived in New York, like did you get the opportunity to surf or was the move to Florida kind of a big catalyst for that?
Chuck [5:00]:
I got a chance to surf for one thing because every winter we would go to Florida for vacation. You know, that kind of thing. But I wasn’t a surfer yet, I was just a little kid, you know, I was a baby boy? No. But there's actually a picture somewhere. I wish I had it of me and my dad and we did this is we're talking 40 some years ago, okay. My dad and I on the beach. My dad standing on the beach with my little sister. And I'm in the ocean with a Styrofoam surfboard. So whatever. I mean, it's funny. It was one of those five and dime Styrofoam body board thinks you know? But dude I wanted to be a surfer. I picked up scraps of canny wax on the beach, because it was cool. You know, we didn't have mister dogs yet, you know? Dogs aren't even there yet. But also, we did summers on the Jersey Shore. And the surf on the Jersey Shore is actually even fun for a young kid in the summertime. And so I got a little bit of both, but definitely the catalyst to become as you and I would think about it a surfer where you dedicated a majority of your life to being in and near the ocean, and figure out a way to have the time available to surf, definitely was when I moved to Florida. That definitely was the catalyst.
Malcolm [6:22]:
Were you in your mid-20s or so when the transition happened?
Chuck [6:26]:
Later 20s.
Malcolm [6:28]:
And what inspired that?
Chuck [6:30]:
85 sorry.
Malcolm [6:30]:
Go for it.
Chuck [6:34]:
I came here the first travel trip with a group of friends of mine from the Gulf actually of all places in 1985. Because in the 80s this place is crazy in the 80s. There's nobody here, man. We serve Bronco, just us. Just us. I mean, there wasn't, you know, there was nobody here. This amazing Jaco was like nobody knew about it yet. Or you know not nobody, but very few people knew about Jaco yet.
Malcolm [7:00]:
How many troops down here? I imagine that was a surf trip you were doing with the guys.
Chuck [7:05]:
Yes.
Malcolm [7:06]: How many of those trips down here until you said this stuff Florida on that slide. That's what I want every day.
Chuck [7:14]:
I think it was seven. I think it was seven trips. Because my job was so good. And I had done whatever, I'd earn my right to have a number of vacations per year. And so I just scheduled my vacations and based on the surf and I already knew that I didn't need to go anywhere else, because the waves are really good here. And so I just kept coming back. And every time I came back, I brought a friend with. And every time I went back to the States, I left something behind. So whatever, it's kind of a mandated kind of thing or something. I don't know, man.
Malcolm [7:48]:
And then when you originally came down and moved, did you move full time immediately? Or was it like a transition to half the year here, half the year back up north? How did you do it?
Chuck [8:01]:
I made the decision full time. Talked to my dad about it, he had a friend of this, my dad was involved in real estate back then. A friend of his was named Charlie and other guy named Charlie Chuck, whatever, Charles, he was an investor in Playa Guiones. And what they call the sanctuary. That's Playa Guiones as we know it today. I talked to my dad and I told him what I had going on, I was a little frustrated on my job. I was a young, upstart, you know, like charging. And my boss told me that, you know, I couldn't have that next position because it was his job. I want to push him forward to the next level. But I was young, I didn't want to be a junior supervisor anymore. I wanted a full-time gig and make the real money and that kind of thing. And I had earned it. I had a JC's award, whatever, blah, blah, blah. Had all my reviews were super good. But we couldn't make that link that thing you know, and so it wasn't like I quit my job or something. I actually talked to my boss, I talked to my dad, and a friend of mine here in Costa Rica had told me that if I ever decided I wanted to do something he needed help in his restaurant. So that was kind of like already had a little in like,
Malcolm [9:16]:
Yeah.
Chuck [9:17]:
Opportunity. And I ended up telling my boss. I said dude, I want to go do something else. I can't do this forever. I can't walk into the factory forever. And he said you're going to Costa Rica, aren't you? And I was like, probably going to go to Costa Rica.
Malcolm [9:37]:
Did you have any language skills when you first arrived?
Chuck [9:41]:
My language skills were pretty poor. But I had already made friends. I mean, I knew 50 words you know? 50 Spanish words enough to get myself in trouble. A guy named Oscar [inaudible 9:57] he had a restaurant. That was the guy I worked for in the restaurant. He spoke real good English. He used to live in Canada for a while. So he was teaching me Spanish words when I ran into trouble. Plus it was good for him if I spoke better Spanish working in the restaurant, right? Carlos Solano, a guy that fixed refrigerators. That's where I did my original board repair back then doing surfboard repairs for people.
Malcolm [10:22]:
Explain how cool it back then because this is the early 90s. Is that correct?
Chuck [10:27]:
Late 80s, early 90s. Jaco was a dirt road running through town at a couple of businesses on the street. No supermarkets? No, we had a discotheque called Foxy. But it was outside of town a little bit. The only not multi room hotel was what is now the Best Western. Back then it was a Jaco Beach Hotel. It was like the main one, you know that was actually where all these guys who were all coming to Costa Rica for the first time or coming back and having such a great time here. And they all went back talking good about it. That was that boom.
Malcolm [11:10]:
You're in Costa Rica, you're in Jaco, and you've got your job at the restaurant that's kind of paying the bills. You're learning a lot of surf guiding, you're doing some surfboard repair, and I guess throughout that period, you were saying that Costa Rica experienced a huge boom in tourism and that the whole industry grew and you're kind of there for a lot of that. And moving forward like what became in the future? Did you meet someone here? Did you start a family here? What did business turn into? What did you start doing for work?
Chuck [11:48]:
Well, I met a met a young lady, the mother of my son, Katia. And she was one of the original five families from Jaco, and one of the few young available beautiful females. And hi Katia. And she's still a beautiful young lady. And she is, like I say, we're friends. And so it helped me kind of get into the town. And one of my goals was to actually become part of Jaco, you know, part of that niche, that thing that everything revolves around. She helped me with my Spanish, she helped me through some stuff, I helped her too, you know? Because I brought in a new element to the package. And I actually became more Costa Rican by having that gift of being here so early. I became more Costa Rican faster than I would have if I would have come later. I wanted to hear the history, I would tag on with tour groups, when I had groups of people. I'd actually tag on to organize tour groups to listen to the spiel, so that I could learn more from it. I want to know why that bridge was there. I wanted to, you know, understand the history and what makes Costa Rica great, you know, that kind of thing. And still think Costa Rica is great. We have our issues but I think it's great. And there's a reason behind that. You know, and it's not just Buddha veto, as they say, but that has a lot to do with it too, because that's part of Costa Ricans being Costa Ricans. You know, I don't know if there's anything in my past life that isn't an important part of who I am. Kind of thing because there's none of that, you know, people say Am I an expat they say, oh, you're an expat? I said, No dude. I said I'm a patriot. I said, I happen to have two countries flags that I can put on my shoulders. When I'm in US flag. And when I’m in Costa Rican flag, neither place is perfect but I'm proud to be part of both of. You know, the Latino, have fun, enjoy yourself, don’t stress over it too much. That's actually come into play even more in the last 10 years than it did the first 20. The first 20 I was building a life you know, I was building something for me and my kids because I do have two kids and I have a daughter Peyton. So I've been building for them and I and you know, that kind of thing. I got involved from an early stage. And like the working of it, you know, I've been the president of the growth and development association of Jaco. I've been a commissioner of our horse parade. I've been a member of the Chamber of Commerce since it started. Actually two of them. The Chamber of tourism since it started, I've been part of that. I'm not the guy that's from the outside, I'm actually part of the inside part or whatever, or part of the making of it all.
Malcolm [15:09]:
You've made yourself part of the community and added to that community, which makes you part of it. Yeah, absolutely.
Chuck [15:16]:
All of us, you as well, we all come here, because we have this dream we want to have. We all have something we're searching for, you know? The ones that make it, that actually make it and are happy with it, are the ones that are already happy when we got here. That's really something important.
Malcolm [15:36]:
Today, my wife and I were having a chat about when we came here. And we said that we weren't running from anything when we came here. We, you know, we came here, and we were already pretty happy about life. And it's easy to integrate into a culture that's kind of a very happy culture, I would say. Costa Rican people are extremely happy in terms of, you know, the average worldwide. And if you come here, and you're already in a pretty good place, the whole community, the whole vibe just seems to welcome you in. You know. And a lot of the time, when I see people who arrive here and might struggle with the transition, it's often because, you know, they come in with a lot of perhaps heavy…
Chuck [16:24]:
Baggage.
Malcolm [16:25]:
A lot of baggage, like a lot of heavy stuff that they're bringing here. And then they're looking for healing, which I'm not saying doesn't come like a lot of people do experience that out of Costa Rica. But coming here already being happy, makes the transition much easier for sure.
Chuck [16:40]:
Much easier. That's right. No, it's true. You know, we all have a preconceived idea of what tomorrow is going to be, like, you know? We know what we would like tomorrow to be like. A lot of people that move to Costa Rica, they've been here a couple times on vacation, sometimes only been here once on vacation, and they move here. Anyways but they've been here a couple times and they have this dream of what Costa Rica is going to be like for them. And that's too bad and it's not Costa Rica's fault. It's actually that person's fault. That reality is not what they thought reality was going to be. I tell a lot of people that want to move here, because I run into them in the shop, you know, and years past that I've run into somebody every day that says, dude, so what's it like living here? No. And I said, Well, you know, he said, It's wonderful. This is where I live. This is my home. This is my life. This is. And I said, it's not perfect, and it's not easy. And I said, you know, they'll tell me, oh, well, we're thinking about buying something we want to live here. I’m like, okay, I said, Well, you know, especially in the last few years, because it's been the marketplace has been soft, I'll call it. I said, well, how many times have you been here? How long? How many days have you spent in Costa Rica? And have you been here? Have you been there, have you been to the other place? No, this is our first trip. We've been here for days. And I'm like well said, you know, if you don't have to go back, right behind us, there's a place where you can rent an apartment that's super safe. It's in a gated community. It's got a little communal, actually a nice communal pool. It's close to everything. And I said, why don't you rent something for six months? Go buy a used car, go get a driver's license, because you know, as a tourist, you can get a Costa Rican driver's license. Worst case, it's going to be a nice souvenir, you know? And start living in Costa Rica. Before you've invested money into living in Costa Rica, be like that tourists for a while. Because if you like it at the end of six months, and you've had a chance to go other places, and you still want to move to Jaco I say, because that's where my you know, where most people tell me. If you haven't found someplace else you think you might want to try up your rent for six more months, like redo your contract. That way you get to see the rest of the year too. You get to see busy times, slow time, wet time, dry time. And you've gone through a lot of those headaches, including the every 90 days out of the country. They go every 90 days. You mean I got to leave? I said dude, you got to leave and that's one of those things that you learn during that first 12 months. But if everybody that wanted to invest and move to Costa Rica, both those things together, did that for 12 months, we would have a whole heck of a lot more people being happy about Costa Rica. Because, they would have tried it out and they might have gone away. Or they might have tried it out and found out that they really loved it here; trial and error.
Malcolm [20:12]:
In your experience, what have been the main things that you've seen? Like foreigners moving from their home country to Costa Rica within their first few years in that transition period, what are the main hiccups they experience?
Chuck [20:28]:
A number of people, one of the first things they come up against, is they talk to somebody who tells them they need to get residency, okay? So they hire Joe Blow attorney, supposedly, who takes two or three grand from them to start their paperwork so they become residents. Years later, they still don't have anything to show for it. And the guy wants more money, but he hasn't showed him anything. So that's a real negative. Especially the older North American, and I see this more as I become one of these older North Americans and more of them are here is, you know, dude they meet a girl. And she's beautiful. Or they think she is. And she's a lot younger. And, you know, they come in my shop, and I'm kind of gone. He says, yeah, dude, I want to introduce you, my friend. And I'm, like, nice to meet you. You know, whatever, blah, blah, blah. A couple weeks later, oh, yeah. That's my girlfriend now. I'm like, oh, yeah, cool dude. Oh, yeah. Well, she moved in with me now. And I'm like, oh, you got to be careful. You know, and people have a tendency to, because everything is so wonderful in Costa Rica, that they forget that there's also bad things out there. You know, there's people that are looking for something, we're all looking for something. When a guy walks in my shop, and I'm an honest guy about it. I want to know what he wants from me. Because I want to sell him something. But I also want to help. I want to sell them the right thing. But that's because I'm the ethical guy. But there's, you know, so that's another thing, you know, you got to be careful about instant friends, especially instant girlfriends, or in the case of older North American women. Instant young boyfriends. Dude, the women get hit hard by these guys, you know? Dude, women fall in love with them. And they do, they fall in love with them. And like women get crushed by this stuff. And then they help them, they buy him some surfboards for a surf school and they go through the whole thing. And then next thing you know, about a month and a half, two months later, dude here she is. I see her on the street, she's looking distraught. She's looking younger for a while now she looks really old. Because he's found a young girl. And he sold the surfboards that she bought them so they could run the surf school and blah, blah, blah. So just got to be careful what you wouldn't do in the US or Europe, you don't want to do here either, you know? You got to be careful, you got to use common sense stuff, you know. The other one is, learn the language. Have a good rudimentary grasp of the Spanish language before you come. Because not that you're going to avoid problems that come from not speaking Spanish, but you will create friendships because you do speak some Spanish. And, people will be more apt to become part of your life. And a positive thing is they want to talk to you then, you know? I mean, I know that because that's my experience wholeheartedly. Nothing like San Jose, going to buy car parts and you’re in this place where there's no get a number or anything like that. It's everybody goes to the counter in a ball, you know? And dude, that lone gringo guy might even get to the counter, but they keep taking care of the guys on the right and the left and you're kind of like going and then finally you say; Perdon Senor. And he looks at he goes, you speak Spanish? And I'm like, yeah, so then I get three guys helping me because they were scared that they weren't going to be able to talk to me. So think of some rudimentary Spanish, you know, I mean, it's only polite anyways, you know. I mean, you're in a foreign country. What do they say? When you're in Rome do as the Romans or something, you know.
Malcolm [24:38]:
What helped you the most to learn a language? What was your process of becoming bilingual or speaking Spanish?
Chuck [24:50]:
Situational Spanish. You know, where first thing you do is you learn how to talk about surfing, you know with other guys cos you got to hang out with people. And you kind of want to ask a girl to go out to dinner. So you got to learn how to ask her out to go out to dinner, and you need to be able to talk to her, you know. So, you got to go prepped a little bit, then you have to start a business and you're going to get a license and everything, you got to go to the municipality. So when you get that formula, don't ask somebody to fill it out for you. Ask somebody to help you fill it out, so that you understand what you're doing. Don’t sign in English. Hardly anybody spoke English. I mean, English is, you know, pretty strong language in Costa Rica. Now we're gringo eyes for kind of up to a point or foreigner oriented, traveler oriented.
Malcolm [25:43]:
Obviously, you've had with all your experience in this country, having seen the country go through different kind of booms and busts. And obviously right now, yeah, we're six months, almost six months into having the border closed here in Costa Rica. We're not going to get into the economics of what's going on. But it's not the prettiest situation ever from a reality perspective. However, looking at the bigger picture, do you think Costa Rica still offers like in the next 20, 30 years, based on your experience, do you see this country offering opportunity to foreigners wanting to relocate in the same way that it offered you that?
Chuck [26:26]:
I do. We're in a transition period here governmentally speaking. But I think there's a lot of smart Costa Ricans, but Costa Ricans are also por la Vida. So a lot of stuff is allowed to take place. And then we just figured it I'll take care of itself, which is trying to fix the load on the road. There's a book called Los Chicos and it gets into all the history and all that stuff of the Costa Ricans. You should read that book, anybody who wants to move here, because it's got a lot of insight. Los Chicos. I don't have the author's name, Los Chicos. It's a really good book.
Malcolm [27:06]:
I’ll look for internet link. And I'll put a link to that book in the show notes on the website for this podcast.
Chuck [27:13]:
There you go. Perfect. Okay, so we were…
Malcolm [27:20]:
We were talking about
Chuck [27:23]:
Over the 2030 years.
Malcolm [27:24]:
Yeah, the opportunities this country might have coming out of this global crisis. What do you see Chuck?
Chuck [27:32]:
Leaving the politics aside, okay? Costa Rica has a lot to offer, both as a territory, but also as a people okay? I think that anybody thinks we need to rush too hard into the future is making a mistake. Costa Rica, if people come to me, and they say, well, dude, so I'm worried, you know, like, should I get in on it now? And I said, well, I mean, if you want to buy something in Costa Rica, and you understand what kind of you're getting into by making that investment here, it's a good investment. It's not a bad investment. Because there's a lot of people who want to come to Costa Rica. A lot more people I think, post pandemia I'll call it will want to come to Costa Rica. We're a beautiful green, healthy, safe country still. There's bad areas of Costa Rica, but they're small, they're tiny. And most foreigners would never get involved in them. Most foreigners get in trouble because they put themselves in harm's way. They met the wrong people, they went to the wrong place. And they did it kind of knowing they were doing that too. They had that Willie's there, but they ignored the willies. Don't ignore the willies. That's what keeps us safe. Investment wise, just be aware that like every other country right now is going through changing growing pains. We're all going to be different. Five years from now, none of us in the US, Europe, Central America, anywhere are going to be the same place they were. If you want to buy because somebody tells you they want to sell their condo in Jaco or Tamarindo or wherever. And you want to buy it because you want a place to come stay, and you have the money to do it, do it! You have nothing to lose. Okay, things are right now rock bottom, kind of. I mean, the rock bottom people are willing to sell because they're afraid. So those people that aren't afraid, will buy. I bought my first piece of property 75 yards from the beach in Jaco. The main crop commercially known city in Jaco on the beaches. That back then was the first place everybody came to because that was the only airport and the road was, you don't even want to know about the road then. Dude, I bought my first piece of property for $17,000. And the guy that sold it to me, we did a thing on a scrap book piece of paper, like monthly payments in that. We signed it with a hair from our mustache on that paper. Of course, the Attorney came in later, but that was our gentleman's agreement, like a handshake. That was our gentleman's agreement on my first piece of property. I watched that property grow, I put blood sweat and tears into it. And I watched it grow and I sold it at one time for enough money for me to move into my next phase. Those opportunities exist today, they're going to exist. I'm morphing my beam right now. I've actually moved into this super cool little old village in the Central Valley on the edge of the Central Valley. A little place called Mod Hassan. Super cool. It's old school, Costa Rica. I'm actually planting, growing and I just bought some cows. Costa Rica rushed us into the future over the last 10 years, like hardcore. We all want to be there anyways, you know, I mean, that's when technology arrived here strong was 10, 12 years ago, you know. But we've been in a rush to get there. As Costa Ricans and this is speaking as a Costa Rican, we don't need to be in too much of a rush to try to be like the willy nilly that's going on in the US right now. The madhouse. Europe is the same thing. We don't need to be there. Costa Rica is a beautiful, warm, loving place full of beautiful, warm, loving people, okay? We don't need to be in a hurry to make this place anything other than what it is.
Malcolm [32:12]:
Here, one of the wonderful things about living here is that enjoyment of the day is more important than progress on any front. Because it seems as though there's an understanding that if you just get the most out of today, that's all you really got to work with anyway. So you know, get to it, have a good time. Don't worry too much. Because tomorrow will be the same thing. And you should have a good time then as well, you know.
Chuck [32:43]:
Costa Ricans, I think about five years ago, national geographic had an issue and I have a copy of it somewhere. We're actually like, the happiest people in the world. That was based on five years ago and past, okay? Today is going to be a little different. But because of that same thing that being happy today, you know, don't stress too much over tomorrow. But of course that can also bite you hard, because you don't avoid the pitfalls that tomorrow could bring, you know? But you could be so worried about the pitfalls that tomorrow brings that you might forget about today.
Malcolm [33:27]:
In all your time in Costa Rica, can you pick three places that you visited as a tourist, you know, as a visitor that you would say are the three most like visually spectacular places you've visited in Costa Rica, it can be coastal, and it can be volcano. I came for your tips, Chuck,
Chuck [33:50]:
My three favorite places other than where I am, where my two places are right now, which is Jaco. And what [Inaudible 33:57]. This area here it's probably the Tila Ron area of around Lake RNO. The environment, the fact that the lake is there, the lake seems to give off something. And ICE when they filled the lake in, they set a lot of park area around the lake. I mean, there's so many public properties all around the lake that you don't really kind of know about unless you look for the sign. But you could walk through them and go down and go fishing. Some of them have little roadways down the side. You can actually whatever put a kayak in that kind of thing. And the people in all those little towns like San Luis and everything. The Costa Rican people that are up there are beautiful people as well. Like, they're kind, they're friendly, they're part of the earth thing and there's so much oxygen around Lake RNO. It's amazing so.
Malcolm [34:57]:
Give the listeners just a little example with Lake RNO of kind of the climate how different it is to perhaps the coastal areas.
Chuck [35:09]:
RNO and actually bought us on they attain us have very similar climates, our daytime temperatures are mid-70s to low 80s. Okay, our nighttime temperatures, are mid-60s to low 70s. Humidity is probably 65, 70% unless it’s raining of course. And it rains but it doesn't rain so badly. Here in [Unsure word 35:37] we're on a ridge. So our climate is almost perfect. As a matter of fact, attain us has a reputation. And there was something done with the Smithsonian Institution, I believe that they did some stuff up here, that actually they believe that has some of the best climate for living of anywhere in the Americas okay? Which is kind of interesting. So, and RNO has the same thing and RNO it's just like you're up high, there's always a breeze blowing, whether it's from the ocean side, which is the rainy season stuff, or the big winds. Sometimes there's a big wind blows across the lake there. But there's always wind blowing, always a breeze, there's geothermal plants, which kind of give it its own eco vision thing. And all the big Aeolic fans, the electric producing fans, what do you call them? Fans. Yeah.
Malcolm [36:39]:
Yeah, the wind turbines.
Chuck [36:42]:
Wind turbines.
Malcolm [36:44]:
They’re everywhere. They're everywhere up there.
Chuck [36:48]:
And so it's just got this, like, this nature thing, this good feeling about all of it, you know. And the excitement, of course, about everywhere on the lake you can be, you can always see the volcano. Like almost always, you know, it's like, you're kind of on this thing could erupt.
Malcolm [37:7]:
Mate, we are going to wrap up in just a second. But I wanted to cover a few quick things. Chuck, if people want to get in touch with you, where can they find you?
Chuck [37:18]:
Okay, you can google Chuck Jaco Costa Rica, and I'm on the first page so.
Malcolm [37:26]:
I'm sure you.
Chuck [37:29]:
And you can also go to chuck@wowsurf.com which stands for walking on water in a world of waves. That's my website. But if you just Chuck Jaco Costa Rica, you can find me. You could drop me a line. Even if you have a question and you're looking for your first surfboard, and you live. I don't know, wherever you live, and you don't know if the guy at the surf shop is sending you in the right direction. Asking me the question, I'll try to help you. I'll do it with as much as I can from the heart. Is that my gig? I won’t try to fool you into anything. I treat you like I don't have anything to sell you. Except for friendship, and it doesn't cost anything.
Malcolm [38:20]:
I can definitely back that up, Chuck. Every interaction that we've had professionally has always been so seamless and so.
Chuck [38:28]:
I don't know about seamless. But yeah, as good as it can be.
Malcolm [38:32]:
Not always seamless but the communication has always been there. And that's what life's about right? Communicating and cooperating with people. And yeah, that's always been great. So, Chuck, thank you so much for coming on the show today. Especially with the amount of time you've spent here, the amount of different kind of cultural things you've experienced, the knowledge you've got of this country, the different industries that you've that you've had experience in, and especially your perspective on what's to come. And there's really uncertain time is very cool. So thanks for being with us today. And if you want to hear more about Chuck or get in contact with him, like he said, He's got those methods. But you can also find information about Chuck on our website in the show notes for this particular episode. So thanks so much, Chuck.
Chuck [39:19]:
You're welcome Malcolm. Thank you very much as well. I love watching your family grow. And that's kind of like a blessing for me as well. And I'm so glad that I did business with you that first time because that way we became friends.
Malcolm [39:37]:
It's been awesome.
Chuck [39:38]:
Stay safe and healthy.
Malcolm [39:39]:
It's been very, very good. Will do.
Anisa [39:45]:
Here's a sneak peek of the next episode. We will hear from Jose Zambrano, a 28-year-old born in California. Jose chats with us about being truly happy. Why there is more to life than working a nine to five job and waking up and hearing the birds.
Jose [40:00]:
In my head, I'm like, I get to walk to work. I wake up early, but I listen to the birds and the howler monkeys, and I wake up to and if I want, I can wake up a little earlier and take a run on the beach.
Anisa [40:14]:
If you enjoyed this conversation, please rate, review, and share it with your friends on social media. For a full list of show notes episodes to your inbox, information on becoming a guest on the show, and how to support the show on Patreon, head to triple W dot move to Costa Rica podcast.com. Remember, new episodes are released every Thursday by 6am Costa Rica time. Thanks so much for joining us. Until next time, Pura vida.
