Building A Primitive Thatched Dome Hut From Scratch

Here's a really cool video. So simple!

I think this guy is in Australia, Queensland, but it sure sounds and looks like our Finca!

A few more pix from around the Finca and the local area.....

This is the river that you must drive through to get to our place....

Or you can take the foot bridge!

Our backyard....

The Guabo River. 

Most of our guest houses will look out over the river like this.....

The Guabo River

The Guabo River

This small stream runs down the mountain 

into the river, even in the dry season....

Abundance!

Our lovely neighbours drying corn on sheets outside their house...

Gives you an idea how busy this 'street' is...

The closest neighbour's house down the road a bit....

Down the road from the house, 

very hustle and bustle as you can see....

Our splendid coconut palms....

Ridiculous amounts of bananas

Awesome leaves and trees....

Mariya's studio is going up in this spot eventually....

Looking across the front of the house 

towards the valley..

Our top 'yard'...

Down by the river.....

Everywhere you look, it's gorgeous....

A few photos from the area around Finca Silencio, and some at home too.....

A dense wall of foliage, just down the road from the farm.....

This one's old, but I love it. 

My first breakfast at the finca last May...

Our resident bat with her offspring nursing....

The same river that runs through our property, 

a few miles down the road....

These are waterfalls at a property I looked at before deciding on Finca Silencio.

A month before this photo was taken, the owner of this property slipped and fell here,

and she was critically injured, laying in the water for hours before being found.

She broke a lot of bones and was in very rough shape. Crazy stuff!

Nice waterfalls, but the property was strange, and it definitely wasn't the right 'vibe'.

This waterfall is in Uvita, near the Cascada Verde Hostel,

it is a wonderful place to stay if you ever come down to see us.

Flowers at The Cascada Verde

Wall of vegetation, Finca Silencio

Beach at Matapalo, 20 minutes from El Silencio

Driving across these wobbly swinging suspension bridges is terrifying.

I would definitely not want to do it every day to get home...

Enormous surf at Matapalo Beach in Costa Rica.

Just to be clear, this is not the world famous surf spot, Matapalo Beach in Costa Rica, 

but a less famous one, still in Costa Rica, and a short drive from Finca Silencio.

And this is also a pretty damned good surfing beach!

But the day I took this video the surf was huge, truly enormous,

and breaking in terrifyingly tall, yawning walls of water,

shaking the ground as they thundered. 

The surfers stood silent and watched from the shore.

Guabo River, Finca Silencio, Silencio, Costa Rica....

My little slice of paradise..

During the heat of the day, you can stay very cool down by the river.

I love the swelling sound of the cicadas, in waves. Like someone is 

turning the volume up and down, up and down. 

The Guabo River is a tributary of the Rio Savegre,

a much larger river that features fantastic white water rafting very near by. 

You can arrange cool rafting excursions with the good folks at Rafiki Lodge

which is on an incredible acreage not far from Finca Silencio.

A plethora of photos coming this way!

As I dig around and uncover photos I haven't posted 

anywhere yet, I will post them here.

There will also be quite a few repeat photos from 

'other places' where I've posted a lot of photos already.

But here, they will hopefully stay, until the internet breathes

it's last gasping breath, and the lights twinkle out forever.

It's my hope that these posts will convince people

to come on down and check it out in person!

~

You can pull over and look at these guys on the drive down

from San Jose or Liberia. Don't worry, there's none at the finca!

This fine looking young fellow walked by our front 'gate'

lagging behind on his own, after a larger herd had just sauntered past.

The near by beaches are out of this world.

Hibiscus flowers were on my bucket list of flowers

I really want to have in my yard. Done!

Got bamboo? We do!

The former owner, Jennifer Smith, giving a ecological 

class to a group of children at the finca years ago. 

This spot on the river still has this 

gooey green stuff in it..

OK, this isn't there yet, but imagine? 

Would you sleep here?

Got trees? We do!

Got bananas? We do!

Got incredibly photogenic beaches?

We sure do. I mean, I can't even believe I took this.

But I did, and soon, I can drive there in the time 

it takes me to go do some shopping.

Looking up is frequently very rewarding

as you walk around the finca!

We have some enormous African Palms

scattered around the property, they are gorgeous. 

Smaller ones too.

This is a part of the gorgeous front yard near the house.

Mariya wants to put her studio back up in there,

way in the back as far as you can see on the left....

A Cute little lizard on a rock. When these guys get startled,

they sometimes run across the surface of the water,

it is wicked!

This cool leaves hugs the trees at the bottom, but farther up 

the branch off and look more like regular vines leaves.

There is a lot of space.....

There are many kinds of flowers throughout the place,

I've only seen a tiny bit, so many of the flowering plants are

seasonal and I've only been there twice so far. Lots of surprises

to look forward to as new flowers appear!

Incredibly, I was able to get this great footage of a bat taking off
with my little Casio camera that I had there last time.
It is one of the resident bats that lives on the house
at Finca Silencio...

The Rio Guabo flows through Finca Silencio