One Man’s Independence and Fortitude On the Osa

Quite a lot of people dream if not fantasize about a life where man’s impact continues to be less visible and audible than the wilds of nature. Such a place exists on the Osa Peninsula on the Southwest Pacific coast of Costa Rica. “I think for a certain personality type there is only one choice and that is the Osa Peninsula, but that is a certain personality type that wants to be a little bit more remote and have scarlet macaws flying overhead and see four kinds of monkeys everyday and to be able to drive over to the park and see tapirs and hear jaguars calling and that sort of thing,” Paul Collar, an engineer and geologist by training and businessman living in Puerto Jimenez on the Osa said. “I’ve always considered the Osa Peninsula to be the Wild West of Costa Rica. I am here largely in part because of that. I am personally attracted to areas that are not built up and do not have some of the other negatives that comes with rampant development.” Few people exercise their talents and exhibit the personal fortitude to live the life depicted by Thoreau at Walden’s Pond, but some do that and more.

Reminiscent of Spaghetti Western tales depicting towns with a few extraordinary townsmen that might have owned the saloon, the hardware store, and a large cattle ranch Paul Collar is similarly connected to the Osa town of Puerto Jimenez where he has laid claim to his stake of opportunities. Yet, he has done so with the ethic of a modern explorer cognizant of the social and cultural considerations. “I’m culturally and linguistically bilingual as it were,” Collar said. “Sustainable development and renewable resources are more than buzzwords. It’s really vital to preserving Costa Rica as an environmentally friendly and environmentally responsible part of the world. And I think the country has taken many steps towards sealing a future in terms of ecotourism.”

The Osa Peninsula is home to numerous high end ecolodges and resorts such as Crocodile Bay Lodge, the largest fishing outfitter in Central America. Couple the media exposure from such facilities (four television crews filmed there in May ’06) with the rampant growth elsewhere in Costa Rica nowadays and the sparsely populated peninsula is feeling the pressures of development. “There are a lot of people interested in this area, but development is being done to the extent that I’m able to see mostly in a responsible manner,” Collar said. “And most the people coming here are keen to keeping it that way. I’m really quite excited about the future of the peninsula. It is not for everybody. This place is difficult. It is at the end of a long and bumpy road. Everything is a little more expensive here because of the transport getting in, but the people are very friendly, helpful and capable. That is what you get where you don’t have much outside support you develop a lot of internal abilities. In Puerto Jimenez you will find a wide range of contractors that are quite remarkable builders and people that can fix your car no matter what the matter is with it even without the right part they will fabricate it if they have to rebuild it or do whatever. We have a lot of people around here that are very qualified at the things that they do. I’m very pleased to be a part of that and take advantage of it and contribute to it to the extent that I’m able.”

Clearly capable men such as Collar have a lot of assistance to offer those wondering onto the Peninsula looking to set up shop and survive off their own piece of eco-Nirvana. “Whether it is water permitting, construction permitting, negotiating with the ministry of work, taxation issues, or commercial promotions, I’ve got three retail businesses one a lodge, one an Internet café and travel agency, a restaurant and bar, and two consulting firms and I’ve pretty much run up against a lot of the things you run up against as a business owner in Costa Rica,” Collar said. “And I like to use my experience to help my clients and even people that are just asking. We want to make sure that the people that wind up down here are the people that want to be down here and they didn’t come down here on a lark and on mistaken ideas of what they are getting into. It is best for everybody to really know what it is like here before they make a large financial commitment that they may later on learn that maybe Santa Ana or Escazu was a better choice than Puerto Jimenez if you know what I mean.”

Santa Ana, Escazu, Alajuela, and many other suburbs of the capital city of San Jose have most if not all the creature comforts desired by those seeking an easier, more comfortable life reminiscent of that back home in the states or Europe. “Down here on the Osa, the electrical grid stops at Puerto Jimenez,” Collar said. “So the whole bulk of the peninsula doesn’t have any access to grid power. So there really is no choice, but to develop an alternative choice of energy unless you want to live out there and have something other than candlelight. We have a lot of mountains and a lot of water. So hydroelectric is a very attractive alternative here. Typically you can get into that for a little less than you can for solar. Solar is pretty much available anywhere accept on some of our properties that are all on primary rainforest where you don’t get much sun penetration, but generally solar is universally adaptable. I’d say 95 percent of all properties can do solar. One of the attractive things about it even for those on the grid is that both of these alternatives have very little down time.”

Collar is capably outfitted to help those seeking to establish themselves on the peninsula to whatever extent they would care to develop their property. “I’m the owner/operator of Osa Water Works, which is a company that specializes in infrastructure development specifically alternative energy; hydroelectric, solar power, but also potable water for agriculture, industrial, domestic uses, water filtration, sanitation, drainage access, bridges, that sort of thing,” Collar said. “I’m also a database developer, and Internet host and provider. So I have an Internet cafe here. And I’ve always had a lot of people that come to me asking about selling their property and Americans coming in saying they wanted to buy property. So I resisted for a few years, but then I gave in and decided to give all of these people an avenue to satisfy their needs through me to a certain extent. So as of a year ago I branched out into the real estate business. I’m quite happy that I did. It has been somewhat refreshing and invigorating and also ties in well with my property engineering business. And I feel I’m able to give people relatively good advice as I’ve been in Costa Rica for a long time.”

Collars’ real estate website www.osapenrealty.com is a database of properties from mostly the Osa Peninsula region of Southwest Costa Rica, which are photo documented, mapped, and detailed with price, area and legal status such as titled, untitled and list of known restrictions if any. He has over 250 listings that he anticipates will grow exponentially over the next year. His first piece of advice for those who have found property they are interested in purchasing to is get a lawyer. “Even if you are working with the most professional real estate agent you still need an independent source of the legal truth,” Collar said. “Many of us don’t know all the nuances of the law. We have a couple of really excellent attorney’s in San Jose that do a lot of work on the Osa Peninsula and know all the ins and outs of the Golfito municipality. I’m talking about men like Jose Carter and Sergio Sancho both of them San Jose attorneys that I have nothing but the fondest regard for and the greatest appreciation for their ethical and legal capabilities in resolving and getting to the bottom of the issues surrounding any given area property that a person might be interested in.”

Collar provides a variety of helpful hints on his websites such as the benefits of a watchman to protect one’s property interests for instance when facing uninvited campers or potential squatters the watchman might be coached to say, “Hey you know feel free to camp here a couple of nights, but then you need to hit the road,” Collar said. “A lot of these purchasers don’t live here. You do need somebody in country looking out for your interests either on or near your property.”

Professional property management is also something Collar offers with more services than the average neighbor would be able to provide. “It just depends on what an owner wants whether they would like to establish a personal relationship with a local there that they can then work with or whether they would like to use a management company like my own, which provides a little bit more versatility like immediate phone communications, Internet communications, additional support with permitting through the Golfito municipality and then ultimately commercial promotion that sort of thing, also acquiring materials,” Collar said. “A lot of people use tropical hardwoods. Well you have got to be careful what you buy because you need to buy legal wood. And that is a whole other sub-genre the construction industry itself.”

Considering Collar’s energy level and as he has so much going on one might mistake him for a highly successful businessman inhabiting New York or some other bustling metropolis, but he makes his business on the edge of the jungle in the rainforest. “We are open 16 hours a day, 362 days a year,” Collar said. “I have a staff of around 25 people that are all very competent and capable. They are able if I’m not here in my office when somebody needs to contact me they can take the first step of helping out and making sure I get the message to call back.”

No question or pursuit is too challenging for Collar. “It is always something different,” Collar said. “Sometimes it is somebody wanting to buy a liquor license because they want to put in a bar. Well okay so we go off on a liquor license hunt. A lot of times you need somebody who knows the ropes a little bit rather than allow them to think that, oh this is a foreigner they are millionaires. A lot of things come up. We try to help out with whatever the situation is and give advice so that they can decide what their best avenues are to solve whatever little problem it is. It might not be a problem. It might be an objective, an ambition. They want to do something here. We want to put in an ecolodge on a property right next to the park. Well, what does that mean for us? What are our possibilities? We need a business plan an economic prospectus. What kind of occupancy can we expect? How many days out of the year can we get across that road? What happens when the river floods? All of those things I think they are the same pretty much anywhere in the world to a certain degree. It helps that we know the area quite intimately and know all of the authorities over in Golfito and many of them in San Jose.”

Whether one wishes to declare their independence like Collar in the wilds of the Osa or merely seek a little relaxation on the Osa, Paul Collar is definitely a valuable resource worth giving a call. And transportation options to Puerto Jimenez are plentiful. “During the high season we have six flights a day that come in here on two commercial airlines,” Collar said. “The bus comes in of course. We have a ferry from Golfito. There are probably 10 budget hotels in town and probably another 10 mid-priced to upper scale to top shelf lodges and hotels in town. And there are approximately 75 other all-inclusive lodges distributed around the peninsula. Typically with many of these it is best to have reservations ahead of time, but you can always come into town except for Easter week and Christmas week then you really need reservations even for the budget stuff. But nearly anytime you can just come in here and look around. And that is my advice for people that are just getting started looking in Costa Rica is go travel first of all. See these places. Pick out a few whether it takes two, or three, or four, or five, or six trips. Many people don’t make a decision until after their fifth or sixth trip. And I think that is healthy. It gives them a good perspective of the different parts of the country and the things they can expect from that part of the country.”

Although the roads on the peninsula are mostly gravel and dirt the rugged inhabitants of the region don’t really mind. And just as work recently began repairing the bridge crossing at Rio Portalon on the Costanera Sur highway south of Quepos with each road improvement come more visitors. Investors have speculated that when the last stretch of the Costanera Sur is paved between Quepos and Dominical the southern region will experience a flood of new development, but paving over paradise seems a distant worry. “Well I would say the peninsula’s development doesn’t depend so much on paving the stretch of road from Quepos to Dominical as it does on paving the peninsular stretch from Chocó Rita to Puerto Jimenez,” Collar wrote. “If they pave that then I expect that would accelerate substantially the pace of development here. They have been talking about it for years. It is in the plans. We have surveyors that come down that survey the road and what not. They were here just this last rainy season getting ready to pave it this year, but it hasn’t happened and I’m not holding my breath.”

If the authorities wanted a recommendation for an engineer who could likely get the job done on schedule and under budget I would recommend they call 506-735-5702 and ask for Paul Collar. For anyone else seeking resources in the southern zone of Costa Rica they would be well advised to consider some of Collar’s informative websites and business services at: www.soldeosa.com, www.osapenrealty.com, www.osawaterworks.com, www.terrapinlodge.com, www.jimenezhotels.com, and www.juanitasmexican.com.