An article by Jack Ewing
Ben’s note: Jack Ewing & I have known each other for years and have worked together off and on with various projects. I regard him as one of the preeminent authorities on the history and ecology of the area. Jack is the owner of Hacienda Baru eco-tourism lodge and canopy zip-line tours. From his position as a cattle rancher in the ’70’s to reforestation mentor and eco-tourism expert now, his experiences here in Costa Rica span and catalog some of the astounding changes that have occurred in this “second” world country.
Jack is also one of the most notable authors for The Zone. His book “Monkeys Are Made of Chocolate
I am delighted to have Jack come on as a contributing author to the Guys in the Zone blog. In this first installment you’ll notice that there isn’t anything about real estate, but it has a lot to do with life here. We are on a rapidly “progressive” tangent here in Costa Rica and this account really helps to show some of the contrasts in amenities over the years, some so dramatic they could be deemed revolutionary. I especially appreciate how Jack’s account begs the question: “how do we really define “progress”?
Back in the late 1980s we still didn’t have telephones in the coastal communities, and we were just starting to do some bird watching and ecological tours at Hacienda Baru. The lodge didn’t exist yet. For booking the tours we shared an office with a travel agency in San Isidro and communicated with them by radio. One day I was at the phone company in San Isidro, which was also the electrical utility, seeing about getting an extra phone installed in the office. The whole process should have taken about ten minutes, but we kept having power outages.