The Bare Necessities
In the Disney movie, The Jungle Book, Mowgli befriends a laid-back, carefree bear named Baloo. Baloo teaches Mowgli all about jungle living in a song called The Bare Necessities. Maybe you remember it?
After moving to a jungle in Costa Rica, I realized quickly that I needed my own Baloo to teach me some things about jungle living. Necessities for jungle living and running a hotel business.
I needed to know the simple bare necessities of life.
I didn’t have a Baloo, but I eventually figured out what my bare necessities were.
Some necessities were obvious:
Sun protection: A hat to wear to the beach or on hikes and sunscreen to prevent any further sun damage, wrinkles and aging! We weren’t so good at using sunscreen daily while at the hotel, but at the beach, we slathered!
Insect repellant: The first months we lived at the hotel it was rainy season, and little buggers wanted to bite my ankles. They loved my ankles! What were the little buggers? Not mosquitos. Those no-see’em bugs. I’d only know they were there when they bit me. Even when they weren’t bothering anyone else, they always seemed to find me. Dang it.
Wardrobe staples: Quickly obvious to me during our first September and October at the hotel was that I needed long pants and socks! Yes, it was a tropical climate and hot, but it prevented those dang buggers from feasting on my ankles. Best wardrobe staple in my small closet!
A 4x4 vehicle: Costa Rica is a mountain country, and the roads are not great. If you don’t have a 4x4, you can get around on the major highways and in the larger towns, but that’s it. Many of the roads require a 4x4 and there was no getting up the road to our hotel without one.
Some necessities were practical:
Machete: In the Costa Rican jungle, a machete is used for everything - from a chainsaw to a butter knife! Hiking in the jungle? Grab the machete to clear your way of brush or fallen trees. Chopping vegetables? Machete. Fighting off a puma? Machete. Hardware stores in Costa Rica have an entire aisle dedicated to machetes of all different sizes, shapes and weights.
Rubber boots: Need to cross a flooded bridge? Need to hike through the property to find a water leak? Worried there might be snakes or fire ants in the tall grass? After sandals, knee-high rubber boots are probably the most common footwear in Costa Rica. If the hardware store dedicates aisle 3 to machetes, you can bet aisle 4 is all rubber boots. Even in the summer months, feet in flip-flops can feel damp, so pop on your rubber boots! Problem solved.
Umbrella: In rainy season, we provided all our hotel guests with umbrellas to walk from their room to the common area. (Pro tip: If you want to blend in with the locals, you’ll never use an umbrella in the rain - only to block the sun.)
WhatsApp: If you don’t know what it is, then you probably haven’t traveled outside the U.S. WhatsApp is a cell phone app used by about 3 billion people globally. It enables users to text and call any other WhatsApp user in the world for free when used on wifi. Before we started using it, our monthly cell phone bill was several hundred dollars! WhatsApp is a very practical bare necessity!
Flashlight: When the power goes out and your phone battery is dead, a handy flashlight by your bed helps find the bathroom in the middle of the night. We learned this when our friends Jack and Natalie were visiting during a particularly frustrating night. We had a water issue, but we couldn’t find the problem. Jack had brought an amazing LED flashlight with him and he offered to help Mark find the problem. The powerful flashlight really helped save the day. Jack left the flashlight for us as a gift and casually informed us that it was only the world’s second-best flashlight. He had the best one back home!
Some necessities were to make us more comfortable:
Hiking shoes: Best for walking our challenging hiking trails or the unpaved, steep gravel road. They were also a necessity for making the trek to the epic waterfall adventure. Sturdy footwear to get dusty, dirty or wet!
Beach shoes: Flip-flops or plastic Birkenstocks. I had both, but I wore my Chaco flip-flops around the property (supportive and the footbed doesn’t get damp or moldy with the rain. When I found the plastic Birks, OMG beach-life game changer! You can easily shake or rinse off the sand!
(Extra beach shoe tip: when you take your shoes off at the beach to go for a walk, to go into the water or to dig your toes in the sand, turn your shoes upside down so that when you are ready to put them back on, you don’t scald your feet on the hot, plastic footbed! It works, and your feet will thank me!!)
Hair-tie: Although this is in the ‘comfortable’ category, it became a huge necessity. I wasn’t ever without a hair-tie around my wrist in case the back of my neck got super clammy or sweaty, I could put my hair up. And you know what? For a menopausal woman living in a tropical rainforest, there weren’t many times that the back of my neck wasn’t clammy!
Raincoat: We lived in a rainy place. For times when you couldn’t stay out of the rain, a raincoat would help. But we also lived in a hot place. So if it was raining, and the weather was hot, although a raincoat would keep you dry, it also made you hot. I ditched the raincoat but glad I had that hair-tie on my wrist!
Some necessities were just for fun:
A good camera: For as many photos as Mark and I took with our iPhone cameras, we realized it would be more fun to have a better camera. So many guests would travel to our hotel with big cameras to capture wildlife, nature or birds. We wanted one! Not necessary but our pictures from Costa Rica are so much better now!
Binoculars/Telescope: I’m blind. Well, not really blind but I have really poor vision even with my contacts in. When we got a telescope for the hotel, it was so fun to look through it and see all the way to town. You could zoom in on something farther down the jungle. Since it wasn’t very portable, Mark got me binoculars for when we would hike. I’d use them to spot sloths, birds and monkeys. Improved eyesight immediately! And I could then see the awesomeness of these things up close!
Drone: Even though we banned drone flying from the hotel for our guests, we got a drone for the hotel business. We weren’t banned from flying our drone, but we did use it when no guests were around. We got great shots of our mountain side, video we could use for social media and our website, and it was just plain fun to fly!
After describing the bare necessities Baloo asks Mowgli, “Have I given you a clue?” So, have I given you a better clue of the things you might need to own a hotel and live in the jungle of Costa Rica?
Like Baloo, I realized when you look for the simple bare necessities you can forget about your worries and your strife.
And as hard as it was for me to get used to jungle living, I realized the most important necessity was a positive attitude so that I could rest at ease in this journey.
Aahhhh Whatsapp. Nice one. When I first started traveling it didn't exist. After my first $600+ phone bill I bought a local phone and chip lol. Talk about learning the hard way 🤣
Re jungle living—flash light and machete. Eventually after a few hurricanes we got a generator. Machetes are like the Swiss army knife of the jungle! Our wood guy used it to open his beer bottles with one. Gotta love it!