Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica: It's Love at First Sight

Love at First Sight

Some places you visit.

Other places feel like they’ve been waiting for you.

For me, Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica, felt like love at first sight.

Not the kind of love that arrives with fireworks or fanfare. The quieter kind. The kind that settles into your spirit almost immediately and makes you think:

Something about this place feels familiar.

The first feeling

Puerto Viejo sits along the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica, where the sea meets the jungle and life moves to a rhythm that feels both vibrant and unhurried.

The first thing you notice is the color.

The blue of the Caribbean Sea.

The deep green of the jungle pressing close to the road.

The bright fruit stands and painted buildings scattered through town.

Then there’s the music.

Reggae drifting from open doorways.

The sound of waves rolling against the shore.

Bicycles passing slowly along the road.

It’s a place that feels alive in ways that are hard to explain until you’re there.

The feeling of belonging

But what struck me most about Puerto Viejo was something deeper.

It was the Blackness of the place.

Puerto Viejo is rooted in Afro-Caribbean culture. You see it in the people, the food, the language, and the history of the region. The rhythms, the laughter, the way people greet each other in the streets.

There is a warmth there.

A familiarity.

A sense of cultural presence that feels both grounding and joyful.

For someone who moves through many spaces in the United States where Black culture is often marginalized or misunderstood, there is something profoundly affirming about being in a place where Blackness is simply part of the everyday landscape of life.

It feels natural.

It feels like home.

The senses of the place

Puerto Viejo is also a place that engages every sense.

You smell the salt of the sea before you see it.

You taste fruit that feels impossibly fresh—pineapple, mango, papaya—cut right from the land.

You hear the sounds of the forest and the ocean mixing together.

And you feel the pace of life slow just enough to remind you that living does not always have to be rushed.

It’s a place that invites you to breathe more deeply.

To pay attention.

To be present.

A place that holds possibility

As I’ve spent more time in Puerto Viejo, I’ve started imagining what it might mean to build something there.

A space rooted in culture, creativity, and community.

A gathering place for storytelling, music, reflection, and connection across the African diaspora.

That vision has begun to take shape in my mind as Ndaho.

Ndaho is still a dream—something forming slowly, piece by piece. But if it ever becomes real, Puerto Viejo feels like a place where that dream could take root.

Not because the place needs something new imposed upon it.

But because it already carries so much of what the vision of Ndaho is about:

Culture.

Community.

Connection to the land and sea.

Why Puerto Viejo keeps calling me back

There are many beautiful places in the world.

But every once in a while, you find a place that feels like it speaks directly to something inside you.

Puerto Viejo is that kind of place for me.

The sea.

The people.

The music.

The Afro-Caribbean spirit that fills the town.

All of it together creates a feeling that is hard to put into words but easy to recognize once you feel it.

The kind of feeling that makes you wonder if perhaps a part of your story might belong there.

For now, Puerto Viejo remains a place I return to in thought, in memory, and in hope.

But every time I leave, one thing feels certain.

Sometimes love at first sight is not just about a person.

Sometimes it’s about a place that reminds you who you are—and who you might still become.

-Marlee