ABSTRACT
Angelika traveled to Costa Rica on a whim. The “nice vibe” captivated her when she first arrived in the town. The translucent shadows of the towering kapoks of the dense jungle canopy, the warm waters of the Caribbean ocean, and the flavorful mangos sold by the elderly vendor on the main street emit an ephemeral magnetism. It is “a place for self-transformation and healing,” I heard many times. It is a “karmic and powerful place,” people told me. Puerto Viejo produces strong emotional responses, visceral feelings, and physiological sensations, of love, connection, belonging, passion, and sexual energy. “Women are drawn there,” more than one person explained, by “the energy” of the place. Serendipity. Destiny. A place they were meant to be. A place dense with the excessive fecundity and greenness of the tropical rainforests and plant life; a place that, as an Austrian woman expressed, “immediately felt like home, as soon as I got off the bus and put my foot down on the ground.”
