Marco Villegas moved to Nosara to serve as the new Executive Director for the Nosara Civic Association. He earned an MBA in Business Administration and Sustainability and has over 10 years experience helping NGO’s and is ready to put his skill set to work for Nosara. We hope you enjoy this conversation and getting to know Marco better!
Dr Tina Nibatchi, Dr Alvaro Salas Castro, and Christian Freitag, JD, PhD join the Nosara Podcast to discuss their findings from the Nosara Research Project and what this information means for Nosara going forward.
Dr. Alejandro is back, except this episode is only fun stuff: Music & surf talk. He details the upcoming Caricaco Music Festival and I ask him details about his surfboard inventory.
This Nosara Podcast episode is a great one! We’re thrilled about the new skate park, plus we learn quality community information. Thanks Thierry & Mike!!!
Nosara Skatepark Episode Notes:
Thierry owns Cafe Paris, since 1995, 28 years here with wife Martín, their son Mael
Mike Lopez, from LA. Pro skateboarder, actor, stuntman
Skatepark started with Mael’s visit to Tamarindo with his friend Jack & only feeling safe at skatepark. He wanted to donate some land he owned in N Guiones to a skatepark which Thierry has wanted for the community anyways. Thierry, Martín & partner decided to donate land & others are contributing monies for construction.
Mike emailed Thierry about skatepark idea. He wanted a skatepark here to use and be a part of. Later in episode he explains opening a skate shop in N Guiones. Mike connected with New Line to build the park.
GoFundMe setup everything flowed well getting project together.
Thierry & Mael do not skateboard.
Volunteers are approaching wanting to teach.
Rich presses Mike to learn what his main reason for moving here and what his concerns and fears about moving to a different country are.
Mike explains surfing caught his full attention.
Rich remembers talking with Thierry about skatepark ideas years ago but a different park emerged for a while… Thierry agrees new park way better than the ideas of years past.
Nicoya Mayor agreed with projec
Marco from ADIN says 1800 in Nosara village 3 years to 16 or 17 years old have no place to go. There’s basketball court but soccer field closed and kids need something to do.
Marco & Martín said don’t put in Guiones… Freddy from Terratour is doing free shuttles for local Tico kids in each village to go to park on the weekend.
The park is free. No entrance & everyone can hang out. Skateboarding, basketball, and climbing wall will be for free.
No food, no drinks, no competition for vendors, just a free good place
Road paved with permits and support from Nicoya & NCA.
Rich says Nosara likes to complain & asks if anyone complaining about things or worried about noise?
Events would just be for community or the 5 villages.
Erik Kurzbard’s skate videos
Rich says open Dr office by skatepark. Thierry says X-ray machine just arrived & Mandala was moved yo new location.
Dr. Alejandro going to support skatepark
26 minutes: Thierry asks ‘Do you get hurt skateboarding?’
Skatepark made with flowing, surfing type of feel fir beginners and intermediates but advanced skaters can have fun, too. Can be fun & safe.
Kona stories from Rich about benefits of pads (knee pads, wrist guards, elbow pads)
Thierry points out Nosara only had 1 Tico surfers a couple decades ago… But now Jimena is champion & others are too so why not nosara champion skater in 10 years?
Sophia & George donated to help 5 neighborhoods small skatepark plus free rides on weekends to Guiones skatepark.
Still need donations. Goal is from $1 to $1,000,000 so everyone can feel like owner. Unite the community through participation.
Nosara dislikes Mike says roads.
Rich talks about the Nosara Gossip Machine and how Nosara isn’t perfect… Thierry was scary man. Thierry says dust being gone and more pavement in N Guiones & Main Street Guiones and the Calle Modelo project with Harmony Projects.
Thierry says mainly private people and not too expensive. Rich asks if L section can fix their road & Thierry says yes.
Rich makes joke about Nosara & Nicoya getting along
Thierry complains about truck noise especially when they downshift using motor for brakes.
Rich says need speed bumps in front of orgánico, El Locale, and at the old 5 points where Pelada entrances and L section are.
Thierry says 10 or 12 speed bumps on way
3 favorite restaurants Mike’s Almendros wings La Luna bbq chicken pizza Olivia’s El Chivo Thai food
Thierry Harmony Patte? Luv Burger pizza Pulpo Blue Zone
Last words: Nosara Skatepark GoFundMe & new skate shop about to open
Rich says thanks for speed bumps and Nicoya being nice. Thierry says new mayor very positive and wants to help.
Thierry says everything bad from past is getting solved (internet, roads, phones, restaurants, etc)
Cynthia Michaud’s episode is heart wrenching, yet full of warmth, positivity, and hope through community events such as Tastes And Treasures Of Nosara, on February 25th.
In this episode, Cyn shares how The James Initiative is an transitioning a tragedy into massive amounts of ongoing positivity reaching deep into Esperanza, a small town on southern end of Nosara.
Unfortunately, 1/3rd of it’s residents live beneath the poverty line, and some residents are suffering from domestic violence, alcoholism, incest, teenage pregnancy, mental needs, etc. and they need help.
Dr. Alejandro communicated with Cynthia about the situation and now we are fortunate to have The James Initiative focusing on the situation.
Get your tickets &/or participate in the online auction & have some fun! Here is a link to the online auction:
Big thanks to Michael Strasmich for connecting us with Emmanual Gutierrez who recently recorded with us. Emmanual is highly involved in multiple community initiatives such as Nosara Crece and Vive el Sueno, and also serves on the board of the Santa Marta ASADA. He has a high level education, is originally from San Jose, but came to Nosara and is dedicating his life to the people.
In his podcast we cover a lot of ground from explaining the ideas and programs behind Nosara Crece and Vive el Sueno to covering a multitude of community issues, concerns and opportunities.
Introduction to Emmanual Gutierrez;
Nosara Crece (low interest loan program for local entrepreneurs, with extremely high success rate);
This Week In Nosara gives a weekly sample of life on the beach plus news and events and just whatever is happening around Nosara. In this TWIN episode:
Empty wave in Guiones? It happens sometimes
Checho, Kyle and dancing Vibert about to fly
Covid monkey on the ground? Or just friendly & tired of construction
Gilded sponsoring surf contest
L section ditches don’t fall in
WCA critter camera and water test results
James Initiative event coming. Get tickets!!
Gnome surf athletes
Lots of beautiful weather and people heading to beach
Nice air, need to find his name
Solid frisbeen work
Pat the volunteer therapist
Mike
New longboarder & lady
Danny from Agua Tibia
Rolo
Tony
Alejandro
Nelson
Jimena
Maria Jose!
Enric from Photography Surf Report’s Wipeout Series 🙂
Eli fron Surfing Nosara photos then 2 from Gustavo
Ale from @eq.surf.tv in front of the camera showing his style
Today’s music: Artist: Grits Song: Ooh Ah (My Life Be Like)
Gnome Surf is back with updates about Happy Camp in CR which starts in February 2023. Here’s the show notes from another great conversation with Mr. Chris Antao:
This Week In Nosara #9 is filled with surfers on fantastic Guiones waves thanks to Ale at eq.surf.tv and a thumping wipeout section thanks to filmer Kaiya, mid length surfer Silvan (that’s him in cover photo) , and artist/bodyboarder/ Mael getting slammed at ‘Not so secret spot’ later joined by Jordy and his team looking for adventure. Loads of events from community to just for fun happening… Get involved & have some fun.
Music is me playing nylon guitar beginning with adjusted version of ‘Smokin’ from long time friend G Love (it’s one of my favorite guitar licks from him & I can’t do it justice… Is just fun to play any version), second part is a fast finger-rolling adventure not super clean but i kind of like it that way I am not trying to be professional on music or edit, 3rd is me messing what intended to play but no big deal. That’s what happens when you use what little spare time you have, to edit community & surf videos and play music yourself with old nylon string guitar into the computer microphone 🙂
Speaking of no spare time… Anyone interested in volunteering to help with Nosara Podcast or as a contributor for Nosara Times let me know.
Dr. Alvaro Salas Castro is a frequent quest on the Nosara Podcast. You may remember him as the leader of the community round table event at El Local last July 29th. This event was hosted to share & gather information for the Nosara Social Science Study.
A team of high level social scientists including Dr. Alvaro Salas, Tina Nabatchi, Christian Freitag, and Greg Munno are conducting the study focusing on Nosara’s ability to become a model community for the world, or just another standard beach town.
There are many different levels to the study which evolves around the sustainable future of Nosara. After the event they have been working hard on processing the data further with the first results now coming out.
We just received the publication of the research which we’ll include here below as a downloadable PDF as well as the Abstract from the publication:
The town of Nosara on Costa Rica’s Nicoya peninsula is home to a vibrant community of diverse residents and is adjacent to an important turtle nesting site. However, tensions between lifelong residents, more recent transplants, visitors, and developers have increased as more of the world discovers this once-isolated haven. Climate change, income inequality, and alienation from a distant government apparatus have further complicated effective land-use planning and fractured social cohesion. Using a mixed-method approach of in-depth interviews (n = 67), Q methodology (n = 79), and public deliberation (n = 88), we explored residents’ priorities for the future of their town. The results indicate four different perspectives on Nosara’s future. Despite the tensions among those four perspectives, they show consensus on one overarching community issue: the need for a sustainable development plan. The case also shows how Q-methodology can assist scholars and practitioners who embrace participatory approaches to policy development and conflict resolution in the environmental arena.
For more background on this also include below is one of the earlier Dr. Salas episodes if you haven’t heard about this research before. More news and updates about the next steps and process will follow soon, so keep an eye out for any new updates!
