If She Can Do It, So Can I
By Guest Blogger Lisa Valencia
travelexperiencecostarica.com
vida.nueva.lisa@gmail.com
“At age fifty, I was not yet ready to cross the threshold into the kindly and quiet world of ‘older adulthood’ sitting on a park bench feeding squirrels. Nor was I willing to keep my nose to the grindstone as I had done for so many years while raising my kids or repeat the tragedy of those who devoted themselves to the far off dream of retirement only upon arrival, to be too tired, sick or dead to enjoy it. I had lived half my life with another half to go, only this time I had the skills, maturity and confidence that come from fifty years of life experience. So with little means and lots of determination, I set out to live a life of my own creative design.”
Vida Nueva Aventura (New Life Adventure), an online travel journal is the vibrant personal account of an ordinary woman in pursuit of an extraordinary life. For many years Lisa Valencia lived, raised kids, ran a business, owned a home and made a life for her family in a small Montana town. Then one day she decided she didn’t want that life any more. So dreaming of tropical beaches, salsa music and romance she took off for Costa Rica.
If you’ve ever pondered on packing it all in and starting over in a foreign land, here is a first hand account. Lisa takes you with her through the mountains down into the jungles, onto the beaches and into the culture of Costa Rica. With wholehearted candor, she shares the doubts, fears and frustrations that come from an impulsive immersion into a new world. Her photos and words bring you into a place, brilliantly colored with passionate people and intriguing places. And along the way, she reveals the inner education taking place.
“In this new life I frequently feel like I am bumping around in the dark. I run into something unrecognized, pause and reflect in search of illumination and then things seem to get brighter. As I share my travel experience, what is most evident from the outside, is the physical journey. What you do not see is the inner journey, which happens simultaneously and is a result of the bumping around in the dark. Of the two, it is the inner journey that has the most impact and creates the energy to continue the outer one.”
Lost on a dangerous highway, lonely on the beach in the pouring rain, being chased around by guys half her age and dancing Salsa ’til three in the morning, Lisa revels in it all and leaves you rooting for her success. The endearing quality about this story is found in the confidence gained from triumph over adversity and Lisa’s dogged determination to jump right back in and do it again. Soon you are believing that, “If she can do it, so can I!”