By Paul Pidcock and Jeanne Marsh

We were certainly lost. However, we were not badly lost, as this was Costa Rica – a fairly small country in Central America. We knew for sure that we were on the Pacific Coast heading south. Alaska was far behind in our rear view mirror and ahead, if we dared venture that far, was Patagonia.

Our map was useless. The rough dirt road that we were on abruptly ended at an estuary and there was no way through. Now there was nothing else to do but go back.

Retracing, we entered a small village, where I noticed a bar on the left by a bridge with Latin music blaring and a couple of the locals near the entrance teetering a little bit too much for that early in the day.

“I’ll go and find out where we are” I said to my traveling companion, Jeanne, who remained in the vehicle.

I was getting nowhere with the bemused local patrons when I noticed a bare-shirted, silver-haired fellow on a bright red all terrain vehicle pull up behind our car with a video camera waving in his hand.

“Do you speak English?” I asked. He did, and asked if he could help. I explained we were heading south on the peninsula.

“I’ve done it before but wouldn’t try it this time of year with the rivers still running high,” he said.

“What about that road over there?” I queried.

“Don’t know, never been down it. I was going to set up my camera to get a shot of myself rounding the bend,” he explained.

We introduced – his name was Al, and was obviously an American. I mentioned that besides being lost, we were looking for a place to stay for a month or two.

“Well, you might want to take a look at my place – my wife and I are going back to the states next week. It is just a little unusual,” he quipped.

Jeanne was now out of the car hoping to investigate what was going on.

“Jeanne, this is Al – we may have found a place to stay.”

Having agreed to take a look, we hopped back in the car and followed Al through the village, past the soccer field, through some chickens and dogs, through a river into a jungle, then up the side of a mountain.

“What are we getting into?” asked Jeanne.

“Don’t know exactly; this is a bit weird.”

Finally emerging through the forest, we pulled up on a driveway to piano music, and Al looked up saying, “Hi honey. We have some visitors.”

The next few minutes were real eye openers because Jeanne and I had never seen a house quite like this. Up we stepped onto a teak staircase under the middle of this steel and glass structure into a fabulous tree house that had no outer walls (only the bedrooms had walls that consisted of ceiling-to-floor glass). The trees and jungle surrounded this immense house. The floors were teak, as were the ceilings - all supported with forest green beams of steel. The blue water and white surf of the Pacific Ocean could be easily seen off in the distance. It was indeed a visually stunning structure.

My immediate reaction was that I liked it. However, Jeanne was skeptical. We said we would consider their kind offer but needed a day or two to digest everything. So we booked into a nearby Swiss lodge for the night.

The next day we went back for a discussion and surprised ourselves by deciding to rent it for three months.

Life in this mountainside forest retreat was an absolutely incredible experience. We later continued successfully on to Tierra del Fuego at the southern end of the world and then all the way back to Toronto, but we never forgot this place.

And indeed, we returned here to this very same tree house on the voyage back north to Canada. That is why we now live at least part of the year in a beautiful jungle preserve overlooking the warm Pacific Ocean in Costa Rica. And all this happened because we got lost.