Today we traveled into the harder place to really
just show you something amazing. Our adventure began by boarding a four-wheel drive jeep and we
traveled up the mountain deep into the rainforest. In jungle. We went as far as we could and then
we had to get out and fight the rest of them. We arrived at the most broken moat
and most beautiful tiny house. I can't wait to introduce you to this guy who's no
stranger building tiny houses. And this time he began by building this tiny house on the river
and has been living here off-grid for 14 years. Hey John it's so good to be here again. Nice to
have you here. You know I absolutely love your tiny house. Thank you. And you've created this one
so different. I mean you've created this with an open-air concept. Didn't you? Open air because
it's in the jungle and what better than to take advantage of the wildlife and the atmosphere
here and not be enclosed. You can actually sit out here enjoy all of the wildlife the monkeys
when they come by and just really enjoy all this tranquility. John I can't wait for you to show me
your cabin again. Come on in. This as you can see it's an open area so it's a pleasant place to sit
and read and be a part of the nature. Outside you can hear the river and see the river and watch
everything that's going on. Really just a great indoor place and inside the doors is your
kitchen and business. That's correct? Yes. This is a small area shut off from the outside so if I'm not here I can close the doors
but most of the time the doors are just left open. A small area of cooking because I'm no great
cook but it's quite sufficient for my needs. I see that you got your fresh fruit and
what's this interesting thing here? This here? Yes coffee stock. See what you make it coffee in.
Well obviously you don't have a coffee pot and so instead of boiling your water in a teapot what do
you do? Well you just boil your water on the stove put your coffee in the coffee shop and
pour the water over the coffee. Yeah the most natural way of doing it and it's Costa
Rica coffee. We actually grow coffee here on this property quite often actually at
night I can sit here and read my candle light and have a small bunk bed and that's
basically all that anyone needs. John this place is absolutely beautiful.
Matter of fact you know when I think about a cabin or a tiny house in the woods this
is exactly what I imagine in my head. Now John you came out here when to start building
this particular tiny house. It's Christmas 2006 for a couple of weeks to sort of check the place
out and see what it offered and uh whether I was happy to do something here, he was way back in the
jungle. I mean this is kind of unexplored jungle. So how did you even hear about this
place? I heard about it back in England in an old house that I have there and for some
reason I just happen upon this property with lots of waterfalls a thousand acres of virgin
forest and it kind of just put my fancy at a time when I was looking for another project. Well
I can imagine because this place is beautiful and with lots of waterfalls. I can't imagine
anyone not coming back here. Close to 100. Close to 100 to 100. Now you've said that the taxi
driver brought you back here with some flies and dropped you off. I required a guy to get me back
here a local guide to show me where the place was everywhere around here is difficult to
know exactly where where the property was so I had a local guide someone that was
born and bred here. Taxi trucks usually bring people and supplies into some of the remote
regions here so he brought me back as far as he could on what was then just a muddy jungle track
you could take three hours. Wow. You get the 15 mile the nearby town through a little Pueblo
of about 10 or 12 scattered farmhouses here first part of the to get back to the nearby
Pueblo and then a local guide with a horse brought me and my supplies back here dropped me
off and was told to come back and pick me up two weeks later so I think this was a New Year
here on my own. So Christmas and New Years, you practically count on a piece of property that
you'd never seen just to decide if you wanted to buy this place. Right. So what did you say in a
tier? There was an old shack that went back to the days when it was homesteaded about 40 years ago.
The old farmstead was overgrown but the shack was still I mean shack is too brand a term for it
it was an absolute ruin and had a thin roof but it was easier than camping out so I just kind
of set myself up in that little shack there we later called pas Alacrán because it was infested with
scorpions and that's where I stayed for two weeks. Wow so you stayed in a scorpion infested
shack for two weeks while you did what for two weeks? I explored the area. So you had an
opportunity to just kind of walk around explore but it wasn't as simple as walking around
was it? No there were no trails here or what few short trails there were didn't go anywhere, so
basically for the two weeks I had the bushwhack. I would just cut my way through the teddy. On a
it's kind of a rough map that I had because the Costa Rica topographical maps go back 50 years
so it's hopefully have a date you can just make out a little bit from them, so you basically it's
just following river courses. You see where you are just forget the lie of the land but you had to
push one. So you stayed here for two weeks whether it was the waterfalls you fell in love with, the
property what was it that you liked the most about this place? With climate for one thing spring like
I mean we're only nine degrees off the equator here so you'd expect it to be very hot and I'm
not getting old now heat kind of bothers me never did when I was young but it bothers me now so it
was spring like cold at night in actual fact and what I consider to be a worthwhile time climate.
So that was one thing, the other thing was the magical myth because at that particular time the
mystery just swirling around the mountains and creating all kinds of patterns and that almost
like ghost silvery ghost escaping from the from the mist and so I would spend strangely
several hours a day just watching this around and remembering old days and old times. It was just
it's a nice it just had a nice feeling about it that's basically what it was I didn't know whether
I was going to stay here or do anything here to start with I had thought actually because I
was in Scotland before I came here I thought of going down to Chile one reason or another I
decided to do something with it. So you decided to stay here now you mentioned that you're getting
older. How old are you John. Well now I'm 76. 76 So as a young man when I came so there's no
problem doing anything at that age. So you were here during Christmas in New Years and you
fell in love with the place you decided to buy at what point. Did you decide to start
building? Did you immediately start building? Yes pretty much because I had to have
something to do I'm a workaholic, I have to be busy all day so two weeks
wandering around was fine but that was it. Certainly the things I wanted to
see at a later date per the field this is a big probably six hours to get from
one side to another. Wow pretty well so it it was limited to what I could do but I put that on
hold and I build little houses, I build cabins I've been building all my life ever since I was so
what what else would I do with my natural thing and so I selected a spot here by the river and
that's where we are now and started building. Yeah and this particular project this tiny house
is now how old is this tiny house? 14 years. 14 years and you built this whole
thing out of. Treated lumberjacks treated wood from Chile and Argentina. Wow.
Southern pine island southern time southern time. Wow. And about 10 tons of it had
to be carried in 10 tons of lumber generator and every other thing. Any other thing
I had the luxury of a small generator so I could use small power electric drill cross-cut saw to
do a better job you can't I mean originally I was thought would work and everything was done by
hand nobody had electric grill or anything luxury. So I was brought up that way but now I tend
to like to use more power to get a better job. You've told me before when we've talked you're
no stranger building cabins or tiny houses, matter of fact you've been building tiny houses,
since long long before tiny houses became a popular thing. Oh 50 years ago now. How many
tiny houses or cabins have you actually built? Well I've lost count but I would say probably nine
or ten so what were some of the places you built? Scotland two or three in Scotland the Adirondack
park in New York which had a beautiful cabin. There I loved it, Canada Nova Scotia several
in British Columbia but always in mountain scenery apart from north shore but in the rock
mountains I was riding the mountains there, in British Columbia the last place I had there
was a top of a mountain nearest neighbor was two miles right now but it was hard to get, harder
than this place to get so you've built a lot of tiny houses and cabins, but then you decide, okay
you're going to build this tiny cabin by the river and you started what just a couple of months
after you bought the property? February 2007 because after I've been here for two weeks I had
to go back and start putting everything I needed together, it was very difficult, at that time it's
a little easier now it's very difficult to get for food and anything of any quality in Costa
Rica the selection is well it wasn't a selection put it that way. So I had to spend a month or
so getting everything together generator tool wood getting all the wood that I needed
because there's a lot of wood here, now that must have been a huge task because I know
we came up here and it's not like you could just drive in here. Today it's probably a little
easier than it was then but even if you couldn't drive to the end it's still about a
half a mile hike to this place there's no road next to this tiny cabin. The old Indian
trailer goes back several hundred years so the wood from Buenos Aires it was a jungle
track, the longest flip here for the 15 miles nine hours so that will give you an idea of chaining up
outward shovels, lots and tackles to try and get the trucks in as far as he could and we managed
to get them in to within about half a mile. At a later date we couldn't even do that so
everything had to be brought in by tackles and auction ox car. So about half a mile
and then everything just had to be put on, but let me tell them. So you'll had to
literally hike everything in about a half a mile so that you can actually build right
here next to the river. Wow that is amazing how long did it take you to
actually build this tiny house? Not including the time that it took to get
materials in the actual construction. Was about three months. About three months. Working
every day and so while he was working every day for three months where did you live? I lived in
the casa electronics. You lived in that scorpion infest chat. But I didn't get stung there not one.
Really. I was spotting them you know I had a seat, I had a little table there uh candlelight with no
electricity or anything here my machete was stuck in the floor so any scorpion that made the mistake
of coming in with my point of vision I said. You could get it. So I wasn't done there at
all which is amazing but many times since. Right now that's what's interesting because
like you said you still don't have electricity here at this tiny house. No. And so you've
had to literally when you lived out here you lived here on nothing but candlelight. And
what better. Right. You don't nearly. I still don't need electricity. Most of my life has been
without electricity and I prefer it that way. Now that's interesting because we are very very
remote. So not only did you not have electricity obviously you had plenty of water which makes
me wonder. You know this water that's coming out of the mountains you didn't have any fear of
it being dirty or not clean. No no no it comes straight off the mountain there's no farms up
there there's no cows no animals it's a natural kind of natural a river or green as you can get.
So it's about as clean as it could possibly be. And I would say the most city water supplies. I
can imagine. So I just put my bucket or whatever. So you would do a lot of you cooking although
we saw the kitchen a little while ago and so you'd cook in the kitchen and you'd also
cook here by campfire a lot. Yeah yeah. Now people are wondering because you know there
is no shower here. Where did you bathe John? I just back in the in the room. So you just bring
your water from the creek and bathe in the woods. Well you just use the old fashioned way with a can
and the garden sprinkler at the bottom and hang it up in a tree and stand underneath it and you know
what would be better. You're you're with me and you love being in the woods you spent, you spent
many months in the woods alone. I know you've told me you've never even been on Facebook but a lot of
times we see these amusing posts on Facebook where they'll post this idyllic have been somewhere on a
mountaintop and they'll say could you survive here a month without Facebook, a month without
internet, a month without phone. Could you survive there and get paid a hundred thousand dollars
nobody's actually paid you and you've done it for years, haven't you. What a better way to live. I
without all of the noise. About all the noise the congestion the criminality of a city. Wow. I mean
how can you say that spending half your life in a traffic ground trying to get to and from work
is civilization. Right. Civilization is here in the city. I can only imagine living right here
next to the river, I can imagine how peaceful that could be. But right now John you have been living
in Costa Rica for how long? 14 years off grid. Now you don't live here at this particular tiny cabin
anymore here. No I've been here for six months so immediately when you got done building this one
you told me you got bored so you started building another tiny what I call a tiny cottage where you
live at now. Yeah well you have to have something to do so well you know when you're way out here
and I guess if you don't have Facebook you don't have telephone in the internet you got to have
something to do. Don't you keep yourself will keep your mind occupied more than anything. So
how long did it take you to build your house now, the tiny cottage. That was probably it's
hard to say now because it's so long ago five months and so I moved into it before it was
finished anyway because it was easier. Right. To be there, to be there where you won't be working.
And so you lived here for probably about six months while you were building that you moved into
it and that's a story for another time so I can't wait to actually see but you kept yourself quite
busy with a number of projects that you've built here on your thousand acres. Lots of things. A lot
of things. Well as you can imagine over 14 years. And at the rate that you build things I can
imagine it doesn't take you long to get done with the project before you get bored and you
start building yet another project. Right. How big is this tiny house? 14 by 22 and a half so just
over 300 feet. So just over 300 square feet and it really has everything that you need. Yeah I
know. Now the only thing that is missing is that there really isn't a toilet right here, connected
to this cabin is there? There's an outhouse the original outhouse at the old pioneer views years
ago that worked without any problems without all modern plumbing to go wrong and everything else
it's just basic and what more do you need. Yeah. So you've got a a little outhouse that's a little
away from the rivers obviously to keep everything clean and sanitary and so anytime that you need
a bathroom you've got the outhouse you've got the river you really have everything that you
need to just enjoy a peaceful and tranquil life in the rainforest and jungles of Costa Rica.
Is there anything that you miss being out here? Silly little thing like fish and chips or recovery
or something like that or being able to go down to a pub or something like that. So I've got my
own pub here now I'm an eatery which got built after my house. But it's not quite the same as
walking into a pub talking to some of the locals. Well I still thought with some of the locals
now because a lot of them are coming back because it's becoming something of an attraction.
And well obviously there's a lot of people that want to know why someone as old as you from
England has come all the way to Costa Rica to live in this remote area. Yeah most of them don't
understand. I think I'm some kind of a quirk or someone that's had problems with life and just
want to bury himself miles away from civilization, but that's not the story, it's just it's a
beautiful place to live and who would want to live in a city when they have the choice
of living here. Absolutely. Now you know you don't have electricity out here but you know I can
imagine someone who enjoys the pub how do you cool your beer? You put it in the river so you use
the river for your refrigeration. Yeah because it's a mountain stream it comes off the mountains
here go up to just over ten thousand feet so the water that comes springs up the mountain. It is
very good. Yeah. And that's the reason you don't bathe in the river. Oh it's too cold to me give
me a heart attack. You know this place is quite phenomenal and I can't wait to actually share with
everyone, some of the other projects that you've built here. You know this really is a magnificent
place and although you don't live here anymore this place is for rent. Yes it is. So there are
people from time to time, if anytime they won't they can come out here and if they want to just
kind of get away from the noise they can actually rent this place for a night, a week a month for
however long they want this place is available that they can rent and they can they can contact
me and I can put you in touch with Sean who can facilitate your arrival here at this place. As
long as they can do without social media for the length of time that they're here. That might be a
challenge. There's no telephone signals nothing no telephone no internet no Facebook but they do have
peace and quiet of mother nature. In the wildlife is delivered here wonderful monkeys. Tell me about
the wildlife. We have everything that you would sort of, expect in a in a tropical forest. We have
two types of monkeys, we have the spider monkey and the capuchin monkeys. Spider monkeys detected
species, we have two problems, one of only I'm told and I can't confirm this maybe one of
the kennel cell groups in the whole of Costa Rica so this is a it's something of a protected
environment that's one of the reasons you asked me in the beginning why I chose to buy this place and
stay here and I said the climate and the magical mix. Another one was it was a place that needed
protection so I decided right away that the only way to protect some something is to actually be
there. Right. So the wildlife was the biggest monkey we have the ape taken right outside
here. Not really. They weigh about 550 pounds it's a big animal and then we have
a problem we had a bit of a problem here with a porcupine and humming bird and chewing you know from the tiniest little
hummingbird with a huge earthy light habit. You have some butterflies out here that I saw
that actually have transparent wings though see through the wings, that's amazing, I
like a piece of glove. Wow. Now what about dangerous things like mountain lions or jaguars,
do you have any of that? Do you have a problem with that here? No I mean. So you do have jaguars
here? Yeah but it's not a threat. Well not to me but they jugglers killed two of my horses.
I lost two horses to jaguar another one of the snake bites. You'd expect in the jungle
no again not a big problem if you're careful it's the same old story, if you take
proper precautions then you're okay so if we have snakes here the wild cat we have
all five wild cats here not a problem at all. Do they bite? Yes. Try to carefully carefully put it down.
Come to me with it a little bit. Wow. What is he six inches? Yeah. And also in
the 14 years I've been here I've never ever closed the door my door right now in my
house has been wider day and night 24 hours. I would be more scared in the city because in
a city everything is a threat to the security alarms and everything like that what do you need
here. Well john I have to admit I'm a little bit envious of your place here because for me you
know as a kid I've always loved the woods and John I can't thank you enough for taking the
time to show me your funny house by the river. Always nice to have a visitor. John I look
forward to seeing more and sharing with the other people some of the other places that are
here. Thank you so much I greatly appreciate it. John has done something here I think a lot of
us could do if we would be willing to give up some of life's conveniences and enjoy a simpler
way of living. For me I've often wished I could live the life john is living and maybe someday
I will. John's story has inspired me and I hope it has inspired you to realize life is all
about the choices we make. It seems John has found his piece of paradise by building a
tiny house in Costa Rica. I think building a tiny house could be the answer to living
an affordable and simple life in Costa Rica.
