Your Sanctuary to Host and Attend Spiritual Retreats and Immersive Personal Growth Experiences

Ideal retreat space

The space where you host your retreat is the factor with the biggest impact on the transformation your participants will experience.

This is why yoga studios, meditation halls, temples, churches, sacred grounds and wellness centers put so much attention to the setting and physical space.

A disruptive environment will make meditation practically impossible to learn for a beginner while an enchanted garden will instill a sense of inner joy which facilitates it.

Everything at Inti Wasi has been curated to provide you with an optimal setting to enable personal and spiritual transformation.

Spirit calls

In 2020 as COVID was taking the world by storm, the calling card of Costa Rica presented Pol, my husband, and I were with a life changing opportunity. This was no accident; rather it was an energetic destination that was calling Pol and I to become the new caretakers of what is now Villa Inti Wasi.

Pol and I had dreamed of moving abroad and had visited Panama in January 2020 as we started our exploration of possible places to relocate.

I had begun talking with Daniel Remus, a realtor living in Costa Rica, about potential properties. We had developed our relationship a year prior to moving. COVID brought so many life changes for everyone and we were no exception. We had just finished a cycle of moving five times in the past two years.

We were both tired of renting and just wanted a peaceful space of our own. We had decided that within the next few years we would move abroad.

Two opportunities

One day I had been looking at the multiple listings on a Costa Rican website and out of blue there were two wonderful properties up for sale that offered owner financing, which is not common. It’s very difficult for expats to secure a loan from a foreign bank and the interest rates are very high so buying a house and a car means strictly cash.

Pol and I set an appointment with Dan the realtor. We looked at the properties via three Zoom calls. We had also consulted with our spiritual brothers in Peru. Through dreams and the reading of the coca leaves they confirmed that indeed the land itself was calling to Pol and me. They had given us a checklist of all things the property needed to include.

The list was simple. The property needed to be large enough to have space to grow our own food and a water source so we could become self-sustaining. Our spiritual brothers also said the property (Inti Wasi) had plenty of ancestor spirits, two Apu’s which are the spirits residing in the mountains and protector spirits that keep watch over the land itself.

The house itself is built directly on top of the mountain and the soil contained beneath is filled with white quartz. We have been told that this is why the elemental spirit of lightning is so attracted to Inti Wasi. They also shared with us that Inti Wasi was an energetic vortex and portal that would be opened under their guidance.

Leap of faith

Pol and I put in an offer and 48 hours later we had a firm purchase agreement for a property in San Mateo, Costa Rica.

We purchased the property in August of 2020. By the end of October that year we had downsized to 80 boxes that were sent ahead of us on a container that left from Wisconsin with the help of the amazing team at International Relocation Partner. It takes two months for the boat to arrive and to clear customs in Costa Rica.

We were so excited and could not believe we were making such a leap of trust and faith as we had never visited Costa Rica before.

Rude awakening

When Pol and I arrived… We were met with the first of many challenges moving into a new home and a new country.

The person who had been renting the home closed the house up during the rain season and the property manager stopped doing the rounds. The rainy season can bring raging storms and rivers of water. It typically starts in May and usually ends in November. When we arrived, the house was filled with mold and the property was very overgrown and needed an overhaul. I remember falling to my knees in shock once I saw it all. It looked nothing like how it did a few months ago through the Zoom tour.

We did have an inspection before the purchase and somewhere between the time of the purchase agreement and getting to Costa Rica all the damage occurred. We had to wait a few months to travel to Costa Rica as the government had stopped all inbound travel for non-residents. We arrived around November 20th, 2020.

I knew and understood the extent of what it would take to get the property up and running. I worked alongside a whole team of workers because we had to gut the house and start all over again from the foundation and a shell of a house.

New beginning

Pol and I along with others slept on blow-up mattresses for three to four months in what is now our kitchen and main gathering area. To give you an image of what it was like, a huge plastic tarp covered our household belongings to protect it from dust which sat next to our mattresses. One night we woke up with the kitchen sink leaking water in our sleeping area and everyone had to wake up to attend to the situation.

We worked countless hours for days on end for close to two years. I cannot tell you how many times I wanted to give up, reduced to tears, and asking myself “How did I get here?”

Divine mission

We were on a divine mission to create a place that was safe and welcoming. A place filled with love and enveloped in peace. A place where others could benefit from the energy, healing magic and tranquility of the rainforest, ancestors, plants, trees, flowers and animals.

Every step we took to renovate was intentional, detailed and energetically aligned to create a container for people to discover, heal, expand and evolve.

T’ito, Tupaq, Victor, Claudio and Jairo (our spiritual brothers from Peru) agreed to help Pol and I learn how to manage all the energy that flows through Inti Wasi, so it maintains an energy that is balanced and in harmony.

We created a container of tranquility and healing for all those who would be coming to experience the beauty and the magic of Villa Inti Wasi.

We spent two and half years repurposing the property from top to bottom physically and energetically. We have so much gratitude and many people to thank for helping us to accomplish this.

Perpetual progress

To date, we still have on-going projects as I think we will for many years to come as we maintain and enhance the grounds. We employ eight full-time Tico’s (Costa Ricans) from our community, so they have sustainable and consistent work.

We have created a space for trainers to hold classes and a place where we could begin to build a one of a kind, safe, conscientious, and intimate progressive plant medicine program that is conducted with integrity and designed for the healing and expansion of others.

We are always a work in progress here at Inti Wasi. We are proud to be blazing trails through finding the courage to live abroad and answering the call of the land here to become its caretakers.

An invitation

Our mission is to provide a loving, safe, and healing sanctuary for all who feel or hear the call to experience the land, spirits, beings, ancestors, and magic that lives among us.

We are the consumate gardeners helping to tend to the land and its energy so we can be a living sanctuary of peace and service to others. We are truly blessed every day we are here.

We honor all those who have come before us, are walking with us and ahead of us.

We invite you to come and experience this magical place, to imprint yourself with the love, healing, and rejuvenation that Villa Inti Wasi is holding especially for you!