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All, Over on the thread about medicinal 'shrooms, I happened to point to a beautiful, vegan-friendly (in fact, vegan-only1) all-inclusive wellness center in Costa Rica called Finca de Vida (Farm of Life) where you can pick your own fruits and vegetables from the onsite trees and garden. It's really inexpensive, only $60-80/day. The first video below is short and very recent, and it is by the owner of the center, giving you a flavor for what the center looks like now (they've added a very nice pool!) and what their mission is. The second video is a more extended tour of Finca De Vida from a while back (2012) by one of my food & gardening heroes, John Kohler. They offer all kinds of fun activities on-site (yoga, hiking, swimming, etc) as well as ecotourism excursions off-site to many of the beautiful natural wonders of Costa Rica. They can even arrange for an ayahuasca ceremony, which is why I brought it up on the 'shrooms thread... Here are the rave reviews for Finca de Vida on TripAdvisor. Out of 138 reviews, 131 give it 5-stars, and 6 give it 4-stars. I've wanted to visit Finca de Vida for several years now, and broached on that thread the possibility of having a CR mini-retreat there, since I don't think it is the kind of destination my wife would really enjoy (too rustic and too healthy ☺) and I wouldn't have much fun going there alone. Both Saul and Gordo expressed immediate enthusiasm for the idea, and said they would probably even bring their (more adventurous) wives. As far as I'm concerned, the three (five) of us represent "critical mass" for me to go, as long as we can find a date that works for all of us. But the more the merrier as far as I'm concerned, so I figured I'd start a new thread to let others know about the idea, in case you too are interested. Note - I'm not thinking it will be like the CR conference, with speakers etc. Just an opportunity to hang out for a few days with cool, like-minded people in a beautiful setting, engaging in fun activities and deep discussions, while eating delicious, healthy & fresh vegan food. As mentioned above, the all-inclusive rate is extremely affordable ($60-80/day per person), and I just checked flights and a round trip ticket to Costa Rica from Pittsburgh is currently only $239. What do you think? Would you be interested joining Saul, Gordo and me at a CR2 mini-retreat (CR2 = Costa Rica Calorie Restriction) at Finca de Vida? Needless to say, we haven't set a date yet. I'd prefer it to be sometime when it's cold in the US, but for now, please post here or let me know in a private message if you might be interested in attending, independent of the date. Once we know who and how many are interested, we can start narrowing down the dates. --Dean ------------ 1As it says on the bottom of their website, "Farm of Life is a smoke-meat-alcohol-free environment."