In comparison to our month in Guatemala, where we traveled all around the country, this month has been relatively quiet. We have stayed in one place on the Nicoya Peninsula - Santa Teresa, where we have had an Airbnb home for the last month. The arrival was quite spectacular as we caught a small cessna plane from San Jose to Tambor, arriving at the airport that was no more than a clearing in the jungle and a small gravel car park behind a metal fence. Amazing experience (slightly scary).
What did we do in Santa Teresa?
Learning to surf - this was the main reason for coming here, to have a base for a month, hire some boards and off we go.... Our home was only a short walk to the Santa Teresa beach, although felt long to some little people when carrying their boards... especially at the start when all of our boards were huge! We learnt to adjust beach time by the tide times as we could only be in the water a few hours either side of low tide on the sandbar on the beach. Waves were too big close to shore near high tide. We had a lesson at the start to relearn the basics and then it was all about practice, suffice to say we have all had good days and bad days but we all have improved loads and our ‘pop ups’ are getting pretty good. However we are still white water riders not being brave enough to head out the back... Dexter has had less time on the board due to double ear infection that wouldn’t go, but for him that meant more time with the hermit crabs. We feel more confident to get out on the water in Sydney, although not sure we are prepared for the water temperature change... we will also need a bit of coaching from our neighbour, Michael, if we are going to surf out the back in Bronte! The beaches are spectacular here, surfing for every level and really not that busy.
Dexter was in heaven with the amount of animals here, we are living in jungle that grows right up to the beach, it’s breathtaking. You can hear the howler monkeys and the hermit crabs are amazing. Literally thousands of them in all shapes and sizes on the beach. The boys made some videos about them.
Dexters Adventure Show
The beaches are very clean, still plastic bottle tops (that some hermit crabs mistake as shells?!?) but in comparison to Guatemala you can really see the effort they are going to to educate and clean up, there is also a significant amount of tourism and international people that live here which makes a difference. We also visited a Wildsun Rescue Centre as seen on Vets Gone Wild . It was amazing to see and hear about how they are part of a breeding program to reintroduce the Scarlet Macaw into the wild and see how many orphan monkeys they raise mainly due to the number of mothers that get electrocuted by the uninsulated electric cables that run down the streets in between the trees. They have a huge success rate for reintroducing many different types of animals with the sole purpose of getting the animals back into the wild as quickly as possible. It was especially refreshing and encouraging to be told not to take photos and not to speak or communicate with the animals. Minimising human contact helps speed up the rehabilitation and prevents glorifying animals on social media for petting and cuddling. Ever since our regretful experience swimming with dolphins in Dubai, we want the kids to be supporting rehabilitation centres instead of zoo's and tourist attractions that keep animals in cages for pleasure and profit.
Exploring the peninsula - We didn’t have a car for most of the time we were there but in the first week we hired quad bikes (ATV's) for a day and a local friend of ours, Alex, buzzed us around so we got to see other little villages of Malpais, Cabuya, Montezuma and also hike to the amazing waterfall - the scenery is out of this world, bright green jungle & blue seas. However a few things did make seeing all of this a little challenging - the roads. Wow never have we driven on such crazy unsealed roads, the quad biking day was quite dusty but still involved us weaving in and out of giant potholes, in the last week we hired a 4x4 truck (to fit the boards and go surfing in other beaches) there were some pretty hairy downhill moments as we slipped and slid in the mud trying to avoid the massive rivets in the roads where the huge volume of rain water has just eroded the road away. Tim and the boys would say it was fun, I held on a little too tightly.
That brings me to the rain. We knew it was rainy season but this was rain at a new level. Most days there was a heavy shower, nearly every night a thunderstorms and massive amounts of rain falling on our tin roof. We had regular power cuts and water cut off - although the water was usually due to a construction incident up the road. The sun did come out some days and when it did it was intense, cloudy skies made it easier to spend longer in the water without fear of being burnt! Must have been some sunshine as we all seem to have got browner - well apart from Archie who is always covered head to toe as otherwise he burns.
School work was super challenging in our small airbnb, not much natural light, the outside space was often wet from the rain or full of mosquitoes. We struggled not having a table to work on or that would fit all four of us to sit and eat together. There has been much more screen time for all of us than we would have liked....
Some other things we will remember from our time in Costa Rica are yoga - ok mainly me, we had an awesome yoga place 2 min from our house where I managed to sneak a few classes in. Local dogs, all loved and cared for everywhere in Santa Teresa. Great for the boys to play with on the beach as we are all desperately missing Stevie (she is very very happy back in Oz with Caroline and family and their dog Max). The sunsets are amazing for the days when the sun made it out from behind the clouds - can only imagine how spectacular they are in the dry season! Not drinking... Tim and I set ourselves a challenge to see if we could not drink for a month while here. We kind of did it, we had a couple of nights with the odd beer or margarita, we both feel healthier, probably due to daily surfing and yoga too! I do miss rose wine and looking forward to next week!!
Two disappointing things - our Spanish has gone downhill through lack of practice, everyone speaks English or is a native English speaker here. Even when we have tried to speak Spanish the replies are in English and most of the signs are in English. Secondly it’s crazy expensive.
Everything is. Food at the supermarket, restaurants, day trips, surfing lessons. We were warned about the this but it really restricted what we did as otherwise we would have blown our budget in just a few days. We still managed to surf most days, did a few days trips - ATV tour and Tortuga Island, we hiked to different beaches, searched for the bat cave, saw whales and ate in some lovely restaurants. Costa Rica we will be back to explore more of your amazing country.
On Tuesday we head back to the US to our awesome friends Dinesh and Nicky's place for a few days. Then we pick up an RV from LA to share with Justin, Lou and Bek as we travel through Yosemite and near Lake Tahoe (for the boys birthday) to Reno. Then the Francis Four will become two sets of two as the parents and children take a break from each other. The boys are off to their Aunty and Uncle's house while Tim and I celebrate his 40th by getting dusty in the desert with friends at Burning Man....... huge bucket list item for both of us, wish us luck!
In September we will be in Colombia and we have chosen to volunteer our time with a local not for profit organisation. If you would like to help us to help them please donate to our crowdfunding appeal - click on the link below. Thanks to those who have already donated!
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