Carmen

Elana and Helen enjoyed an early morning horse ride through the pristine jungle and along the beaches whilst we were there. It’s been a while since Elana has been on a horse (and even longer for Helen) and they thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Being early in the morning there weren’t many people about either making it a tranquil and special experience.

One afternoon whilst we were chilling out at our local beach spot some labourers from a local building site turned up and were hanging about (we assumed on their lunch break). One of them then decided to scale a quite tall palm tree and began throwing some lovely ripe coconuts down, of which they gave us several and taught Mark how to de-husk them on the rocks! The coconut water was lovely (as was the flesh) and just what was needed in the middle of a hot day on the beach – we can see why they were keen to harvest some! Mark also made a delicious coconut curry out of one of them one evening. During operation coconut drop a snake fell out of the tree, quickly slithering away to the sea!

Bertie rose particularly early one morning (as he often does) so Mark took him for a sunrise walk down to the beach, we had the beach and best rockpool to ourselves (it was 5:30am) – it would have been rude not to have taken advantage of the first dip of the day! We enjoyed the tranquillity of the beach whilst the sun rose behind the jungle.

On one of our final days we headed to a beach called Hermosa, about 10km from Malpais, which is great for surfing. Hermosa has a vast expanse of sand so it is easy to get away from any crowds. The beach has little natural shade so over time people have made shelters out of branches and palm fronds, we managed to find one vacant, Mark fixed it up a little and it gave us a great spot in which to enjoy the beach. We all enjoyed jumping about in the surf and Mark and Elana spent most of their time body surfing the waves in the warm pacific ocean. Bertie’s confidence in the water has grown so much in the past 2 months, he thinks nothing of running into the surf and getting washed about now – not bad for a 2 year old!

We would loved to have spent a bit more time in Malpais, we met a family from Ireland who spend a month there each year (they run a restaurant that they close down for a month each January), we can see why as it’s such a chilled out place. However it was time to move on and continue our adventure. Our final journey in Costa Rica saw us driving back to San Jose taking a shorter route via a ferry that crosses the Gulf of Nicoya. As always the roads to the ferry were varied and the ferry itself looked like it had seen better days, we’re sure it was safe through! We were ushered into the bowels of the boat which they tightly packed with cars leaving no room to get in or out of the cars. We managed to escape before they filled the next row, getting back in was interesting, Mark had to climb in through the back door and climb through to the front (other people had to wait until some of the vehicles had moved out of the way)!

Costa Rica was really charming, the landscapes were so varied, the flora and fauna fascinating and the people friendly – definitely a place we would return to in the future if the world wasn’t so vast – we’ll see!Read more