Yesterday Ward and Hetty went on a day long excursion to Tortuga Island travelling across the Gulf of Nicoya by catamaran. Brittany and I did the same excursion today. There are lots of photos from the island, and probably enough footage to do a video. So I’m going to take a few days to put that together. In the meantime, here are some photos from the yesterday when Hetty and Ward were away.
Today I (Joe) and another couple from Canada took an intro surfing lesson here on Playa Hermosa from Brian, who runs Hermosa Surf Vacations. The surf was unusually small today for Playa Hermosa, so there were no ‘real’ surfers in the water but it was perfect for someone with almost no surf experience like myself.
We started out in the white water close to shore, feeling how the wave surges the board forward ahead of the wave, and then catches up with it and steadily pushes for the remainder of the wave. Then we moved on to try to find some of the smaller waves to ride, which gave better speed and stability than the white water, but also meant that you had to wait out the larger waves (large waves for an unusually small day).
We all headed down to the closest bar, the Backyard Bar which holds a local surf competition every Saturday. Below are some photos from the afternoon and the competition.
We have only been subjected to two power outages while here in Costa Rica. According to our neighbours, who are from Orange County, CA and have lived here for several years, power outages are quite common and occur frequently. The first one lasted only an hour; however yesterday, we were without power for about 6 hours. Because of this, we were ‘forced’ to spend the late afternoon at the pool as the house was far too hot to spend any length of time in. We then had to eat our dinner out on our deck while watching the sunset. Seeing as we had no means of cooking dinner, we ordered in. Pizza and empanadas; both of which were delicious! The sun sets at precisely 5:30 every night and all is dark by 6. We were all willing to retire for the night except Gabriel kept yelling “party” and insisted that we light the candles.
Only half of our village’s power was out so we headed to the pool’s cabana. The cabana provided us with hammocks, light and fans. Unfortunately, it also provided us with mosquitoes so after a quick stay (5 minutes) we returned home. Soon after our return to our HOT bungalow, the power company arrived with a new transformer and a cherry-picker truck. Ward applauded and Gabriel watched excitedly as the men, whom he all called “Bob” did their work. He enjoyed himself so much that after about half an hour of viewing, he fell asleep in his Zaida’s arms.
Being forced to play at the pool, have a sunset dinner and lounge under the stars. Just another day in paradise.
Having returned the vehicle on Saturday, we’ve spent the last couple of days at home relaxing. This has been a pleasant change from the three days that we had the vehicle and felt we needed to make the most of it, which made for long, busy days.
Attached are a few random photos from today. The sunset is amazing here every night, so you get a bit used to it.