For those of you who haven’t traveled to areas with limited infrastructure to include the sewage system and didn’t read the Peru chronicles, we are again somewhere that keeps a small lidded garbage can next to the toilets. They don’t want you to flush toilet paper or anything that isn’t naturally expelled from your person. This is normal here and most after experiencing it don’t think much about it. I did overhear the Baylor boys that are here doing some volunteer work and relaxation talking about it. I thought I should give a little reminder to our readers that this is something to expect in places like this. 

We had huge burritos for lunch at one of the sodas/ small restaurants down by the park. They were good. There seems to be a lot of international foods here, some on par with what you would get in the states, some better and some are odd. The ketchup at the soda was slightly pink and translucent. I tasted it, sweet but not tomato flavor to speak of. 
The chocolate (maybe chocolate maybe not) chip cookies we got at the New Super China tienda/store that tonight appears to be operated by three youthful Asian people I think are better than chips ahoy, no preservative aftertaste. 
I don’t think that it’s too hard to find something to eat here. Unless you are really picky about the variety of food. They have less beef options than the United States but plenty of chicken and seafood.
The standard food here is a meat with beans and rice. There’s usually a small salad too. They call it a casado, it’s always a good option. The breakfast option is egg for protein and a fried plantain instead of a salad. They also mix the beans in the rice to begin with. I haven’t tried it yet. 
So as long as you like chicken, fish, eggs, beans and rice you won’t starve. The seasoning here isn’t as bold as Mexican food in the United States.

We had a good afternoon snorkeling at Pirate’s beach. We took the ATV “tour” for $50 and just went straight to the beach and snorkeled while the guide hung out. It was a very economical way to do it since the tour is $50 for two hours for one ATV and two people can go on one. Sketchy Kevin was $50 per head. We got to be in the water long enough for it to make me a little queasy, too much burrito maybe. It is also fun to ride the ATV. Part off paved road and some on. Kind of helps make me think I could rent a car and drive around here. The traffic isn’t too bad. 

After settling my stomach and relaxing until we were out of the senior citizen’s dining hour we went down the road and ate at what was probably a fancy place at one time but needs some exterior maintenance. The food was what you would be offered at a fancy place in the United States. We both had the whole red snapper with a vegetable risotto and then a shrimp and fruit chutney/sauce. There was pineapple and mango I believe. It was very good and it was plated well. 

Side note about the bandage, my water shoes are capable of breaking the seal on one. It doesn’t come completely off but it gets the bottom off. Still excellent bandages for this environment. 

My new fins have some issues with the straps, one has a tendency to come off on one side and they slip down my heel. They were supposed to be big enough to wear my water shoes with but they aren’t. I’m not sure how well they would be for scuba but they may be adequate for snorkeling.  

We must have a skunk near by that is doing a lot of spraying. It has already added some scent to the air, we will probably smell like skunk when we come back and not notice, too bad for whoever is on our flights!! 

If anyone has requests, questions or comments feel free to let us know, we’d be happy to try and address them. 

Hello All: I’m once again sitting in the balcony restaurant with a cup of tea and come cookies. I finished working on my online class earlier today, so I don’t have work tonight, which is nice. It’s really lovely here.

Bill decided not to go diving today. Rocket Frog diving does not seem very reliable or responsive to problems, which is a bad sign with companies that take people diving. If they can’t give you the correct address, you also wonder how well they keep up equipment and maintain safety. Diving can be dangerous so you need a reliable company. It might be good that he didn’t get to go. He has two days scheduled next week with a different company and hopefully that will go better. I just talked to the owner of our hotel. She also dives and she usually goes with the company Bill picked for next week so that’s a good sign. She’s from Venezuela but grew up in New Jersey and somehow ended up in Costa Rica. I thought she was German or Austrian. Her accent doesn’t sound Spanish.

This morning, we camped out at the hotel. I’ve taken a beating lately in the waves so it was nice to have a slower morning to recover. We ate an early lunch at small local restaurant where we had a conversation with the server about her tattoo. Bill spent some time pointing out violations of electrical codes in the restaurant. It reminded me of the fuse box in the house where I grew up that my dad never got around to wiring correctly.

After lunch, we stopped by the tour shop and booked a 4-wheeler trip to Playa de los Pirates. We went there yesterday on 4-wheelers and our guide said it was a good place to snorkel so I wanted to try it out today. It was probably the best snorkeling that I’ve done in Costa Rica. There is a small rock of an island swimming distance from shore where we saw a fair number of colorful fish, tubular sea creatures that coat themselves in rocks, a really interesting star fish and some other various invertebrates. It’s probably a good spot for turtles but we didn’t see any today. We had a little over an hour there and it was definitely worth going. This beach also had huge stretches of sand and tidal pools and almost no people. It’s really awesome! We got the snorkel tour plus about 40 minutes of 4-wheeler riding for half what we paid Sketchy Kevin last week. The longer you stay in a place, the better you get at finding good deals and good companies. Tomorrow we are doing jet skis and snorkeling, which we are both looking forward to.

This evening, we ate at a good restaurant down the street a little ways. We both had whole pan fried red snapper, vegetable risotto and shrimp in a mango pineapple sauce. I’m generally skeptical about food that still looks like an animal once it’s on my plate, but the fish was good.

Bill and I think that if we come back to this area, we would like to get a vacation rental so we could cook some of our own meals. We are getting good food, but it’s 3 big meals a day and I don’t think either of us are going to come back thinner! We are pretty active, and swimming makes us hungry, but I probably don’t need the package of cookies I’m currently eating. We would also like to have our own transportation, either a car or a rented 4-Wheeler. A 4-wheeler would probably be better on dirt roads and you can ride them on the main paved roads here too.

Both the Costa Ricans and the other tourists are super friendly and easy to talk to. I tried talking to people in Jamaica but no one seemed very interested in conversation. When we went to lunch today, a guy we see on the beach surfing with his boys stopped to talk to us for a few minutes. I think he works at a local hotel restaurant. We met a young couple at breakfast and I just met a couple from Texas who also come to Costa Rica a lot. It’s a really friendly, welcoming environment. I’m used to Samara, so I missed the familiarity there at first, but Brasilito is definitely growing on me.

We know that some of you who read the blog are interested in traveling to Costa Rica. Bill has done a good job trying to describe what it’s like to be here. We are really enjoying this vacation but it’s probably not for everyone. Small towns in Costa Rica are not fancy and if you are imagining that Costa Rica will look like Hawaii, you’ll be disappointed. Vacations like this aren’t as easy as going to an all inclusive resort. It takes some time to settle in, find tour shops and good places to eat, but for me, it’s so much more interesting. I’ve met a lot of great people and we feel like we are more part of a community here where we support local business and talk to people about their lives. It’s true that geckos come in and out of cracks in the windows and doors and our room last night and part of today smelled strongly like a skunk, but you get good stories that way.

I’m thinking about swimming in the pool but I’m on the fence about my wet swimsuit. I need to make a decision quickly. The pool closes at 8:30 although I don’t know how well that’s policed.

Bill is working on pictures so I’ll post a few here and more with his post.

Disclaimer, it’s actually a lot.
You may wish to skip parts depending upon your interests. Some of the review stuff may not be interesting to some, I want to let you know though about things that work and don’t work. Things you may want to consider for your trips or maybe things you haven’t thought about. Some of the information may evolve as familiarity and experience changes. Hopefully I am not bashing or giving the impression that things are bad, overall things are good and everything will have pluses and minuses. If you adapt and make things work and not stress about things too much you will have a good experience traveling. 

A little more about the GoPro Hero 7 Black, it doesn’t like the Super Suit when not being used in water. It gets hot in the case and it locked up on me. The batteries also get warm when they get a lot of use. 
I didn’t bring another mount or case for the camera because my cheap one never had any issues like that. The other reason is that since you have to take the lens off to fit in the Super Suit, it was a pain to do to the point that I used a pair of pliers to get it done. The instructions say it’s tight the first time you do it. I had gotten it off before and was tight I didn’t think it should be worse the second time. I was wrong, I didn’t want to bring pliers so I just have the Super Suits lens. I don’t think that it has been overly hot here, nothing like Cartagena or an Iowa cornfield when it’s time to detassel. It’s actually been fairly nice most of the time, there has been a couple of times where it’s felt a little humid. Being this close to the ocean I would expect more breeze though. 
The camera does take good pictures and video. I’m hoping after I get back that I can get the lens issue figured out. There is an open back that can go on the Super Suit so I can access the touchscreen which I need for zooming in for photos, that wouldn’t solve the heat issue though. Future adventures will tell more as I get more used to the way it works and what can and cannot be done with it. So far the app for it works well for previewing the videos and I can get decent screenshots from them easily. I’m looking forward to seeing how it works in good snorkeling water and with the filters. 

The hotel, it is actually nice but there are some things you should consider when traveling to the areas that we have been. There is a lot of single pane glass, they don’t worry about the cold, and the locals don’t always use A/C. This also means no weather stripping around doors that are basically interior doors in the United States. Besides insulation against the weather there’s the added benefit of sound buffering. I will add smell buffering to that list as there was a skunk that was close and sprayed something during the night. It’s not a bad thing but you should be aware of it when you think about where you want to stay, the bigger more corporate places will be constructed a little different and with less charm. You do feel more a part of the community. It’s not quite as much here at the hotel as it was in our apartment in Cartagena where we shopped for and cooked a lot of our own food. It was more typical of the local construction. 

Before coming to this particular hotel we had very quick responses from Hilda the owner. She is around most days up in the restaurant/reception area on her laptop. Since we’ve been here Emily sent an email about the tours they set up and that response still hasn’t come though at this point we took it down the road and it’s a done deal. We asked this morning about laundry, which I recommend you should plan on doing while on your trips, you don’t have to bring as much stuff and if you use the right bag there’s no checking and waiting for luggage at the airports. I would say it’s a service worth paying for. If you have your laundry done before you leave you also don’t have a huge pile of dirty laundry to do upon your return home. She was also going to set up our Covid test so that we may return to the United States. This is a pain but a necessary evil of traveling abroad these days. I’m ready for that to end along with masks in airport and planes. It is inconvenient but you shouldn’t let that stop you from traveling. 

I do want to still say how great the Nextcare waterproof bandages are. As long as you can get your skin dry before applying them they will stay on for days. 

I forgot to add pictures of our new gear, so they should be with this post. 

We were just taking it easy this morning so a bonus post. We’re going to see about snorkeling after an early lunch. 

So we had some technical difficulties this morning with Rocket Frog Divers. They seem to have two websites with two different addresses that share a single office and cell number. We were up early and made it to our taxi and he took us to a spot that didn’t have any Rocket Frog signage but was at the beach. Seems some people get picked up at the beach. Our driver said it was an hour away to the correct spot but it’s only 13 miles from our hotel. I’m not sure he just didn’t want to go that far as he had other fares to get. He was willing to take us back to our hotel though. The lady Emily talked to on the phone this morning was willing to wait for us but I wasn’t getting a good vibe about the whole thing. Rocket Frog wasn’t as responsive as the Dive shop I’m scheduled with next week. Rocket Frog is out. They don’t seem to actually have an office in the next town over, they will occasionally just pick people up there. It is an hour to go to Playa del Coco because short way is currently closed and you have to go the long way, which takes an hour. So next time more research will have to be done and more clarifying emails.  

After we got back from not diving and snorkeling we went down to one of the tour companies and organized several things including a ATV trip that we took this morning. 

We are going to do a jet ski tour, whitewater rafting and a sunset catamaran tour with snorkeling. Emily also has a hot spring/ mud bath thing that she’s doing while I am doing Scuba next week when they didn’t have space for her to snorkel. 

ATVs in the dry season is a dusty affair. There was less beach riding and more level B/ field road riding but, a lot worse. I’ve cut across a harvested cornfield that was smoother than some of these roads. There is a dark red color to the soil where it’s freshly dug or wet. Because it’s so hilly there’s a lot of areas that have been eroded and then there are holes for no identifiable reason. People with a want of new shocks and struts or rentals were taking hatchbacks on them, very slowly, we’d pass them. The roads are so bad that the ATV that Emily was riding lost a wheel! She was riding in front of me and all of a sudden her rear left wheel came off and made a brake for the side of the road. The wheel was still attached to the hub so it must’ve lost a hub nut and washer. These thing have to take a beating. Instead of waiting for them to bring another out her and I just rode two up which was fine with Emily, she gets to enjoy the views more that way. We got to see some of the other beaches, some monkeys and sea life.  There is a beach, Pirate’s beach that we think would be nice to try and snorkel at. I have extra time and money tomorrow so we may have to see what we can do. 

Since a theme is starting you probably have guessed that we took the boogie boards out again after lunch. They are a good value, you can try and ride the waves, you can just float on them and if you don’t want to sit in the sand on the beach you can sit on your board. When we first went down to the spot where the surfers hang out we were the only ones there today. When walking down there really wasn’t a lot of action in the water but it picked up as we got closer. Then the surfers showed up and more boogie boarder’s. One family did really well at it. The father gave directions and they all did well. We should have gotten closer to hear the instructions, I couldn’t understand him, we think he may have been speaking French or Emily though Canadian French as some wasn’t familiar and he was too far away. The kids always seem to respond in English. 
I think Emily was hoping for a good story to add to the blog, seems there was something with a fin that stuck up out of the water swimming behind me that she was watching, after it was gone and hadn’t decided I looked tasty she informed me of it’s presence. We were out a little later today, we had a good time. 

We opted for dinner here at the hotel tonight, we had a mixed seafood dinner for two. There was a variety of fish and some shrimp over a bed of mixed vegetables. It was good. I believe it is supposed to have rock lobster on it, but I didn’t see any, it may be out of season. Everything tasted fresh. It seemed like a lot of protein but we ate it all. 

I need to get to work on getting my pictures sent to Emily so that she can add them. I’m going to include some random pictures of what things look like here. I’m liking it here, for it being the high season there’s not been any crowds. The beach is huge and you can find your own spot and not be close to other people if you don’t want to be. We did make it into Playa Flamingo and it is more developed there. They have more going on and it may be a good choice to stay in if you were looking for more civilization, a bank, cross fit gym, marina and more paved streets. 

I’ve noticed here that there really isn’t much garbage laying around. Things may not be well maintained or sparkly new but there isn’t garbage like when we were in Columbia. Emily said that it’s the same in Samara. I also do know that they have street sweeper here either. They do have a lot of road apples on the roads and the beaches. I have yet to see broken glass imbedded in concrete on top of a wall here but they do believe in razor and barbed wire like Columbia and Peru. Also spiky wrought iron fences. There is a police station just south of the hotel, you do see them a lot though. When you do see them with lights on they don’t really drive that aggressively, I think they just like the lights because they never seem to be in a hurry to get anywhere. 

If you have some requests for pictures let us know and we will see what we can do. If you have questions about anything we will do our best. 
Anyway I better get to those pictures. Hopefully everyone is having a great start to the week. 

Hello All: We had an unfortunate start to the morning, but our day turned out pretty well. We had a scuba/snorkeling trip planned for today, but the scuba site gave very unclear directions about where we were supposed to go and we ended up in the wrong spot. It’s a long story, and Bill probably typed it up so I’ll let him tell that one.

The scuba mix up was frustrating but we came back to Brasilito, went down to a local tour place and signed up for a bunch of tours that should be really fun. We did 4-Wheelers this morning and went to several beaches. One of them was awesome with potentially good snorkeling and some super neat spider starfish and other sea creatures in tidal pools. I’m a big fan of tidal pools. The water is always clear and they are full of interesting creatures. I could have spent more time there. Part way through the trip, I hit a large pothole in the road and broke the wheel off my 4-wheeler. Bill said he saw me keep going and my wheel rolled down the road behind me. I had to ride with Bill for a while, which was fine. That gave me a chance to look around rather than concentrating on the craters in the dirt roads we were on. We saw a road grader but it wasn’t pushing gravel or dirt into the holes, it was just scraping over the top of the road. I can’t imagine that 4-wheelers or any other vehicles last long on those roads. They are dry and fill of holes now. As soon as it starts raining, they will be full of muddy craters with small rivers running though them.

After lunch, we took our boards to the beach and spend a long time making largely unsuccessful attempts at boogie boarding. Late in the afternoon, a guy came out with his two boys aged maybe 11 and 14. All of them were catching waves and riding into the beach with no trouble. We tried to watch what they were doing, but still didn’t have much luck. It was a lot of fun though. While we were out, I saw a small, black fin go past Bill then swing around behind him. It probably wasn’t a shark, but it looked like mini-version of Jaws.

We had a delicious seafood supper. Francie, our server, brought out a big platter with a couple different kinds of baked fish and shrimp and some stirfry vegetables. It was really good. Francie was really chatty tonight so I talked to her for a while and she left me her phone so I could watch videos of her pets while she waited on other people. She has a kid who is probably about six, 3 dogs and a cat. Her house sounds like a zoo.

I’m running out of energy really fast and I know Bill has a longer post so he can fill you in on details I’ve missed. He works on his posts through the day but I save mine for the evening. I’m also teaching an online class right now, so I manage that in the evening too. I completely redid the class over Thanksgiving break so I’m working out a few small glitches with it but nothing too serious.

I’ll post some pictures below and I think Bill has more that I’ll add to his post.

Howdy! 

So if you want to speed up your enjoyment of the blog and you like apps, there is a wordpress app that you can get and use to follow Traveling with Emily. I got it and I am getting it sort of figured out. I’m able to bring it up and go right to the blog.

Today we started off early, we had snorkeling scheduled at 8:30 which was not that early since I woke about 6:15 but by the time you get moving around and have breakfast it doesn’t seem like there was enough time to do everything before we left, sunscreen takes a little time to get on using the sticks, I do like them though and it’s not a liquid according to TSA. It’s cheaper to bring than buy here or anywhere tropical. I recommend the Neutrogena. I’m also good with the equate version as well. I’m trying out some of the equate kids 50 spf this trip, so far it’s good and it does show white on the skin so that is good if you worry about coverage. It does blend in by rubbing it with your hands. 

Kevin’s Tours, his snorkeling trip is a bit sketchy. I’m not sure we didn’t just get set up with a couple of fishermen who took us out. Sketchy Kevin does have some other tours available but we’re going to see who else is offering the same things. The nice thing about Sketchy Kevin’s Tours was the fishermen didn’t make us wear the recycled from airplanes life vests and we only had us and them. They took spear guns in for a while but I didn’t see them get anything. 

Today the water was very cloudy, it’s windy and stirs things up and a little on the cool side. I may regret leaving my shorty wet suit in Emily’s SUV. 

We had a good time, we got to break in our new equipment, I brought my own flippers and Emily got a goggle and snorkel set like mine in green. My flippers are some Cressi Palau SAF flippers. They worked well, they like a frog kick the best. They are stiffer than what I am used to but they are short enough to fit in my travel bag, which was why I picked them. 
Emily said she is happy with her snorkeling set. I’ve not had any problems with mine so I’m not surprised that she is enjoying hers. They are Cressi as well and the goggles are a frameless style for travel. I highly recommend having your own if you are going to be snorkeling and these are an excellent choice. 
I purchased a new GoPro Hero 7 Black with the Super Suit Dive housing for deep diving as it is waterproof to a little ways down without a case. They have newer models but the costs go up and this one has the features that I wanted. I have had some issues making sure it is turned off. I didn’t check the battery in it yesterday before we went out and it was dead. I had specifically charged it before I packed it. The on off button also is the button used for changing the settings while it’s on along with the touchscreen. There’s also a feature that it will turn back on and start recording if the shutter button is pushed. That’s not a bad feature but I’m not sure that isn’t what’s burning up the battery. I think the internal computer deal is running just waiting for you to push it. 
It’s heavy, it will sink like a rock on its own. I have a floating handle that does work and it has a handy waterproof storage area that I have been keeping money in. My old $20 one floated, there was not stabilizing software and no metal housing. This camera also connects to my phone like the last one with an app. It seems to work well as far as clarity goes. I’m going to have to see if there is a way to zoom the camera a little and keep it there. It has zoom but currently I only know how to do that when I can access the touchscreen. I didn’t bring all the parts to use it without the Super Suit. You have to take the lens off for that. 
The water was cloudy as mentioned before, it still did well though. I captured a few stills out of some of the videos and there are some pictures that I took in Sketchy Kevin’s fishing / snorkeling boat and the restaurant here at the hotel. 
The star fish was brought to me by one of the fishermen, I was swimming along minding my own business and he thrust a starfish at me. I took it to Emily. She said she also seen a bigger one. We did see some puffer fish, the first one Emily showed me. 

Random thoughts. 
The coffee here is like it was in Jamaica, thick and black. I’m thin mine down with the hot water they have out for tea, about 50/50 and it’s still strong. They also use small cups here with tiny little handles I can barely get a finger in. 

The people here are friendly here and I am getting to hear a lot of Spanish and occasionally I will even use some that I have learned. I understand more than I can speak. Emily is usually able to tell me what’s said of I don’t. The Covid mask thing doesn’t help though, muffles some of what is said. 

The majority of the art work her looks like some people had a good time at Art and Wine. A lot if canvases all the same size and with heavy paint. 

Yesterday we included a picture of the map from the information notebook in our room but didn’t mention anything about it. It doesn’t seem to be to any scale. Also there is a bit more stuff here than what is shown on the map. This definitely isn’t a sprawling metropolitan area though. The area is sort of what I expected short of jungle with monkeys out back. It’s more mountainy in a Smokey Mountain way while you are in them rather than Rocky Mountains, with different trees and at this time no haze. I wouldn’t be surprised if there is some haze during the rainy season. 

After lunch we went back down to the beach and got smashed by waves with the boogie boards again. It’s a lot of fun but it beats you up a bit. The water isn’t all that deep, most places I can stand up. While you are in the water you can float on the board, my feet dangle long enough to occasionally touch bottom still, you can float on the waves if you are somewhere they are not breaking. A breaking wave is where it starts showing white. All that white is air that if you are pointed towards shore it will go right up your trunks and depending upon the trunks you will end up with an air bubble that gives you a wedgie. If you are in the right spot in front of the wave facing shore when a good one starts to swell you are supposed to be able to time when the wave is going to break and then ride it. You have to not only time when the break will start but have to start matching the speed of the wave (these are fast) as it’s coming at you, you almost are swimming downhill just in front of it because all the water in the wave has to come from somewhere. Bigger waves the more the water drops and steeper slope. If you’re lucky you ride it if not it crashes one you and drenches you. It’s very fun either way. If you are floating between the breakers the water is more of a rolling wave that can be relaxing. It also can rise and fall quite a bit sometimes. 

For dinner tonight we went down by the beach to a Sketchy looking place which is right down by where we met Sketchy Kevin. The food was good. The restaurant is on one side of a dirt road and the main dining area is on the beach. We sat looking out at the end of daylight, the sun had already dropped below the horizon by the time we got there. There was a nice outline of the mountainous area out by where we snorkeled this morning. 

Some of the Sketchiness and Rustic could possibly come from the harsh conditions being this close to the ocean. So I do say that tongue in cheek. Hopefully big money never comes in and ruins the current vibe. It feels small towny with a few souvenir shops and lots of options for adventure! 

Tomorrow is the first scuba day! I’m looking forward to it. Hopefully I will get some good pictures and the water is clearer!! 

We had a pretty fun day. We started this morning with a snorkeling trip that we organized yesterday with a guy named Kevin. Bill has now dubbed him Sketchy Kevin. He told us he would take us to a beautiful snorkel place with lots of coral and showed me a picture that was probably taken in Hawaii. We got to the beach and he introduced us to his brother who came over with two fishing harpoons. A younger guy swam out to get a very small fishing boat that is clearly their fishing boat and not designed for tourists. There was no water or snacks provided and I’m very glad we had our own snorkel gear because the stuff stored in a compartment under the boat bench did not look sanitized. They dropped us off in the water near some volcanic rocks that must equal ”corals” for Kevin and we snorkeled in pretty murky water for about an hour and a half.

Despite this, it was still a fun trip. It was a good day to be in the water and it gave both of us a chance to try our our new equipment. Bill has new fins and I have new goggles and snorkel. My new equipment is fantastic! The goggles don’t fog up or cause a bruise on my forehead. Bill is going diving tomorrow and I’m going along to snorkel and we are hoping for better water quality. We saw several puffer fish, a couple of starfish and a variety of other smaller fish so it wasn’t a bad trip today. Costa Rica isn’t the best place for snorkeling but I already knew that.

This afternoon, we went boogie boarding again. That’s super fun but it takes a lot of energy. I got sunburned this morning and that always makes me tired. We ate supper at a little restaurant right on the beach. I had garlic shrimp and Bill had fried fish and we watched the sun go down while we ate. I had guanabana juice with my fish. It’s a fruit of some sort but I have no idea what kind. The juice was white and looked like milk but tasted like some sort of fruit juice. It was good.

I’ve had lots of opportunities to speak Spanish here. In most places, people prefer to speak their good English rather than listen to my mediocre Spanish. Here, they would much rather deal with my mediocre Spanish than speak English. I’ve gotten a lot of compliments on my Spanish, but I think it’s only because people are relieved that they don’t have to speak English. A shop owner I talked to earlier wanted to know if Bill spoke Spanish. Bill is darker complected than me and I think the guy though I had married a Mexican and learned Spanish that way. Bill wants to learn Spanish so he can tell people I met him in Mexico and he’s trying to get a Green Card. Every evening while I’m typing this blog, Francie, the server at our restaurant, comes over to talk to me. Tonight she’s wearing a Santa hat and a string of Christmas lights around her neck. She’s super nice and I’ve enjoyed the conversations.

I talked to a shop owner earlier today about the mask situation here. There is a mask mandate for all of CR. Shop owners are required to wear them and required to make customers wear them. If the police come by and see people without masks, they fine the shop owners and can shut down businesses for 15 days. Everything here is open air, even the grocery stores usually have the front of the store mostly open. Nothing is air conditioned so it’s scorching hot for the employees who are wearing masks all day. The shop owner I talked to also said that almost everyone here is vaccinated and can get boosters so he’s really frustrated with the continued rules. Lots of shops are already struggling with low numbers of tourists and large, repeated fines or closures are financially disastrous.

I think Bill is working on some pictures he took with his new GoPro so I’ll add pictures to his post once he sends them to me.

Hello faithful readers! 

So today I hear you are getting an actual post from Emily, those travel days are hard and it can be a daunting task to have to think when you feel a lot like sleeping! I’m probably more used to typing things up when I’m tired because I have to do it all the time at work. She also has to proofread mine and then post it so it is a team effort to bring these posts to you. I appreciate her making sure that I haven’t messed up! 

We were able to get out this morning and do a little exploring!! It’s nice to be able to just walk off and see what goes on and what’s around to see. Basilito is small and Emily says it’s less developed than where she goes a couple hours south in Samara. I think that it’s nice that it isn’t super developed. There are a few resorts to the south a few hundred meters, and a bit past that. 

The beach is large! Plenty of room for everyone. We did have to cross the bridge that our hotel is 200 meters south of. The bridge is a one lane steel construction bridge that is not special except for the fact it seems to be the only one and there is a fair amount of traffic that uses it along with people. There are a handful of shops/tiendas and small restaurants/sodas. There are a few regular restaurants/restaurante. I’m looking forward to trying the sodas, they are supposed to be more local type places, the food is supposed to be good, kind of like when on the road stopping at truck stops because the food is supposed to be good. I think there should be plenty of places to try here and if we need anything we should be able to find it. There is a little bigger town about 8 kilometers north of here we may have to check out if we run out of things to do, though we may end up there during our excursions anyway. We have started planning what we would like to do as far as those go. I already have four days of scuba lined up that I’m looking forward to. I’m going to do two tank dives, which is just two dives, one after the other and they move locations. I hope to see 8 different places. Emily is lined up to come with me to snorkel for three of them. We are going to snorkel tomorrow with Kevin’s Tours in the morning. 

So we picked this area of Costa Rica because of the Concha beach, it is supposed to have decent snorkeling from shore according to the travel book and several other blogs that I read. So today we made our way to playa concha after lunch. It is a bit of a walk but not bad. The sea was a bit rough to try out snorkeling there, big waves. We’ve decided we will try some morning when it should be a little calmer. The beach is basically sea shells, little tiny bits of sea shells that get everywhere! I’ve had some chaffing, thought it was the elastic but it was shells. 

In the meantime the playa Brasalito is the closer beach and has some good waves but not as intense. We spent a fair amount of time there just in the water, then we got boogie boards!! We then worked on riding the waves! We both enjoyed that. We’re hoping to become more proficient at that before we leave. We won’t be able to bring them home without it being a pain so we will donate them either to the hotel or some kids on the beach. We will probably turn some kid into a wave chaser that lives with it’s parents with dreadlocks and smokes weed a lot, who knows though maybe that’s their best life anyway?

We had only ate at the hotel’s restaurant until tonight. It has good food, fair prices that always comes out fancy looking. Tonight though we tried the Indian restaurant a few places down from us. It was very good. I had a chili garlic prawn dish with some lemon coconut rice. Both did not disappoint! I could eat the prawns again. It was a bit expensive, comparable to dinner for two at Red Lobster though. 

For high season there doesn’t seem to be an extreme number of people. That’s a plus, things are booked up though so I am not sure if there’s just limited resources or if the bigger resorts down the road monopolize all the excursions. At least the sunset catamaran tours. It seems to be the one to get and it’s full. 

I think that I mentioned when we were in Jamaica that I got new sandals, Hoka One One, I definitely will be going back to the Teva’s. They seem very nice and I may like them if we go whitewater rafting but they are not open enough and they have an insole with traction that is rough on bare feet. I like these type of sandals for these travels because I can wear them without socks for casual and then if I need to wear the pants with the zip off legs for certain things I can match socks so it looks like they are all one color and just shoes. I can’t recommend Hoka One One. 

So the hotel as I mentioned is a little more rustic than we were expecting, it is still nice. It appears that they have been doing a lot of exterior painting as it is in good shape and some looks newer. It isn’t a new hotel though and that adds charm but contributes to the rustic feeling. 

I encourage everyone to subscribe to the blog so that you get new editions sent directly to your email! Also you can comment and give us some likes. 

So, as it turns out, our hotel does have hot water. I almost froze last night in the shower, then Bill told me that his shower water was scalding hot. The hot and cold water handles are switched here. I tried both of them, but apparently, I didn’t let the hot water one run long enough before I gave up and assumed that the water was going to be cold. I’m really glad he figured this out. I probably would have taken cold showers for the whole two weeks otherwise.

We spent the morning trying to organize tours. This has not been as easy as I hoped, but we scheduled a snorkeling trip for tomorrow and the guy we are going with also does turtle watching, jet skis, ATV tours and a number of other things. I’m going with Bill when he does diving so I can snorkel.

We walked over to Playa Conchal today. It gets rave reviews for white beaches made out of tiny shell pieces and clear water. It’s supposed to be good for snorkeling. It is an interesting beach with no sand. It really is made entirely out of tiny shell pieces and the water is also full of tiny shell pieces. It’s also the most dangerous water I’ve ever been in. There are no breaking waves, but the incoming and outgoing waves interact in a way that drags you under and makes it very hard to get back up on the beach. Visibility is low because of all the shells in the water. We didn’t stay there long. Instead, we came back to our beach, Playa Brasilito. It’s not as pretty, but it’s a huge stretch of almost empty beach with very friendly water. It’s really similar to Samara where I usually go. Bill and I bought boogie boards at a souvenir shop and had a blast trying to ride waves. It was really fun and I think we will use the boards a lot. It’s not easy to catch the waves so you can ride them to the shore, but it’s super fun when you hit one the right way.

Brasilito is a lot like our hotel – more rustic than I expected. It’s not as well developed as Samara, but we’ve found several promising restaurants and some grocery stores and little shops. There is only one ATM and it’s apparently out of money right now so we are happy we brought plenty of cash for the time being. I’m hoping the ATM will be refilled on Monday. If not, we may get a taxi to take us to a larger town with more ATM options.

English is not quite as common here as in Samara either. I don’t think the American expat community is as large here and the tourism industry isn’t as developed. It helps a lot to speak Spanish. People will try to speak English but they prefer Spanish. It’s been great practice for me.

Last night, dessert came with our meal so Bill and I ordered brownies. I asked the server, Francie, what the Spanish word for brownie was. She told me that Costa Ricans use the word brownie but brownies come from the US and they are almost always associated with marijuana. It was pretty funny. I asked her if she was giving me extra special brownies but she said I was getting regular chocolate cake instead. Queque chocolate also comes from English with a Spanish spelling.

For supper, we went to a really good Indian restaurant down the road a little ways. It was pricy, but the food was delicious and it was a very elegant, outdoor restaurant. The owner is Indian, but the servers were Costa Rican. They spoke to me in Spanish in very soft voices with masks on, so I had a really hard time hearing what they were saying. Otherwise, it was a lovely dinner.

There is a resident dog at the hotel. There are signs in several places asking people not to feed the wildlife, but our server for breakfast and lunch was feeding the birds and the iguanas who frequent our outdoor balcony restaurant. We had a large fly-like insect in our room today. We though about catching a small iguana and using it as bug control for whatever our gecko doesn’t eat.

Right now, I’m having a cup of tea in a nice sitting area with comfortable chairs in the balcony restaurant. There’s a breeze so it’s very pleasant. Bill and I are considering swimming in the pool for a while. I should probably work off some of my Indian food. I think Bill is working on an update too.

I think Bill has a few pictures but we haven’t taken many yet. Hopefully we’ll have some interesting ones before too long.

Once again I’m traveling with Emily! We’re in tropical Costa Rica on the Pacific coast. We are just a short distance away from the beach in a local boutique hotel, https://conchalcr.com/They have a fantastic website, it is a little more rustic in person. (Note from Emily: It’s definitely more rustic than expected. I just took a shower and there’s no hot water. That’s not uncommon in Costa Rica but based on the hotel website, I had expected hot water. It was chilly!)

It’s going to be a nice place to stay though I think. It’s clean and a good value. Not to mention that it is not a big corporate owned place. We do have in room bug control, I will have to get a picture of our gecko. There is a restaurant here that I had read was a good one. One of my favorite things so far about this hotel is the address, 200 meters south of the bridge, I have to find out if this bridge is impressive or the only one here. 
It’s been a long travel day, up early and in the air just after 7. We had a very short layover in Miami, I was able to get a couple of hot  sandwiches for us while they were boarding the plane, I bought a lady a cup of hot water for .50 plus tax because she hadn’t expected to be charged and I was not wanting to wait for her to go get money. They were fairly good and seemed fantastic since I only had Kodiak protein/granola bar for breakfast and those weird cookies on the plane. (Note from Emily: I was so happy he was able to get us sandwiches. It would have been an especially long trip with no food.) When we arrived in Miami there was a boy in the row in front of us that told his sister it was “Miami not your-ami”, I decided I was going to have to use that. 

So far I’ve seen a lot of sugar cane, goats and cows that have the look of water buffalo but white. I may have to ask someone or google what kind they are. There has been some palm trees but we haven’t seen the jungles yet. It’s getting dark so we will have to explore tomorrow! Time for supper.