Costa Rica – Pack.a.mama
After an incredible surprise stay at Playa Garza hotel, we said goodbyes and packed our rental 4×4.
Destination : Pacha Mama (a 1 hour drive North along the Pacific coast)
We all giggled along the way about all the ways we could twist saying Pacha Mama.
The welcome centre was closed but I figured from the website that this community would find us a place to set up our tent and all would be good. Well, apparently people “don’t usually just show up without calling first” and it threw off the system.
Destination : happily back to Playa Garza hotel. We took time to fight giant waves at Playa Gillones along the way.
Later that evening, we attended the Nosara country fair complete with bull riding, bumper cars, cotton candy, and fireworks. Eamon was so tired from the day that he fell asleep during the fireworks*
Back to Pacha Mama on Monday morning.. I registered for the Knowledge of Breath workshop in hopes that I may acquire some new tools for my Prenatal classes. So, while I attended an intense 3 days of breathing, my boys lounged about, eat amazingly well, watched the flow of this community, and stole away moments on beach of Ostional. We camped (yes, that’s right – tented in the jungle).
A regret is that we didn’t get to the beach at high tide in the middle of the night. We had planned our time in the area to coincide with the aribata (the arrival of the turtles around new moon). Because the peak aribatas had passed, we were unable to find a guide or motivate ourselves to wonder the beach with a red light at 2:30 in the morning with high hopes. I do wish that we had – but another time. For now, we will remember seeing the turtle egg shells – white on the black sand – and nostalgically imagining their journey.
From Pacha Mama we drove directly inland and up a mountain to Santa Elena / Monteverde.
Here we gave up our rental car and checked into a hostel for 3 nights. This is our last night and I better soon turn off my computer as the couple on the bunk beside us look like they would like to get some sleep. Check out the photos. Our big expense here was to take the family Zip Lining through the rainforest. It was breathtakingly beautiful and exhilarating. There were 17 lines (50 – 1000m long) and green lush hikes in between. All followed by a picnic lunch and visit to the hummingbird garden. + more monkeys back at the Monteverde Hostel Lodge.
Tomorrow we leave early and travel by van, boat, van to Arenal / La Fortuna.
Love from us in Costa Rica.
