Turtles!

Our first real day at the beach was absolutely heavenly.  There are multiple beaches along the coast, so we decided to try them all.  The one closest to us is Playa Junquillal.  It's just a few minutes drive from our house. The clean sand goes on for 2.5 miles and the water breaks perfectly for boogie boarding and surfing!  There is a rip tide so we decided to just stick to boogie boarding and skim boarding.  We only saw a handful of people the whole day.  I saw a group of people at the top of the beach doing something. After further investigation, I learned that they are a volunteer group out to save the baby turtles.  Every night they walk the miles of beach and look for mother turtles nesting.  After she lays her eggs, this group gathers them up, brings them to this protected place on the beach, and allows them to incubate in the warm sand for 3 months. When they are ready to hatch, this group helps them get out of the 18 inch deep hole they are in.  Typically it takes the turtles 3 days to dig themselves out their hole once they hatch, but this group digs them out.  They showed us a few of them and they were SO cute!  They let us watch at the end of the day when they let them out to sea.  They start them at the top of the beach so they can gain strength as they make their way into the ocean.  It was a beautiful sight to see these little babies know exactly what to do.  I thought of President Uchtdorf's General Conference talk in October.  He talked about turtles like this.  He said, "When scientists study this fascinating behavior, they ask questions such as 'How do they know where to go?' and 'How does each successive generation learn this behavior?'  When I read of this powerful instinct in animals, I can't help but wonder, 'Is it possible that human beings have a similar yearning--an inner guidance system, if you will--that draws them to their heavenly home?' I believe that every man, woman, and child has felt the call of heaven at some point in his or her life.  Deep within us is a longing to somehow reach past the veil and embrace Heavenly Parents we  once knew and cherished."

The skim was PERFECT!!!

Brig was ECSTATIC to find this HUGE sand dollar! This beach is incredible!

Aren't they the cutest?  A guy there had a nice camera and took some great photos. We only had our GoPro so I asked if he would email me the pictures he took.  He happily agreed.  I didn't know he was a PROFESSIONAL!!!

Such a great day! So happy to be here!

Day 11: Moving

We had to leave our luscious mountain lodge near Tilaran and head to our new home in Playa Junquillal in Guanacaste on the Pacific side.  We were excited for the beach, but were super sad to leave this beautiful scenery.

This is German, the friendly gardener. Adios Araucaria Lodge!

 
It took almost 4 hours to arrive our new location:  Casa Nirvana.  We LOVE it!!!!  We knew it was literally a shipping container and we were nervous about the space, the open kitchen, the neighborhood..... but it far exceeded our expectations!  It has all been updated since the pictures we saw when we booked in online 9 months ago and has WiFi!  The shipping container houses the 2 bedrooms and the bathroom, and the kitchen and deck are surrounding it outside.  There is plenty of seating (something the lodge didn't have), so I immediately pictured places to do schoolwork. There is also an outdoor shower to use after the beach, and an extra bathroom outside.  We could not be happier.  Is this really happening?  Are we really living our dream?! 

Here's our new place: Casa Nirvana. So excited!

 The sun was setting but we were desperate to get to the beach!

After the beautiful rain forest, we were thrilled to be at the beach.  There is really nothing like the rhythmic crashing of waves, the feel of the soft sand squishing through your toes, and the seemingly endless sunshine.  We need some sun!!! Just look at our white skin!

Day 10: 500 Year Old Tree and La Fortuna Falls

Even though we knew it would take a couple of hours, we decided to head back to La Fortuna to see the beautiful waterfall there.  On the way, we saw a sign for a 500 year old tree.  Why not stop?  We paid a few bucks (EVERYTHING costs money here!) and hiked up a super steep hillside until we arrived at this massive tree covered in vines, moss, flowers, plants, and I'm sure hundreds of species of bugs/animal life.  We couldn't even get far enough away to capture a picture of it!  Soooo humongous!

But let's start at the beginning of the day first.  I went running as the sun came up and returned home to this amazing breakfast!  Adam is an artist.  He has had so much fun in the kitchen creating masterpieces from the limited food here.  I feel like I'm at a restaurant with him!  He is so good at the details and can make anything look good!  I've always talked about my dream of having a live-in chef.  I don't much care for a maid (I like to clean), but to have a chef?  Ah, this is truly my dream!

We finally arrived at La Fortuna Falls.  We hiked down 500 stairs to see it and it was totally worth it! So powerful, so beautiful! 

Down from the falls a little ways we could get in to swim.This was the first river we'd been to that was legitimately cold.  Smart Brig had his wetsuit and was just fine!  He found this slippery rock to use as a slide! 

The views are absolutely stunning.  Sooo much green!  I love the sounds of the crashing waterfall and rushing river.  The little ones were happily playing in the sand on the banks of the river and it got  me excited for the beach!

We finally got to see the Arenal Volcano!  The whole time we were here a few years ago it was hidden behind clouds.  It's so majestic!

  Jade loves weird food.  We occasionally buy her passion fruits at home and her friends tease her that she's eating snot.  Here the passion fruits are large and delicious!!!  A super yummy snack!  It's been hard to pack snacks for the day because beans and rice can't fit onto 2 slices of bread very easily...  We miss apples and carrot sticks and string cheese and granola bars and applesauce pouches.  Passion fruits are an easy snack because of their hard shell, except the other kids won't eat them.  I wonder if the snot conversation turned them off??

A couple more pictures of the property.  It's just so gorgeous.  We will miss it! Nine days was not enough!

Playing in the never ending warm rain. The little house in the background is where the gardener lives.  He was in his 50's and had nearly nothing there.  He walked the dirt roads to Tilaran every 7-10 days to get food, but other than that, he had no material possessions.  I loved how happy he seemed in the outdoors though.  Really, happiness does not come from what we own.  He seemed to have all he needed and was very content in his 12 acres of woods.  We had him over for dinner one night and he freshened up in his white pants, wore cologne and put his scraggly long hair in a nice pony tail.  I imagined that I would get very lonely doing his job, but he was incredibly happy and kind and talked about all the animals and bugs he's seen. We don't speak enough Spanish and he spoke no English, but we still had a lovely time.

We found these cool seeds and asked the gardener if we could keep them.  He brought out a whole jar full of them and gave them all to us!  So kind!  Linc was so happy!