Perhaps I should change the name of this blog to reflect the move to
Playa Hermosa from Escazu, or maybe I will leave it, because it was due to living in Escazu that we decided to make the move in the first place. Escazu is a nice enough place, but it is a busy suburb of San Jose. The country has over 4 million people in it and they are concentrated in and around San Jose with all of their noise and stink. I can't tell you how happy I was to trade all that for the sound of ocean waves and bird calls. I can describe the central valley like this: loud dirt bikes and motorcycles, the smell of car exhaust from old cars and diesel trucks, home and car alarms going off constantly, fireworks displays almost every night, cannon blasts, clanging church bells, pot hole filled roads, razor wire, yipping dogs that bark all night, and bad drumming that sounded like banging on metal trashcan lids. I could go on but, you probably get the picture. So, we packed all 3 cats into the car along with all of our belongings a la Beverly Hillbillies, and made the 4 hour drive to
Playa Hermosa.
The cats cried on and off during the drive, but everyone made it through. Macy and Luna hid under the bed for the first day, but Mouse immediately scoped out the whole place. He is such a good traveler. Macy was much better than normal. She only tried to chew through her carrier a few times near the end of the trip. Luna was nuts a la Macy style, but she is too small to chew through the carrier, thank goodness. Someone needs to make soft carriers that are cat proof.
As soon as we arrived in Playa Hermosa, after we had unpacked, we went driving around to check out the area. We are a very short drive to
Playa Coco, like 15 minutes or so. They have an
Auto Mercado, which is like a Kroger's there and many fun yet touristy shops. We found we prefer our less populated beach and town to Playa Coco. Our beach is prettier, and cleaner thanks to the
Playa Hermosa Association. They keep the beach clean, the town nice, and the roads safe while also working to make everything "green" and save the wildlife from human created dangers. Playa Coco is a neat place, but 4 out of 5 people there are tourists.
I want to continue to explore our peninsula and at some point go see my old friends in Nicaragua and Belize. I still want to get down to Peru and Chile. But, I don't know how we will do this unless we move faster. Part of the problem with Escazu was that we stayed there too long. Life is not long enough to be able to go everywhere we want to go if we overstay in any location. Of course the draw is there, like here, it is so beautiful, of course one would want to stay, but what about Belize? I am sure it is beautiful as well...and Peru, and Iceland, and Austria, and Italy, and, and, and....... See how it happens....there is simply not enough time. I feel like we stayed way too long in Escazu, for very little return on that investment. We did get a new kitty out of it, so I can be happy with that!
Playa Hermosa. We have
howler monkeys here, and giant iguanas. I have not been in the water yet, but from the neat stuff washing up on shore (
red tide) it looks like there is quite a nice reef nearby. We have seen puffer fish, trigger fish, little reef fish, a yellow bellied
sea snake and more. I tried to help the snake by dragging it back to the water, but he swam back to the sand. I think the red tide must have infected something it ate.
It started raining yesterday. I am glad it did because the area needed it. We are just in the beginning of the rainy season here. It started in the
central valley a month ago.
Guanacaste is a much drier region than the central valley.
Here is a picture of one of our lovely sunsets.
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