The South Pacific town of Dominical

¡Hola Amigos!

We hope all is well with everyone.

We spent a wonderful, relaxing 4 days near Dominical right on the beach. We've posted lots of pictures below. We were in Dominical about 17 years ago and wanted to see it again. Not a lot has changed. There is electricity to the area now and there are more homes, but the beach is still a surfer dude and dude-ette kind of place! And the waves looked perfect for surfing. We really enjoyed the casita we were in. At high tide the waves came right up to the property line which was about 100 feet away from our place. At low tide, there was about an additional 200 feet to get to the water. We took pictures at high and low tide to show the difference. We had a lovely little veranda where we ate dinner and sat in the rocking chairs, listening to the waves and watching all the lizards and iguanas on the property. We could hear the monkeys in the rainforest above us! We swam in the pool and walked along the dusty road in the town of Dominical, just to the north of our beach, looking at all the items for sale.  It was the perfect "on the beach" fix we needed. We have now arrived back in Arenal, where the volcano is, and are beginning the search for a rental for 6 months. We are heading to Florida at the end of August and will stay with Jerry's brother for about a month. Then we'll come back to Arenal and our new home. Can't wait. I'm sure we'll find something we like to rent. That way we'll be able to spend time here to make sure we want to settle in this area. If we do, we'll start to look at buying...if not, we're free to move on!

Welcome to Beach House Incognito!

This is our 1 bedroom, very cute casita

Our Veranda~we ate dinner here and sat in the rocking chairs listening to the surf

Our Pool~the water was very warm

The view from our veranda~see the ocean?

Looking north at low tide

A closer look at what becomes an island at high tide

The tide coming in at the beach right outside our casita~plus it was thundering and lighting!

Here it comes!

The waves were amazing and very big at times

Look at this one!

And this....

and this!

Beach Art~we wish we could have taken this with us!

One of many beach shops along the beach road in Dominical, which was one beach to the north of our beach~very laid back, surfer feel here

This the very large beach at Dominical, one beach over from ours~lots of debris!

This lovely fellow goes by the name Big Head~cute, huh?

Big Head is about 18 inches long and has his favorite tree near by~we fed him watermelon and papaya

The guy looking this way is a Jesus lizard. They are called that because they rise up on their back legs and run (really fast) and can run across water!

The crest on his head comes up sometimes. I couldn't capture him running because he's too fast!

He blends into his environment, kind of looking like some leaves on the ground

A beautiful morning on our beach~looking south

Same beautiful morning~this time looking north

Looks pre-historic! And sounds that way when the monkeys start to howl!

Love the sound of the surf coming in~see the island in the background with 2 trees on it?

The beach goes right up into the rainforest for miles~this is where the monkeys hang out

Tina standing on our beach just outside the pathway back to our casita

Nothing to do with the beach, but we saw these oxen on the way back north. Interesting!

Hasta luego,

Tina y Jerry

¡Welcome to Playa Hermosa, Guanacaste, Costa Rica!

¡Hola, Everyone!

We hope all is well with you.

We are currently in the beach town of Playa Hermosa in the Northwest part of Costa Rica. We're enjoying the beach and exploring the towns around the beaches. We have a lovely apartment that we're staying in. The owners of the house are really nice and the place has an infinity pool that looks out at the Pacific Ocean! We go swimming every afternoon to cool off.  We are working on our tans right now! Gotta be careful because we're only about 10 degrees north of the equator, so the sun can really get you here.  We've met some other ex-pats and are enjoying hearing their stories of how they ended up in Costa Rica. I found a website called boomersoffshore.com almost 2 years ago and follow Fran and Andy Browne on their adventure to CR. Well, they live here in Hermosa and we've hung out with them a few times! Some of you may have seen some pictures of us on FB that Andy posted from the sunset we watched with them last week. They are lots of fun to hang around with and through them, we've met others, including Toni, Gilles and Kathy. Toni has a horse here, so Kathy and I went with Toni last week to see the horse and feed her. We may go riding next week! Haven't been on a horse in years, so that'll be exciting....! We are going out every couple of days to different beaches down the coast. The color of the sand really varies a lot~from brown to much lighter, and from sandy to shells to rocks! Tomorrow we are heading south to a beach about 2 hours away near a town called Nosara to check it out. We have about 8 days left to enjoy this area, then we head several hours south to the South Pacific region near the towns of Dominical and Uvita. As always, we love hearing from everyone, so comment here or email us @ lorien32@gmail.com.

¡Enjoy the pictures!

This is Playa Hermosa, Guanacaste, CR

This is more Playa Hermosa, showing the mountainside

Sunset at Playa Hermosa~see the sailboat?

It was a beautiful sunset that night, and many nights since!

Sunset

Toni and her horse Jacquelin who is very fond of watermelon rinds

Toni and Kathy at the barn

This is Playas del Coco, a town just south of Playa Hermosa~very touristy and young! This is their new boardwalk

There was a festival at the new boardwalk and the President came to dedicate it~her name is Laura Chincilla

¡Look at the kids watching the guys playing!

There were lots of booths set up on the new boardwalk~all women's businesses

More of the booths along the boardwalk

Jerry checking out the foods for sale

This is our veranda at our place in Playa Hermosa

The infinity pool at the house where we're staying~we go swimming almost every afternoon to cool off and gaze out at the Pacific Ocean

A different view of the pool looking at the countryside

One more of the pool~we really, really like it!




¡Hasta Luego, Amigos!

Tina y Jerry

Leo the Iguana

This is Leo

Just wanted to share a picture of our neighbor, Leo. He lives next door in our neighbor's yard. They have 6 acres and a pond that Leo really enjoys. He's 5 feet long and a very handsome devil, don't you think?

Hasta Luego,
Tina y Jerry

Welcome to Nuevo Arenal!

The Amazing Arenal Volcano~Jerry took this picture early one morning

!Hola from Arenal!

We can't believe it's been over a week since we got here....we left Grecia on July 1st and drove north and a bit west to Nuevo Arenal. On the way we went through La Fortuna which is where the Arenal Volcano is. What a site!  You can see it in the pictures we've posted. We continued around the volcano and the north shore of the lake for about 40 kilometers to get to Nuevo Arenal. What a cute town! There is one road in and it continues right on out after about 2-3 blocks. Then there is another street we have dubbed Main Street. Considering this is a pretty small town, there are a bunch of restaurants with really good food. Our favorite, so far, is Moya's. Excellent pizza! I've only cooked once since we arrived. This could become a habit! Anyway, the lake and volcano views, plus really nice weather are making this very interesting to us. The temperature is in the low 80's during the day with a wonderful breeze and into the 60's at night. Perfect for sleeping with a light blanket. Again, no one has heat or air conditioning in their homes here. The rain tends to come later in the day, about 4-6 pm. Sometimes it rains all night, but always is done by 7 am. Some days are a bit cloudy, some very sunny. Kinda perfect to us!

Nuevo Arenal has many ex-pats and we've met several. All very nice, including our new "landlords" Allison and Jeff. Last Sunday they took us for a drive around the lake. The most southwestern part of the lake gets very windy and it's the home to windsurfing and kitesurfing. There are also a bunch of those gigantic windmills. Along with the windmills, there is hydroelectric power generated by the lake and those sources provide about 25-30% of the power for the entire country!

The people here in Arenal, as it's called, are very friendly. We say "hi" to everyone and the other day an elderly gentleman in his cowboy boots and hat passed us and we said "hi". He shook Jerry's hand and then took mine in both his and shook it, smiling all the time. There are a lot of farms here with cattle, goats and horses. It's not unusual to see a man or boy riding down the street in town on his horse.

There are TONS of things to do in this area: horseback riding, ziplining, hiking the volcano (only part way~it's one of the most active in the world), visiting the hot springs (we're going this week), white water rafting, wind and kitesurfing, kayaking, boating, sailing, bird and monkey watching, swimming in the lake, fishing, parasailing, kite flying and much more. Plus near by is another volcano (dormant) and 2 very large national parks.  I saw my first monkey yesterday, plus we heard a troop in the trees on a walk! They're very loud and the males tend to sound ferocious because they are protecting the rest of the troop. Hopefully we'll get some pictures so we can post them.

Friday we leave this area to go to Playa Hermosa on the beach on the Pacific Ocean. We'll be there for 3 weeks and see what life at the beach is like.

On the way to Nuevo Arenal

Our new house~is 800 square feet and used to have 4 bedrooms! Now is one bedroom and totally remodeled and Gringoized!

Our Side Yard-tons of plants and birds

The living room and kitchen~dining room behind me and bedroom off on the left

Our kitchen with all the conveniences! Small, but it's nice

Our Front Door~isn't it beautiful--all hand carved!

Flowers from the garden

More flowers and bushes

This is "Main Street"~Moya's is on the right where the bikes are, and the gas station is across the street

Un Caballero (cowboy) riding down our street

Rainbow outside our front door

The Bullring~they don't really fight the bulls, more like ride them until they fall off!

Jerry opening our gate

Hasta luego,
Tina y Jerry