Pura Vida, bro

These are the words that you keep hearing EVERYWHERE- Pura Vida, bro. Pura Vida translates literally as "Pure Life", and it's kind of the national motto- people say it to greet each other, to say goodbye, when they are excited about something... pretty much everything is Pura Vida. So what have we been doing since Monteverde?

Our first adventure was to a place called Santa Teresa, which I have artistically filled in for you guys with a yellow "S.T" since it wasn't on the map :) This is a quiet beach town and is perfect for beginners learning to surf i.e me! So I hired a board for 4 days and got into it. Great news is that I'm starting to catch actual waves now... I am making the transition from whitewash warrior to crappy surfer chick. Bad news was that my whole body was SORE- but I guess that's also a good thing... means that I have really worked it. It was also a bit of a pain since there were rocks everywhere, and since the guy at the shop scared me when I rented the board, quoting all of the costs that would add up if I even so much as scratched the bloody thing, I was freaking out anytime I came near shore where the evil rocks were waiting for me. But I survived, and so did the board. Yippee!

Rainy day on Santa Teresa

Casa Zen

We stayed at a really chilled out place called Casa Zen (how appropriate!) It was an awesome place to stay, filled with hammocks surrounding a quiet garden and even a yoga studio up on a balcony to use! It is also the place where I fell in love with the resident gato (cat), Fritzina. Her favourite past time was pouncing on killer moths and eating them to protect us. I felt she was worthy of a photo in the blog because she is totally awesome. 

Fritzina!

So after Santa Teresa we travelled on to another beach town called Jaco. It was kind of a mix between Tamarindo and Santa Teresa- still tacky and touristy but some of it was ok. All in all, not really fussed on it, but we did stay at a pretty cool hostel and met a crazy South African chef who was a bit of a laugh :) Oh, and they did an amazing burger/smoothie combo which was the absolute bomb, so that kept the tummy nice and happy!

Following on from Jaco we moved across the country to the Carribean. Apart from my short stint in Livingston, we have only been on the Pacific side but since we met a girl on the Nicaragua/Costa Rican border who lived in a place called Cahuita and told us to visit her we thought that it would be a good time to check it out before we ventured into Panama. We travelled through the capital of San Jose and 8 hours later ended up in Cahuita. First impressions were the Carribean influences! Everyone has a Cool Runnings accent and the whole vibe is very very lazy. It was a nice place to check out, and it was even better having someone who lived there show you around. We went snorkelling one day which was amazing... I really want to look into getting my PADI somewhere along the way because the feeling I get underwater is so tranquil, I think that I would really enjoy diving as well. So we saw lots of cool fish and coral, saw some tiny sharks and just hung out in crystal blue water for hours, it was paradise! And then that afternoon as we were walking along the beach of a national park we looked up into a tree and saw a mother sloth and her baby just hanging out! Now, I have been in search of a sloth ever since we entered Costa Rica, and this sighting was just amazing- the mother was passed out in true sloth style, and then the baby was so tiny and nuzzling her face- so priceless! 

All in all, Cahuita is a strange town- everyone knows everyone's business and there's also a bit of incest and druggo business but on the flip side the people can be pretty cool, they have awesome food and an awesome setting as well... bit hard to beat!

Now we have moved on from Cahuita and are in the next town called Puerto Viejo. In the next few days we will be travelling into Panama which is our last stop on the Central America circuit- really hard to believe that this part of the trip is also coming to an end in the next month or so. Will write again from Panama :) xxx