Life in Samara- Leane

I am of mixed emotions as our final days in Costa Rica wind down. We are already discussing our return and have sniffed about the real estate listings on a couple of occasions. There is a tennis center nearby. I can see us as Costa Rica snowbirds.

Samara has been the perfect start to our trip, offering a quiet oasis for all of us to find our groove living in close quarters and being away from many of the comforts of home. I am tempted to dig out the Word Press tutorials for instructions on how to change the blog to oneyearinsamara.com. We are comfortable here- we walk down the street and wave to the fruit vendor, the taxi driver, and our teachers. Besides our ‘pelo rubias’ and ‘poco Español’, we feel like local Ticos ; ) We have made mistakes in the process of becoming comfortable in Costa Rica (leaving our bank card in the ATM, drowning a phone in the rainforest, bringing the girls to the wrong school on their first day, to name a few) and I am a little anxious at the idea of starting over again already. However, I guess that is what this year is all about- making connections and getting to know a little about life in many places around the world. Steve is excited to continue on…perhaps he feels he has saturated Instagram with photos and stories of this beautiful, quiet town.

Speaking of Steve, I am enjoying my new husband. He is a little hairier but he is very relaxed, he goes for runs and bike rides with me and he does yoga. This new version even COOKS. I’m keeping this one

Our trip out to Playa Ostonial wildlife reserve was certainly a highlight. The girls have summarized this experience in their posts, it was one that none of us will forget. Seeing so many Olive-Ridley turtles come to the beach to lay their eggs in the volcanic sand during the peak time of the year (the week before the new moon in the rainy season) was truly a natural miracle.

We survived our adventure at Wingnuts, the local zip line company. It was a throwback to our adrenaline junkie days. The girls loved every minute of it. Abseiling upside down off a platform is uncomfortable in your forties and exhilarating if you are under 12. However, sailing through the canopy on the zip lines with monkeys in the trees and flashes of coastline in the distance is quite spectacular at any age.

Learning Spanish is a great challenge. Steve and I have enjoyed our two weeks at Intercultura Language School. Besides the daily language classes, we tried the yoga classes (I could make out the names of a few body parts and very little else) and had an opportunity to practice our new skills with a group of local grade seven boys, who were learning English. We continue with our spanglish over dinner with the girls in the evening. Between the five of us, I hope we have gathered enough words to make ourselves somewhat understood in the coming weeks/months. The girls are picking it up quickly. Steve and I…well, we are trying.

The girls have loved their school experience at Samara Pacific- a small, private bilingual Spanish/English school. To our surprise/delight, they have even expressed interest in finding another school experience in our travels! Every day, they arrive home with plans to meet friends down at the beach for a swim or boogie board. Tomorrow, they will participate in the running of the torch in celebration of Independence Day. A lantern parade and festivities will be held in the main street at night. Unfortunately, the national huelga (strike) is limiting the extent of the celebrations this year as Ticos are opposing the increased taxes imposed by their new government, and the local celebrations are usually headed by the public schools. Fingers crossed that it does not interfere with our flight out of San Jose on Tuesday morning…

First Week in Samara- By Amelie

We arrived in Samara on the 1st of September. Eugenio dropped us off at a restaurant and we said goodbye. After we had finished eating, we went for a walk along the beach then we headed to our lodge. The next day, we had a relaxing day at home and went exploring through Samara. On the 3rd of September we had a little math lesson and my dad and I went for a bike ride, that afternoon we went to see the turtles that Anna has blogged about.

The next day was our first day of school, my sisters and I were quite nervous but mostly excited. We woke up super early that morning because school started at 7:45 so once we were ready for school we started walking, on that walk we saw howler monkeys on a telephone wire and an iguana.

We finally arrived at the school that my mom had said was our school but no one was there so we kept walking. After walking for about five more minutes we came across a teacher from our real school ( which we still didn’t no where it was ) and she started laughing when we told her we were trying to walk to school because apparently it was 2 miles away. My mom ran to Pali the grocery store and asked for a taxi but ended up getting an old man in a very old car with a broken steering wheel.

The school in Samara was very different from the school in Vancouver, the school in Samara is different because it only has three classes and goes up to sixth grade only. Grade five grade four and six are together, grade three and grade one are together and grade two is by itself. There are only three teachers and a principle. There are a couple subjects like Spanish, French, English, math, natural resources and science. I don’t understand Spanish very much. I like English because we are reading a good book called wonder. I haven’t had French yet. In math we are learning long division which I haven’t learnt yet. In natural resources they are making eco bricks ( which is non recyclable products packed into a bottled and transformed into bricks ). In science we are learning about planets. You bring your own snacks and if you would like you can buy lunch from the school which we do. On the first day three people introduced them selfs and now Anna is friends with two of them. I am friends with another girl, and so is Elise.

Friday was a pro-D day so we went ZIP LINING !!!!!! It was so fun, that afternoon we went boogie boarding in the ocean and the ocean was naturally warm so I also loved that!!!

Turtles- By Anna

On the 2nd of September, our plan was to go see the hundreds of turtles coming to lay their eggs on the Ostional beach. We got in the shuttle that was going to take us there and it was private so that was great, and we had to go pick up one couple who were from Germany and got the show on the road. Around ten minutes into the drive we had to stop because there was a problem with the air conditioning and it was making the windows foggy. So foggy that our guide had to call a guy to bring another van but shortly after that we noticed that all it was was that he had pressed the wrong button. Wow what a waste of time!

When we got there we were tired of travelling, after driving through a river and over the worst bridge of all time and I’m telling you it was an actual river. We got out of the shuttle and walked down to the beach. We were amazed at how many turtles were on one beach. There were some laying their eggs, some coming up to the beach and even some going back into the ocean after laying there. It was amazing because we got to see some digging their hole and laying their eggs and managed to even capture some on video. It was also hilarious watching Elise take videos of wild dogs on the beach when there were millions of turtles. We were lucky because there were so many buried eggs that turtles had layed, that when a new turtle layed its eggs in the same spot, they dug up some of the other eggs. So we got to feel and hold them. They felt so mushy and weird it was gross but my sisters kept on holding them. And the reason that they only lay their eggs here is because they only like the volcanic sand that is different than the normal. Wow what an experience!

Rainforest to Beaches- Costa Rica

First blog post, take two!

Post number one drowned in the Costa Rican rainforest along with my Iphone.  Enough about that, other than to say it was an early (and pricey) lesson on saving passwords and the importance of being able to access content on more than one device.

We arrived yesterday afternoon in the little town of Samara on the Nicoya Peninsula, our home for the next 17 days. Surrounded by wildlife, our little villa is equipped with a pool, zipline and hammocks… a perfect setting to clear the webs between our toes and catch up on some much needed laundry.

Six days in the rainforest/volcano region guided by our new friend, Eugenio, was a fabulous start to the trip.  Eugenio is a biologist- incredibly passionate about birds, plants, and preserving and sustaining the environment.  His lessons were rich and I was pleasantly surprised at how he managed to keep the girls interested and engaged, even on day 5 of hiking in the rain! Surely, I can tick “Science grades 2,5,and 6” off the to do list. Butterflies, toucans, monkeys (Howlers, Spider, and White faced) were highlights. Contrary to Steve’s fake news story on Instagram, I have been extremely adventurous and even held the Golden Orb spider for at least 3 seconds.

Best last minute buy for the trip so far are the raincoats, credit to Steve. My plan was to chase the sun for a year- raincoats were not on my list (nor did I have room for them in my carry on suitcase!). One of the biggest storms of the year in Arenal arrived in the midst of our hike up the volcano- the trails became rivers, it was difficult to see through the streams of rain flowing down our faces. The girls were troopers and managed to see the humorous/adventurous side of the experience. I discovered that I don’t really mind tropical rain, it is very different and much more pleasant when it’s not cold (and gray and drizzly for 6 months nonstop).

The food is fabulous.  Amee would tell you it’s “different but not bad”.  Anna is enjoying it and willing to try everything. The two of us got up early one morning for a cooking class at our lodge and helped the cooks prepare breakfast for the guests.  Anna mastered the Tostada and replicated it beautifully for our dinner tonight. Elise…well, she is trying everything, only somewhat reluctantly, and being a good sport.

I do miss Starbucks and my afternoon Tim Horton coffee (with an occasional timbit on the side) but have enjoyed some great coffees here despite the fact that their brewing technique appears as though they are pouring water through an old sock.

Blog post one, take one, would have reported that my children have all embraced traveling without any difficulties and they love one another at all times.  Take two allowed enough time for everyone to finally realize today that this is not entirely the case.  We woke up in this beautiful haven to the sound of Howler monkeys playing in the trees, and I couldn’t wait to spend the day relaxing, reading, playing in the pool and exploring the town that will be our home for this next leg of the journey.  Late nights, early mornings, and exhausting days caught up with all three girls.  Anna and Amee realized how much they will miss their friends.  I think we knew this would happen early on in the trip and that we would need to work through the “togetherness” of this year.  There will be some trial and error in figuring this out, but the girls were able to identify that they do like some structure and planning in our days, as well as protected “free time” that does not involve outings or educational experiences.

The next week will see the girls start 2 weeks at the local school here in Samara, in the hopes of learning some Spanish and meeting some new friends. Steve and I will also seek out some Spanish lessons, to date we have been slowly making our way through the Babbel Spanish App (which really does not approve of my Spanish accent). We are looking forward to a few beach runs, long coffee dates, reading in the hammocks, and more trip planning while the girls are at school.

I think Amee plans to document our coming week in Samara…more posts to come! Steve is posting most days on Instagram @puddy_steve.  Thank you for all the messages and emails, it is so nice to stay connected to our families and friends from home!!

First week in Costa Rica – by Anna

We arrived in Liberia,Costa Rica at lunch time on the 25th.We met up with this Costa Rican man named Eugenio who was going to tour us around Costa Rica for a week.We were all starving so we stopped at a nice restaurant and had lunch there and we even tried plantain for the first time! It tasted weird.

After that we drove for awhile to get to Rinconsito lodge in the mountains of Costa Rica.on our drive we saw lots of birds and a couple of spiders.And my mom even held it but barely survived she was so scared.

The next day we went for a nice walk in the Rainforest.We saw some interesting animals like agoutis, a ton of birds,spiders and even MONKEYS! There were howlers,spider,and white faced monkeys.And we also found geothermal pool it smelt like rotten eggs. But looked so cool!

On the 27th we packed up our luggage and we drove to Faro Arenel lodge.On our drive we listened to Eugenio’s creepy story of when he came face to face with a bushmaster snake.We also stopped at a school it was way different then North Van.Then we stopped at a waterfall and we saw two men playing the xylophone.We had fun making boomerangs and taking magnificent photos with the waterfall.That was definitely one of my highlights in Costa Rica.When we were almost at the lodge my dad spotted the Arenel volcano with a cool cloud over it which turned into a little reunion with some friendly Costa Rican kids so we got out our Canadien pins and they all got one.That night we went out for dinner at a fancy restaurant with live music.The next morning we woke up with a huge day planned.First we would go hike a third of the Arenel volcano then go in the hot spring river.That morning it was pouring so we decided that we should go early before it gets worse.But around twenty minutes into the walk it started to pour cats and dogs we were soaked! the trails became rivers it was more rain in that day then there is in a full week in North Van.But the bad thing was that my mom had put her phone in the backpack that was not water proof so the bag got soaked and the phone got soaked and broke what a good start to our travelling year! It was a rainy afternoon! Later were supposed to go in the river but we negotiated with them to let us go to the water slide hot springs instead so we did. Yes! That night we had a wonderful pizza dinner it was so good!