Hola Costa Rica!

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Landed in San Jose, Costa Rica! I did a 2 week trip in CR 10 years ago but this time I'm headed to a different part of the country. I decided to come back here because I'm travelling on my own and I feel comfortable in CR. I thought it would be a good place to start my big adventure. I had pre-booked a hotel room as I was arriving late at night and didn't want to deal with that jet-lagged and in the dark. The hotel was outside of San Jose, in Santa Ana, at a VERY nice little hotel. Quite a luxurious start to the trip! I dropped my backpack in the room and went straight back down to the lobby for my welcome drink! It was pretty quiet at the hotel and I was feeling a bit lonely that I couldn't share this amazing hotel with anyone, so I sat at the bar and had a really nice chat with the guy working there, trying to remember the little Spanish I knew!

Had a really nice breakfast the next morning and a quick dip in the pool before getting picked up by the surf & yoga retreat I had booked. I had never done one of those before but always wanted to. The young, energetic couple who own and run the retreat picked me up and we drove to Hermosa on the Pacific coast. I stayed at a small hotel/B&B right on the beach which was amazing, however the waves there were a bit above my level. I surfed at a beach about a 10 min drive north of there. I was the only one at the retreat that week so I basically had private yoga classes! S was a great instructor and I quickly got used to the 6:45am wake up time for our sunrise yoga session! At times it was a bit lonely being the only one at the retreat - I was hoping to meet some people there! But S&D were wonderful and took me on some cool day trips and I watched them both participate (and do really well!) in a surf contest at the local beach. I really enjoyed meeting them and wish them luck building their retreat on a plot of land they had just recently bought.

I hadn't made a plan for after the surf/yoga retreat but my goal for this part of the trip was to explore the Nicoya Peninsula and improve my surfing. So I decided to take the water taxi over to Montezuma on the southern end of the peninsula. Change is always a bit scary and I had become quite comfortable in Hermosa but I knew I had to move on, and as I sat in the sun with music playing, the water taxi flew across the glassy water towards Montezuma my worry quickly dissipated and I couldn't stop smiling. I was getting really excited to see what adventures, people and places lie ahead.

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