Letters from Costa Rica

Central America Caribbean » Costa Rica
June 10th 2008

Published: May 31st 2010

Edit Blog Post

Speed Pixie

cahuita

funky light in cahuita, carib coast, CR

Since I'm blogging backwards and in retrospect - after looking at the emails I sent home to family and friends, I saw that they capture the immediate essence of what this trip and others were like for me. Here are the letters (because letters is a more romantic word than emails) :

May 8 2008

hey, im in san jose right now with frederique at the hostel, everything is fine, my flight was fine, we are about to go check out the city a little bit and are heading to the coast tomorrow morning. i am safe, will be safe, and send you an email sometime later with some more info, love you, bye, and mom happy mothers day exclamation mark

May 12 2008

Happy Mother's day!

make sure you tell teta i say happy mother's day too.

so frederique and i are back in san jose, we went to the beaches of the carribean which were beautiful, but we found that the weather was a little fickle, so as if the weather on one coast isn't so great, the weather on the other coast should be good, we woke up this morning

nice

monkeys in those trees

and headed back to san jose. tomorrow we are going to the pacific coast.

the food is good here, and last night i slept in a hammock hotel! although.. it's not as great as it sounds.

it's still fun though
love
krystal

May 13 2008

Mom's reply:

weatherwise, consider yourself fortunate. There's been flooding, volcanoes erupting and earthquakes. I cant wait till you're home safely. I love you.
xoxoxox

May 14 2008

ahaha... in costa rica?
hey mom, i've been drinking the water!!! but its clean, so its fine, and my stomach is fine and everything too. frederique and i are going to learn to surf today! and tomorrow i am going to go scuba diving!!!

love you

May 15 2008

hey everyone!

i included dad's email on the off chance that one day he learns how to check his own email.

so! i'm on the pacific coast of costa rica, in Tamarindo, a surf town to boot and it is AMAZING! oh my god.. it's paradise.. ridiculous paradise. yesterday fred, myself and a new friend snorkelled across the bay and a

beach in cahuita

huge amount of open water over to an island. i saw some pufferfish, which was very cool. then we snorkelled back, kind of with the tide, rather against it, but we survived, and i did not get eaten by a shark, which was very nice. i also got a pretty bad sunburn, but its ok, because now i'll be very good with the sunscreen!

so, we are staying at the hostel botella de leche, and its really cute, there are cows all over the place (painted) and a cow motif and its cool, the owner runs a surf school, the hostel, and has a restaurant. his family is argentinian, and they are very cool. so this morning, the owner took frederique and i on a surf lesson, for only 20$, and it was more or less a private lesson, and, i mean, we didn't even have to rent the boards or anything, and he let us keep the boards and the rash guards to practice this afternoon and tomorrow afternoon.. honestly, so nice, and he keeps giving us rides, like, he's treating us like daughters, its very sweet. and we did surf until sunset, which is beautiful, because being

la bonita ola

on the west coast it sets on the sea.

ok rest of this later because we have to go to dinner, argentinian restaurant.. mmm we'll see

love you!
krystal

May 15 2008

reply from big brother:

Wow.
Sounds awesome.
I m so envious.
All we got is cool temps and rain.
and I broke the gears on my bike riding the trails last weekend 😞

ah well. Long weekend coming.

Have fun.

When do u go diving?

May 16 2008

i am sorry about your bike.

i think you and sister-in-law should ditch the cushy cruise next summer and make a trip down here... i went diving this morning and i saw EVERY FREAKING THING YOU CAN POSSIBLY WANT TO SEE WHILE DIVING! including, dolphins on the boat ride to the location, white tip reef sharks, a turtle, devil rays, a school of spotted eagle rays, moray eels, random fish, oh and on the boat ride back, i saw a devil ray fly out of the water (jump), which i didnt know was possible til i read an article a couple of months ago about a woman

MINE

sorry fred..

in florida being struck by one while standing on the deck of a boat and being killed by the impact. nuts. and it only cost 85$ for two dives and all equipment included, and there were only five divers in the group. i took lots of pictures with my awesome waterproof camera.

i am also sorry about the weather. it is very hot here.. and sunny.. ahh i know you hate me. well, yes, enjoy the long weekend!

krystal

May 18 2008

hi!

ok.. so let's see where i left off... i went surfing, it was awesome, i'm a natural 😊 and then i went sunset surfing, and then the next morning i went diving, and it was freaking awesome, saw dolphins from the boat on the way there, sharks, a turtle, manta rays, etc, it was great. the dive operator is italian, and i took amazing pictures which i promised to email to everyone on the tour.

i had another surf lesson this morning, it was fun, yesterday fred and i took a day off and went to the spa.... we are having a great time, being well taken care of,

surfin' tamarindo

and eating so SO well, and drinking well too! there are these drinks here called jugo naturales - natural juice and it just tastes so great, so we drink that a lot.

last night.... we got dressed to go out to Monkey bar.. apparently the place to go on a friday night. We walked all the way there, and i was pushing myself to go and have a good time even though i had no interest in going, only interest in sleeping, but while we were waiting in line, Fred said maybe we should just not go.. and i thought she was a little mad at me because i didn't seem too interested in going out, although i was just tired, even though we didn't do anything but go to the spa and nap all day... so we had the tiniest of tiffs. so we just turned around and headed back. as we were walking back, one of the people who works at the hostel picked us up and drove us to the hostel, it wasn't that far, but that's just how courteous they are.

ANYWAYS, this morning, we find out from an american guy who is staying

getting checked out

at our hostel, that he went to that bar last night and there was an immigration raid!!! they were checking everyone's passports! Fred and I did not have our passports with us when we set off last night, and neither did the american guy. he ended up sneaking around and out through a different entrance. he told us they were stopping everyone, even people in cars going into and leaving town.

we asked our surf instructor this morning what happens to the people who didn't bring their passports. he told us, since there were two of us, if we were lucky, but since we were girls, they would keep one of us, sending the other to get both passports. if we weren't lucky, they put you on a bus to liberia - which is a city that has one of their international airports. this afternoon we spoke to two american guys who were there for the raid but had been forewarned and brought their passports. they told us they stick you on a bus to liberia or san jose and you have to stay in a jail or holding facility for 24/48 hours.

so.. hmm we dodged that

stormy tama

storm rolling in over playa tamarindo, CR

bullet. we'll try to keep a copy with us from now on. freaky though huh! we've had quite some luck on this trip! i hope it doesn't run out!

i'm still safe as sin, and having a great time.. didn't mean to worry you there mom.. the police was just trying to find people who had overstayed their visas or illegal immigrants and stuff. just pray for me if you're scared!

okay i love you all, hope everything is all sunshine over there
and see you in a week ish..

krystal

May 18 2008

reply from big sister:

sound awesome and a little freaky. you saw manta rays?!?!?! wow, that's my dream to see them one day...

do you want me to fwd this email to the cousins? i know that they loved reading up on your travel in korea.

i'm sooo happy to see that you're travelling and enjoying yourself. keep living the life.
your sis
ps-big brother's family is in algonquin park camping/mountain biking for the long weekend. we're heading up there tomorrow for the day.

May 18 2008

hey

yeah i guess you

old day

dirt road up to la botella de leche

can forward them these emails if you think they will be interested in reading... oooooooooh sis im having such an awesome time!!! tonight we went dancing, and i mean, hard core dancing! i learned, maybe salsa.. some latin step anyway, ... and then i got a proposition to have a tico boyfriend til i leave.. lol.. i said maybe. yeah i saw manta rays! lots of them and i have pictures too!

algonquin sounds really nice, find out if theres anywhere surfable for me? i will have to continue this little hobby when i get back..... i love it here!!

love you
lil sis

May 30 2008

D!!!!

It's so nice to hear from you!! It's ridiculous how much I miss, well, you, and tamarindo, and even the boys! the surf too.. what am i gonna do?? there's no surf in thailand...

believe me, to wake up and take the sweet little stroll for breakfast with you and rehash all the dramatic details of the night before .. would be awesome and now that im here in toronto, even though its sunny, its just like, those moments were really a very big part

island

it doesn't look that far away

of one super amazing mind-blowing trip!

as you can see i am responding to each of the points you have brought up in your email, ah that last morning.. well the boys ate some lunch and were going to walk me down to meet my bus. the ladies at the hostel were really sweet, gave me kisses and offered the umbrella. then. because it was raining. the bus to san jose.. it passed me right by.. even though we were at the corner waiting for it. we were kind of slow to react, and when i had recognized its being my bus, all it had done was pause and start up again, but you know tamarindo, you have no sense of urgency. so it turned the corner and then the guys decided to try chasing after it. CJ was well down the street before i called he and T off since it was definately gone. then there was slight stress and running around for an hour trying to figure out what to do before ending up standing on that same corner waiting for a bus to liberia or santa cruz and making friends (luckily) with a san jose-bound tico

the island

on the island and water droplets on my lens

while the boys got smoothies. then we said bye as the bus came and i was very lucky to be with this guy because he led me safely all the way to san jose and tucked me into a taxi. he even bought me ice cream and let me wear his jacket on the bus! ah.. kindness of strangers.

and then the next morning my taxi to the airport did not show so had to get another. uh.. cardiac arrest for k tal!!! and then at the airport, i had just JUST enough to pay my departure tax (cuz they don't take visa.. which i know.. but no worries right) oh except i was 200 colonès short, so i asked a stranger if he would give me 200 colonès which he did after which everything went smoothly. oof!

now i'm just.. back to the daily details of life back here. less laid-back, though i'm trying to be! my hair is finally chilling out enough to do this pretty soft wave thing instead of pouffing into a crazy mane of curls but either is cool i think.

i was just thinking.. do you think your shih-tzus would get

manta?

diving the catalina islands, tamarindo, CR

along with Rommy and Pucho and little unnamed kitty?

k i heart you many many times over and so happy you were there too!!!!
kisses!!!!!
krystal

To the people who dove the Catalina Island reefs with me in CR:

June 4 2008

Hi everyone,

As promised, here is a link to the high-resolution underwater photos I took of our May 15th dive to the Catalina Islands off of Tamarindo, Costa Rica! Enjoy 😊

--------and then some nice replies that jack up my ego about my photo-taking abilities------------

Thanks Krystal, these are AWESOME!!! It was great of you to remember us!!
---------------
Krystal,
Thanks you SO MUCH for sharing these pictures! Your images capture the essence of our dives so vividly. Not sure if you know it but this was actually my very fist open water after certification dive! I will treasure these photos always. I appreciate you following through and posting them for us to see.

If you're ever in NW Florida, drop me and J a line and let us know.

Thanks so much once again!
-----------------
Thank you so much, we are using the turtel one in