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[jennylpaul]

What is your personal connection to the divine?

Years ago, I had a dream that I could take pictures with my eyes. All I had to do was concentrate and blink, and I could save that memory forever as a photograph inside my brain. The downside was that each time I took a photo, my eyesight deteriorated a little bit. I knew this trade off, but I kept collecting moments, and eventually in my dream I went blind. It’s been 20 years since I had that dream, but I think about it all the time- whenever I experience something that’s uniquely moving, the dream pops into my mind, and I imagine taking that snapshot, taking a piece of that moment with me forever.

Pondering this question brought that dream back immediately, because it’s these moments that I truly feel connection to the divine, and they come frequently. They aren’t always something monumental, sometimes they’re as simple as brushing my child’s hair away from his face and seeing him exactly how he is in that moment. Staring in awe at two trees that have wrapped around each other while on a walk in the forest. A beam of sunlight shining through the trees on a rainy day that projects patterns on my bedroom wall.

I often feel a connection to the divine when I’m taking a long solo drive. There’s something about the scenery passing by, and being focussed straight ahead but also being in a place of utter peace. It feels like being at the centre of the graviton at the county fair. The world spins around me and I’m standing in the middle, unmoving. The endless stream of whirling thoughts disappears and I become the observer, open to every ounce of beauty and wonder passing my eyes. This is why I'm drawn to yoga as well. In times when my mind endlessly spins, yoga is a tool that brings me to the centre, and I can become a steady, impartial observer for a few brief moments. Connected to all there is, the whirling continues around me, but time stops and I can see everything with less distortion.

The divine also appears for me in times of human connection. When a friend calls me first when they need support. Feeling cared for when I’m sick. When I do something selfless with no expectation of something in return and the feeling of satisfaction is so great that it buzzes through my body, even if no one on earth noticed it. I say to myself, “that’s why I’m here, to help- even if no one realizes it.”

I feel it when I’m creating something- painting, photography, and gardening- (which is creative, even though the plants are alive and have prerogatives of their own). There's a feeling in those moments that I’m not just here to experience, but I’m also here to act- to bring something new into existence. I have the feeling sometimes when I ‘create’ that it’s not me ‘the individual’ that is creating- but that I’m pulling from somewhere else. Creative inspiration feels like tapping into divine love. I almost imagine it like an electrical current running through our collective consciousness, at times you can tap into it and pull something out.

When I think about the dream, and going blind- I think the meaning of it is that we can’t keep these moments. The more you cling to them, the cloudier your vision becomes and your ability to stay connected to the divine in the present diminishes. These encounters aren’t meant to be kept as mementos, they’re meant to be experienced and felt. And the more you can stay in the state of awareness as the impartial observer, as the one in the centre of the graviton, the more frequently it seems like they come.

[jennylpaul]

Reflections on time

I’ve been doing some journaling lately for the yoga class I’m taking. We’re studying the Isha Upanishad and last week we were asked to reflect on the idea that time is an illusion. I’m enjoying these prompts and I thought I’d save some of my writing here. I don’t think anyone knows this blog even exists anymore, so it’s really more about storing these thoughts somewhere so I can read them later.

**

We perceive time as linear. As a measure of the indefinite becoming definite. And also at some level we measure it through entropy.

I am young, I become old.

That process of becoming moves us along an arrow, a passing. But perhaps this is just an illusion, based on how we are wired to experience. Just as we can only experience the world through the senses we have been given and can’t imagine what may exist outside of these senses. If I cannot taste, touch, smell, see or feel it, then in the human experience, it is not there.

Maybe as humans, the only way we can experience this world is through storytelling. The chapters of the book all exist at once, but the only way we can comprehend it is by absorbing and living each page one by one, left to right.

It’s interesting to think that there are other cultures that read from right to left. And cultures who physically think of the future being behind their body, and the past being in front. And languages exist, such as the Indian Hopi tribe, that have no tense for past or future. How does our cultural conditioning impact how we experience time?

We can jump in our minds to the past, playing past events and pinpointing them like dots on a map. But we can’t jump to the future. Why are we wired in a way that doesn’t allow us to jump forward, if time does not really exist? Is it that the purpose of our existence is the journey, the unfolding, that element of surprise, the ‘not-knowing’. If you experienced time in reverse, would you know how you arrived to where you are now? Or would the surprise lie in learning all of the circumstances and actions that brought you to this point?

Time is a measure of the indefinite becoming definite. Regardless of which direction time moves, the constant would be the act of becoming. And the actions that bring us from one point to the next. As action is karma, perhaps time is simply a device invented to allow us to produce karma. To make decisions and actions. The Isha Upanishad says that time an illusion. Perhaps it’s only the actions we take through the experience of that illusion are real. Maybe the actions we take in the present are all that matters.

[jennylpaul]

Letting go

We leave for Nicaragua in 10 days.

In previous years, we kept so much in storage. Pretty much the complete contents of a 3 bedroom house. It used to make me feel a little bit sick, if I’m being honest, to see all of that stuff piled up in our two storage units. Why did we have that much stuff, and why did we feel the need to store it all? 

On the other hand, it can be excruciating to let things go. 

We started emptying the house with the basement. Ryan pulled every single thing up to the main floor and we quickly categorized it all into piles. Sell on Kijiji, sell at the garage sale, keep, donate. With many items I felt a little twinge, even though I hadn’t used these things all year, or possibly longer. They had sat in tupperware bins in the basement, And some of the things had literally no use to us now. Austin’s baby blankets or a stuffed animal he received when he was born and hadn’t played with for 5 years. There were boxes filled with tiny odds and ends. Ipods from 10 years ago. My first iPhone. Pens and markers and paper and old business cards, tax returns from 15 years ago, dresses I hadn’t worn in years, tote bags, shoes, halloween costumes.

The process of selling began with Kijiji. Within a day I had over 100 listings and Kijiji became a part time job. Each day I had at least 3-5 people coming by the house to buy various things. We watched the pile of sale items go down and each time something big sold, it felt like a huge victory. 

We kept a small fishing box in a kitchen drawer for our Kijiji earnings and watched the cash pile up.

Slowly we began to clear the house room by room. Closets and drawers emptied. In the beginning, I was somewhat picky about what we sold or donated. As time went by I just wanted it all gone. Things that I thought I had huge nostalgic feelings towards were posted and sold or thrown in the garage sale pile.

Despite having sold so much online, the day of the garage sale the amount of items sitting in front of our house was completely overwhelming. There’s a sense of detachment that you have to adopt while watching random people sift through a lifetime of your collected odds and ends or offer you a few dollars for items that you felt were somehow part of your identity.

I don’t really know how to describe this “letting go” accurately. The more things you release, the easier it becomes. But when there’s nothing left, you end up with a strange feeling of vulnerability. Like you’re suddenly naked on the street or walking on a tightrope without a safety net. I do feel excited as well, at the possibility of freedom. Of not being weighed down by this stuff. But the other feelings can be overpowering.

Yesterday we sold our Jeep, which was another nostalgic ‘possession’. We bought the Jeep when I was pregnant as our baby-mobile... Ryan has taken loving care of it and every time we’re back in Canada, it’s been waiting for us in storage, allowing us to gracefully slide back into life here as if we never left. Ryan posted it and someone came and bought it within an hour. The whole experience felt a bit surreal.

We’ve moved out of the house and are staying at an Airbnb for the next 10 days. We’ve kept a few boxes of keepsakes in my sister’s garage, but other than that we just have our 6 duffel bags, our dog and 2 weeks worth of fall clothes which we will donate the day before we leave. 

The duffel bags are actually a bit too heavy so I need to do a bit more editing this week to get us down to the weight accepted by the airline. The less we have, the harder that exercise seems to become.

It definitely feels different this time. We’ve always kept one foot here in Canada. This time we’ll have no “things” tying us to this place. Just people. I’m very excited to move into that next phase of emotions, into the freedom that lies ahead.

[jennylpaul]

A lot of change

It’s been a very long time since I wrote here. (It’s been a long time since I’ve written anything that wasn’t work related, actually.)

2018 felt like a big upheaval. We had been living in Nicaragua for a few years when suddenly political protests broke out and our lives changed very quickly.

I always feel a bit sheltered from the world when we’re living in Central America. I’ve never kept up with the news in the first place, but we really live in a bubble when we’re down there. And in general, while the politics in Nicaragua have always been a bit sketchy, there usually isn’t usually a lot that’s “new”- so it was a bit shocking when things changed so quickly and so dramatically.

News in Nicaragua really isn’t the same as it is in Canada or the US. The situation wasn’t being covered back home anyway. Most of the news I could find was on social media, videos taken by real people in the streets. It was a little bit too real, too violent, and my anxiety levels grew to a point that I wasn’t sleeping well. I wasn’t functioning normally. Ryan and I flip flopped over what to do. Our business had been slow the months leading up to that point and we were feeling a bit stressed out in general. So we decided to go back to Canada, where Ryan could easily get a contract and things would be boring and safe.

We packed everything up, rented a house through our Toronto realtor, flew home and unpacked our two storage units. We had stored a shocking amount of things, and within a few weeks our 3 bedroom house was completely set up.

I started a new work contract within 2 days of being back, and kept my existing contracts and on top of that I had work to do for our company. The heavy workload kept me from having to think about anything. My identity really became rooted in “being a worker” this year. Being competent. Earning a lot of money. When people would ask how I’m doing, I’d say “so busy! too busy!” I really didn’t have anything else to talk about and I was ok with that. It felt better to be preoccupied. 

We’ve been in Toronto for over a year now. A year of mostly cold weather, too much work, and a lot of expenses. With fall approaching, we had to decide what to do and I couldn’t bear the thought of staying here any longer. So, we’re headed back to Nicaragua. I’m not sure whether we’ll be there for a year, or 5 years. But this time we are not leaving anything in storage. It’s all being sold or donated. Our lives will need to fit into 6 duffel bags.

A week ago, I was laid off from my main contract and I’ve been feeling a little out of sorts about it. I’m no longer too busy to think. It’s strange that everything is changing at once. A clean slate that I can fill with whatever I like. 

Selling all of our things feels like shedding skin. I think I’m nervous to see what’s underneath. I’m not sure how it will feel to be without all of it. Things that I collected around myself like an armour, that I thought I cared so much about. We always had the safety net of those storage lockers, filled with a lifetime of possessions to fall back on if our plans didn’t work out. The funny thing is that Ryan has been intermittent fasting for 3 weeks and is shedding weight rapidly, weight that he’s struggled to lose for years. It feels symbolic, we’re becoming lighter in general, we’re really letting it all go this time. 

As I was clearing out the basement, I came across some old journals from my 20′s. It felt like reading someone else’s thoughts. LIke a close friend I’d lost touch with. And this last week I started to feel the urge to write again. Mostly because I really loved reading those journals. It feels almost like I can send messages to myself back and forth through time and when I read them, I can become that person I used to be again for a few minutes. I keep thinking about how funny it is, how much we can change over the course of a lifetime, how we can be hundreds of different people in one body. 

I’m excited for all of this change. I’m excited to see who I will become next.

[jennylpaul]

[jennylpaul]

Big changes

I should have written something before now.

It’s been a whirlwind of a year. We returned back to Toronto in April and had a really hard time getting back into life there. I missed the ocean, the big trees surrounding our house and the stars at night. I missed not having to worry about what I was wearing or what my hair looked like. I missed feeling free.

It felt like torture to put on tights and a dress and boots... and a coat. 

Even worse, everyone seemed so angry in Toronto.

We used to joke that people in Nosara could only do one thing a day. For a while Ryan was running a little dog grooming business and it was impossible for people to figure out what day they could come to drop their dog off. “Tuesday, I have yoga... and on Wednesday I have lunch plans...” It seemed ridiculous that an entire town of people was incapable of multitasking. But back in Toronto I yearned for the slow life. We had days packed with meetings, and having to meet clients in person meant that even more time vanished from each day. A one hour meeting easily becomes 3-4 hours when you factor in having to dress up, drive there, park the car, and then usually stand around socializing after the meeting ends. 

The other strange thing was that I started feeling anxious. In the car, surrounded by other cars, stopped at the stop light. In the mall. Even just sitting in my back yard, with other people all in their own respective back yards- on both sides and behind us. There were just too many people. I felt claustrophobic.

After a month, Ryan was doing a better job of getting himself into the swing of life in Toronto. He was coping. But I was depressed. Sure, there were things we didn’t like about Nosara, but to me, it felt like home. I felt displaced and distressed in Toronto.

We had been talking about selling the house for a year at that point. It was a huge decision because for the years leading up to buying the house, it was everything we thought we wanted. For so long we felt like we would have “made it’’ if we had our own house. But the house was huge expense. Because of the house, we had to work a lot and we took on on jobs that we didn’t want to work on. And no matter how hard we worked, we didn’t have money left over to pay off our debts or to increase our savings. The expense of living in Toronto didn’t seem to be worth it. We were making a lot of money but were getting absolutely nowhere.

I kept thinking: we could sell our house and pay off all of the debts, and bank the rest. We could rent a house in Costa Rica and cut our monthly expenses down by a third. We could work completely from home and we could work less. When we choose to work more, we would just have more money. We could spend more time with Austin, at the beach, in nature, and we won’t need to be around all of these angry people. We could escape the rat race! 

At first, the thoughts were quiet. Little nagging thoughts that would pop into my head and my brain would respond “Don’t be crazy. Our family would kill us. And we wouldn’t have the house anymore! We’d be homeless!” Over time the thoughts started to get louder, and they were accompanied with other questions... “Don’t you talk to your family and friends more when you’re living in Costa Rica anyway? Can’t you come back and visit and see everyone just as much as you do right now? What do you really need a house for anyway? Don’t you want to be happy? Don’t you want to spend more time in nature? Don’t you want to have no debt? What if you only have 10 more years to live? Would you be happy spending it working your ass off and getting nowhere?” (Yes, the voice got increasingly aggressive, but I guess I needed the tough love.)

And Ryan was in the exact same place. We were spending an unhealthy amount of time dreaming about escaping the life we’d built for ourselves in Toronto. It was time for a big change.

I started looking at house rentals in Costa Rica. But it seemed like prices had gone up, yet again. The houses that I liked were way out of our budget. Then, by a fluke, one day I zoomed out on the map and a gorgeous house appeared in the results. Except when I looked at it in more detail, it wasn’t in Costa Rica. It was in Nicaragua.

We’ve been visiting Nosara for almost 10 years now, and it truly feels like home to us. But the wheels started to turn. Costa Rica was becoming very touristy. Last year “our beach” was full of tourists. Hundreds of them. The restaurants were full of people. And it was getting expensive. The cost of groceries and going out was similar to what we would pay in Toronto. Nicaragua is not really known as a tourist destination yet. We had travelled to Nica a few times for visa runs and had been blown away when our grocery bill was $20 instead of $100.

I wrote the owner of the house in the ad and asked about long term rental rates. He wrote back and the rental rate was similar to what we’d paid last year in Costa Rica, but the house was much, much nicer. I immediately showed Ryan and he said “do it” without hesitation. 

So, we were selling the house and going to Nicaragua. Just like that.

The house sold quickly. To say that the whole experience of purging our things, getting it staged, moving furniture into storage, and selling our car was stressful would be a huge understatement. We did it all in about a month, and suddenly, we were off to Nica. 

We went through about two weeks of emotional distress after the house sold. Did we do the right thing? It was hard to believe we no longer had a house, and even harder to believe that we no longer had any debt. It took almost a month for me to train myself to start thinking differently. We no longer need to work 40-60 hours a week. We can work 5 hours a day. We can take the day off if we feel like we need some rest. Resting is ok! We don’t need to productive every hour of the day! (I’m still working on some of this.)

The first week in Nicaragua was rough, because Berkeley got sick within a few days and passed away. It was completely unexpected, shocking, and heartbreaking. It still doesn’t feel real. Deep chested dogs are susceptible to bloat, a condition where their stomach can twist. When this happens you only have 6 hours to catch it before they can start to experience organ failure. We were in Managua when it happened. He started throwing up and acting lethargic in the evening and we took him to the vet first thing in the morning. But it was too late. 

We left that day for Popoyo without Berkeley, feeling devastated and worried that this was somehow a sign that we’d made the wrong decision to come here. But we pushed those thoughts out of our head. We had to.

Popoyo has everything that we loved about Nosara and none of the things we didn’t like. The beaches are empty. There are enough restaurants to give you something to do, but not so many that you feel like you’re living in North America. Everything is inexpensive. And our house could not be more perfect. It’s even better than we imagined it would be. We can see the ocean from almost every window of the house, and at night we can see the stars and hundreds of floating fireflies from our bed.

We’ve rented this house until the end of May. We’ll go back to Canada in the summer to visit family and friends, but depending on how the next few months go, we will probably return to Popoyo after that. (Sorry, Mom!) We’re in love with our life here.

We took most of November and December off. I forgot what it was like to not work (or to not be thinking about money 20 times a day). It’s been a complete reset.

We’re starting to get back to work now, but we’re looking at work differently. We still have our company, but we’re being more selective about the types of projects that we take on. I'm developing an online course for Udemy, which I’ll hopefully launch next week. Ryan is doing a lot of work on his vaping blog. We have a few other ideas that we’re developing which will hopefully turn into ongoing passive income. And I’m writing a book. It’s something I’ve always dreamed of doing, but never had the time (and if I’m being honest, never believed in myself enough to even start it.) So far, I just have a rough outline, but I’m having so much fun working on it. It feels great to have a creative outlet, and to be able to work on something just for the fun of it.

The biggest lesson I learned this year is that no matter how scary it feels, you should always follow your intuition and live the life that you’re drawn to live. In the past, I built so much of my life around what I thought I should be doing and I lost a piece of myself in the process. I’m excited for the chance to start over.

[jennylpaul]

The tourists have descended

High season is officially here! 

Christmas week always brings out the worst type of tourists. The neighbouring house has been rented by someone who likes to shout “Woo! Woo!” every 30 minutes- (he is very excited to be here, apparently.) There are hundreds of people on the beach for sunset. The sound of waves and crickets at night has been replaced with distant house music. And this morning- something we’ve never experienced before- the water was shut off.

We noticed the water pressure getting worse over the last few days, and this morning we couldn’t even get a trickle from the tap. I called our property manager and she said that we can expect that the water will be completely shut off every night for the next few nights due to supply issues. There was not a lot of rain this year and with the town at capacity, the water supply is being completely used up. They’ll shut the water down at night to refill the town’s supply every night, likely until the Christmas crowd leaves and things (hopefully) go back to normal.

I wasn’t sure when the water would be coming back on this morning, so I went down to the supermarket and stocked up on 6L bottles of water. Of course, by the time I got back home, the water had been turned back on. At least we’ve got a supply if it gets turned off for a longer period over the next few days.

In other news, last night we had two giant scorpions in the house. The first was hanging on the front door. Ryan sprayed it with baygon (scorpion spray) and cut it in half with the cutting board. I was standing by with Ryan’s flip flop in the air, I’m not sure what I planned to do with it, as it definitely wouldn’t put a dent in a scorpion that size.

Then, at around midnight Austin yelled down the hall asking for water. I noticed something black out of the corner of my eye as I was walking down the stairs so I turned on the light- another huge scorpion, right outside Austin’s door! Ryan decided to smack this one with something instead of spraying it right away and it started to run into the bathroom. I was screaming “get the spray, get the spray, what are you doing?!?” Of course Austin was wide awake at that point. Ryan managed to spray it as it was running under the vanity, and we think (hope) that it died there. I will be giving the house a nice general misting of Baygon today and hopefully we won’t have any more visits!

[jennylpaul]

A Costa Rican Christmas

It’s been hard to get into the Christmas spirit here. 

Somehow it just doesn’t feel like Christmas! (I did put the “burning log” channel on a few times, which seemed overly ironic and really didn’t help!)

We did manage to find a small fake Christmas tree at the grocery store.  It’s about 3 feet tall and has seizure inducing flashing blue lights. It’s more than a little campy but Austin loves it.

My parents gave Austin five wrapped books, one to open each day from the 20th to 25th- which he looked forward to every night. We also brought a bunch of toys that we’d bought before leaving in Toronto- a ninja turtle, minion, and some paw patrol dogs. Austin started asking for ‘robots’ a few days before Christmas - luckily Ryan found some toy robots at the grocery store. 

On Christmas morning Austin woke us up at 6am to open presents, and then we had skype calls with family. We spent the afternoon floating in the pool and then went to the beach for sunset. I didn’t feel like cooking so we went out for dinner. The restaurants were surprisingly busy- (I think this is the first time I’ve ever been to a restaurant on Christmas day). 

We missed being with our friends and family on Christmas day, but we had a really nice, low key day- and no matter how you’re feeling- watching the sunset always makes everything feel better.

[jennylpaul]

We’re back!

We’re back in Nosara, after a three year hiatus, and this time we’re here with our three year old. We’ve done a lot of trips since Austin was born, but not a lot of travelling. (The year he was born we suddenly saw merit in the all-inclusive resorts we avoided before.) 

Last year we started our own business, and for the most part we’ve been working almost entirely from home. Since we’re already remote, we figured it wouldn’t matter if we were even more remote. Nosara seemed to be the obvious choice. We’ve got a connection to this place, and we’ve been coming here so long that it feels like a second home. 

Originally we planned to sublet our house in Toronto, but we didn’t find anyone we liked. So we went the airbnb route instead. We can recover our monthly housing costs if the house is booked a few weeks a month. We tried it out a few times before leaving, just to make sure that we could handle it emotionally. It’s a little weird to think of strangers staying in the house, but being able to learn a bit about someone before you accept their reservation request helps. We’ve turned down a lot of production companies who wanted to use the space to film in, and a few guests that we just had a bad feeling about. Our cleaning service comes in the day after guests leave and we have a neighbour who comes by to check on things before and after each guest as well. So far it seems to be working out.

The flight here was a production. Flying with a three year old is never relaxing, but this time we also had the dog to worry about. Air Canada will allow you to bring large dogs (in cargo) up until the first week of December. After that, it just gets too cold. So we scheduled our flight for November 30. Similar to last time, Berkeley had to get about a million shots (some of which he’d had earlier in the year- but he needed to get them again exactly 30 days prior to the flight). We had to get a vet certificate stating that he was in good health and didn’t have internal parasites (which is ridiculous since the vet said there’s no way to know that for sure). From there we had to get a certificate from the Canadian Government to show Costa Rica immigration. 

Berkeley was surprisingly great at the airport. He looked scared out of his mind when we left him at the cargo area, but he didn’t bark. The hardest part was trying to roll him in his crate through the airport on a dolly, along with our other luggage and Austin’s stroller.

We brought Austin’s car seat for the flight as well. While it was awkward getting it to the gate, it was amazing once we were on board. He was way more calm strapped into that car seat than he’s been on previous flights with just the lap strap on. 

When we landed it took an hour for Berkeley to come out of the cargo area, but he seemed fine. (He’d gone to the bathroom in the kennel but we were prepared for that). We flew through the airport with no issues. We had another two hours at the car rental company (I won’t get into that) followed by a 4.5 hour drive to Nosara. Definitely a long day- 17 hours door to door- but very smooth considering all of the things that could have gone wrong. And it’s pretty incredible to wake up one morning one place and go to bed that same day with your entire world completely changed.

The house we’ve rented in Nosara is a two bedroom with a loft above the living room. Similar to our last long term rental, it has really high ceilings- but unlike the last place, this house has air conditioning in every room. This makes a giant difference. It’s very humid here and with our last house, with no AC the sheets and pillows would be damp. It was so damp in the house that Ryan’s hats started to grow mold on them. And when it’s over 30 degrees, AC is needed to keep everyone from feeling completely lethargic. (We met someone recently who told us they don’t turn on their AC as they want to experience life ‘like the locals’- this is absolutely crazy.) We keep the AC on around the clock. We keep it on low at night and during certain points of the day- but there is no way we could live without it. It’s a necessity for us and just part of the cost of being here. We have a fantastic pool and the house is very secluded. It’s really rare to see anyone walk by the house.

Austin started daycare right away, and I’ll save the details of that for another post. He also has a nanny who comes in the afternoons. This turned out to be very necessary because the second we got here, we became swamped with work. New clients and new projects started coming in and we were working around the clock to get projects kicked off. It’s probably a sign that coming here was a good decision. But it’s also been a little bit hard as we’re in paradise and glued to our laptops! 

It’s almost Christmas. Three weeks have flown by. We have a bit of a push tomorrow to try to get something done and then the work will die down to manageable trickle that I can manage from my cell phone while lying on the beach. I can’t wait.

[jennylpaul]

SIBU: A monkey refuge

Today we had the chance to visit SIBU, a sanctuary that rescues injured, orphaned, and displaced wild animals.  They provide them with medical care, rehabilitation, and eventual release into the wild. 

The bulk of the animals that they care for are howler monkeys.  Unfortunately, there's an issue with many power lines in Nosara not being insulated.  Monkeys end up electrocuted, and in many cases, this results in baby monkeys being orphaned.  For a donation of $50 per person, they allow visitors to spend a few minutes with the monkeys. Ryan and I saw gorillas and chimpanzees in their natural habitat last year in Uganda, (and we see monkeys in the trees around the house every day) but neither of us have ever held a monkey, so we were pretty excited to visit SIBU.

Steve and Vicki Coan and her partner have dedicated their lives to this work over the last few years.  When we entered the sanctuary, it was amazing to see all of the monkeys run and jump on top of Vicki.  She must have had 5 monkeys on her shoulders.  They definitely see her as their mama!

It was really an incredible experience to spend time with these little guys.  They were so smart (and curious!  They loved having their photo taken and then looking at the image on the back of the camera.  I'm not sure if they recognized themselves but it was really interesting to see).  I can see why Vicki and Steve are so passionate about this cause.  You can read more about the refuge here: http://www.nosarawildlife.com/

We'll definitely be visiting a few more times while we're here.

[jennylpaul]

A waterfall trek

Today we took a trek to a nearby waterfall.  It's a 20 minute hike from Nosara village.

When we arrived, we thought the first waterfall was the extent of it.  I went swimming in the water at the base of the falls.  It was freezing and very deep! 

We then climbed further up the falls and it went on forever, with pools that you could sit in every couple of feet.  I left my camera at the base of the falls- next time we go, I'll bring it up with me to get more photos. 

The photo below with Karim standing under the falls was my favourite part- there were rocks just behind the falls that you could balance on and let the water fall on your head. 

After the hike, we stopped to visit a local organic farmer and have some lunch.  She moved here from Hawaii (not a bad life) and now makes her living growing organic veggies and selling them to local customers and at the organic market on Tuesdays.  The food was so delicious.  We will definitely be buying some veggies from her next week!

[jennylpaul]

Stand up paddle boarding

Today, Janelle and I went stand up paddle boarding for the first time! 

Stand up paddle boards are generally 9-12 feet long and wider than a regular surfboard.  For our first attempt, we decided to try the Nosara river at low tide.  The river was nice and calm, (but looked a bit murky- we were a bit scared to fall in.) 

We started on our knees and quickly progressed to standing up.  It was a lot easier than we thought it would be!  We paddled through the mangrove forest (amazing) and came out onto Nosara beach.  The only way to get to Nosara beach is through the river, so the beach was completely empty, other than a few other paddle boarders who were riding the waves in the ocean. 

The afternoon would have been a lot less relaxing if we'd known that there were crocodiles in the water... Janelle saw a few in the river after we'd gotten out. 

Next week I'm going to try SUP'ing in the ocean!

[jennylpaul]

Baby turtles!

We've been waiting all month for the turtles to start hatching. The area that we live in is a protected nature reserve because the Olive Ridley turtles lay their eggs on Ostional beach year round. 

During the dry season, over 10,000 turtles will come ashore to lay their eggs. In the rainy season (starting in June)- the number can go up to 100,000 turtles. (The largest number of turtles recorded on shore at once was in November 1995- when 500,000 females came ashore!)

It's really incredible to see the babies hatching... they crawl out of small holes in the ground and immediately start scrambling towards the ocean.  Some were incredibly fast, and others took a really long time.  (We watched one little guy take half an hour to get to the ocean.)

This is my second time watching the turtles hatch- hopefully within the next few months, we'll get the chance to watch the turtles come onto shore to lay their eggs (called "arribada" which means arrival).

[jennylpaul]

¡Feliz Año Nuevo!

Happy New Year everyone!

Sorry I haven't been posting as much.  About 4 days ago, I was making breakfast and I stabbed my finger with the knife.  I hit a vein and my finger was swollen and purple.  Ryan made me go to the doctor and she told me to keep it out of the water for the next week, so I've been laying low.

We took a trip to Nicoya a few days ago to buy a bunch of supplies for the house- toys for the pool and some material to make slipcovers for all of the outdoor cushions and pillows.  Ryan spent the last few days hand sewing everything and they look amazing.  (I wish I could say that I helped, but I'm terrible at sewing and spent most of that time drinking pina coladas in my new "pool chair"- it has a cup holder!)  Yes, life is rough!

We had a pretty low key New Years Eve, we met up with some people at the new local pizzeria for some dinner and then headed to the Black Sheep.  It's a pub about 15 minutes from our place.  It's pretty high up in the mountains and I've heard that the views are amazing- (we couldn't see much, since it was dark out when we arrived, but it was still a pretty cool spot).  After that, we went by Kaya Sol- a local restaurant- to check out a friend's band, and then we headed home.  We were home by 10:30 and exhausted!  We're not used to staying up late since we get up at 6am every day.  It's pretty sad, but we actually did our countdown at 11pm (12pm Toronto time with the time difference).  We did the countdown while taking a swim in the pool and then went to bed early.  It was perfect.

This morning, we went for our usual morning walk on the beach.  About halfway down the beach, a dog came out of nowhere and bit Berkeley on the butt.  I could tell right away that it was pretty bad, and when we got close to him we could see a giant gash.  We spent the whole day today trying to get in touch with the local vets and doctors to see if someone could do stitches for him, but haven't had any luck.  Sarah, who runs the local Animal Care Shelter came by the house and flushed out the cut, dressed it, and gave us some antibiotics.  It looks like we'll have to wait until everything opens up tomorrow.  Poor little guy. He seems to be in good spirits though. 

We got a sign for the front of the house that says "dangerous dogs" in Spanish with an illustration of a rough looking dog on it.  It's pretty funny.  I don't think Berkeley would scare anyone who saw him, so hopefully no one gets beyond the sign.

Anyway, I hope you all had a fantastic New Year's Eve, and that this year is full of wonderful things for all of you.  My resolution, (in addition to learning to surf and to speak Spanish) is to write more, and to post some photos soon!

In the meantime, here's a nice long video of the sunset, taken at the beach right by our house.  Pour yourself a nice drink and pretend you're here!  (Then, once it's done, book your ticket to come visit us already!)

[jennylpaul]

A tour of our new place

We moved into our long term place a few days ago and it's amazing!  We spent Friday unpacking and have just relaxed the last few days with some Christmas cocktails in the pool.

I got Ryan a gopro camera for Christmas and he created this video tour of our place today.  Hope you all come down soon to enjoy it in person!

[jennylpaul]

Surf dog

It's been a great week. 

We took a day trip to Samara a couple of days ago in the Suzuki and it did well.  The GPS kept taking us on these really weird off-road routes ("in 800 metres, turn onto unpaved road!")  We went through a couple of rivers and it handled everything easily.  There were a couple of parts of the trip that were amazing- at one point Ryan was outside the car changing the wheels into 4 wheel drive mode and we were parked beside a meadow that was full of butterflies.  It was so beautiful.  Later, we were driving along and a gigantic Iguana ran like a maniac across the street in front of us. 

Samara is really cool.  It's a bit touristy- but the beach is gorgeous with lots of palm trees for shade and small waves that are great for swimming.  (I'll post some photos soon!)

We had to take Berkeley to the vet yesterday.  He's been getting sick in the middle of the night... every night.  It's pretty annoying- and weird, because he seems to be fine during the day.  The vet clinic is a 10 minute drive from our place.  The vet was so nice but she hardly spoke any English.  Her assistant spoke some English, but his translations were not quite right sometimes, which ended up being funny.  They took a blood and stool test (all right on the spot, which was nice) and announced that there's nothing wrong with him.  They thought the late night episodes were a result of him being "spoiled!"  Basically he's having separation anxiety at night.  We left the bedroom door open last night and he slept through the night with no issues.  He must still be traumatized from the flight!

Berkeley has actually become kind of famous here.  The surf photographers love him and have been featuring him on their site almost every day.  We'll walk down the beach and people will yell "hey, it's the famous dog we saw online!"  Everyone's been asking where we get his hair cut.  I think Ryan's going to end up with a little dog grooming business here in Nosara!

I made a mistake on our move in date, and we don't move into our long term place until Friday.  We're so excited to get settled in! 

[jennylpaul]

A new surfboard

It's been a really chilled couple of days. We've gotten into the groove of cooking our meals- eggs for breakfast and lean meats and veggies for lunch and dinner.  I always cooked healthy food in Toronto, but for some reason it's different here.  There's more of a ritual around preparing food and eating.  All of the vegetables are so fresh.  The meat tastes different too.  I think it's the fact that it's produced on a much smaller scale- not pumped full of antibiotics and preservatives.  There's an organic market here every Tuesday and we've learned of a good spot to get freshly caught fish in the morning, which I'm sure will become part of our daily routine.  Yesterday Ryan was tinkering around with the truck, so I lied on our back porch and read.  I've always loved reading, but for the last year I've had a bit of ADD.  I would start reading a book and my mind would wander and I'd have to put it down.  Berkeley and I lied outside for the entire afternoon.  I read two books and was starting on a third when Ryan got back from the garage.

He rented a couple of boards for us from Steve at Coconut Harry's.  Mine is a NSP 7'6 surf betty and I'm in love with it.  It's really light- easy to carry, and easy to get out into the waves.  In the past, I've always used heavier/longer boards and I'd be exhausted and beat up by the time I got out to a place where I could catch a wave.  This board is like having a long boogie board- it so fun to float out into the ocean and it flies on the waves.  Ryan rented a long board and was loving it.  We were having a blast.  I'm definitely going to buy it (I just know it's the one for me), and I'm pretty sure Ryan will buy his too.  I can't wait to go out again tomorrow.

We've lined up a local surf instructor for weekly lessons- he's ranked #2 in Costa Rica for long boarding.  He was ranked as a short board surfer before that.  We're so excited to start getting our butts kicked next week.  We don't have anything too big planned for the next couple of days.  Cooking, eating, surfing, reading, bumping around in our Tonka Truck, watching the sunset and catching some live music at night.  I'm so grateful to be here- it really is heaven on earth.