We spent many a lovely day in Dominical! Had some new friends camp with us, some awesome Ticos: Fer and Carlos. And some friends visiting from Virginia: Cameron, Will and Zac. A tico from Montverde, ..... tagged along with them to the beach for a couple days. Sean went surfing with him a bunch. They were staying up at Will's familys' cabin a bit up the road from town but ..... eventually succumbed to the ocean and stayed in the hammock with us on the beach! There were many a bonfire on the beach. We had to scavenge the beach for firewood everynight and driftwood burns fast so it never lasted too long. Dead palm tree leaves burn bright and fast so lots of bright and hot bursts with burning embers in between made for something lovely to stare at. Besides the immense amount of stars! We watched the sunset over the ocean every night.

One Saturday there was a skateboard competition in the back of the beach bar Tortilla Flats. They started with kids under 6 who were pushed back and forth on the ramp by their parents. SO cute! Then older kids who seriously rocked it on the ramp! Then a few locals and professional skateboarders who were in from a neighbouring town where they were building a skate ramp for the community. I thoroughly enjoyed myself watching the sexy, sweaty, shirtless skaters!! hahah It has also been just as enjoyable watching the cute surfer boys! :)

I went to yoga one morning at this incredible open air studio that had one whole wall open to the forest, a tall slanted ceiling, a mirror wall and bamboo walls. Loved it! The teacher was so great, she came around to push my hips down when I was in a relaxing child pose after a challenging pose. And when we were in corpse pose she came to each of us and gently pressed on our shoulders and arms with lavender oil. <3 That night we made a huge feast with our friends from Virginia who were destined to leave the next day. We bought some locally fresh caught fish from a little shop down the road and made shish ka bobs with sliced onion and potato in foil. YUM!
Here we are the next day:

There was this huge iguana that lived around us on the beach. I call him BIGUANA! He came really close to my tent one day and I stared at him from a little hole at my door. I was so close I could see him breathing. He was very blue around his head and shoulders.

Here is our kitty that adopted us. We called her Tica. She is pregnant. Loves to sleep in the van!

We went for a walk one evening and found a HUGE dead turtle! So sad because we think it is because of the fishing boats that are just combing the ocean floor then throw whatever they can't sell back into the ocean dead from sitting on the boat out of the water for so long. It may also have been that it crawled onto the beach and died... not sure. But the ticos were telling us that there is that problem with the fishing boats.

One thing that I forgot to mention... In one of the entries from Pheonix I said that I had something to tell that I would mention later. We attended a sweatlodge and during the sweat I was blessed with a spirit name: Pouring Life! One night recently we were burning candles for light and I took this picture with really makes me think of Pouring Life. I see the red candle hands up to the heavens pouring life down into the pool of the infinite universe with white light cascading down as well to mix in a beautiful symbiosis of love, life and light!

A few days ago we all agreed to go our separate ways. I was interested in exploring more places in my time here. I would rather of not left while we were trying to sell the van but this is how it worked out. We had some possible buyers but they backed out in the end unfortunately. If it comes down to it I'm sure they can take the van to a used car salesman and get something for it. We also got some numbers of people who would keep it on their property and we could use it if we came back... Sarah and Eric are still in Dominical as far as I know and possibly flying out soon. Thank you so much for the incredible adventure guys! It was an experience I will never forget and will cherish forever!! Sean and I tried our best to fit what we could in our bags and gave away the rest. We all packed too many things because we had the freedom of the van to carry our stuff! It is really unfortunate because the boys had many tools that they brought that they couldn't take back with them... I fit what i needed to in my bag but it is really heavy. So I am still trying to get rid of more stuff day by day. Sean and I caught a bus to Quepos then waited a while for the bus to Puntarenas. The bus was slow but it was nice to sit and watch the world go by in some quiet reflection. 

We met a nice girl who was going to a friends farm near Puntarenas that we had met briefly at the festival as well. She came up to us during the ride from Quepos to Puntarenas just checking that we still ahd our computer because she saw a guy sweating profusely with a computer. We still had our computer so figured all was ok. When we got to Jaco an older Italian man who had also come from Dominical was getting his stuff from up top and was frantically looking around. He was looking for his computer! So I guess that guy had stolen his computer but had gotten off the bus long ago. Too bad we didn't think to check with him. We had heard that we need to watch our stuff on the bus but after this took it more seriously!

We spent the night in Puntarenas where I had the worst sleep ever on a horrible bed! I was so looking forward to a sleep in a bed. Oh well. We took the ferry the next morning, then the bus to Montezuma. We've been staying in a hostel here for the last couple days enjoying a better bed! The people here are a bit more friendly it seems, I've met more people here than I did in Dominical. It's smaller with two little streets of shops and a few hostels right on the beach (where we are). The beaches have many rocks which is beautiful to watch the surf splash up on them; and the sand is almost white from all the crushed shells. I've found many beautiful shells and am making some jewelry from them!

We went to the waterfalls just a short walk outside of town and on the way we had our first sighting of wild monkeys! Black ones with long fuzzy tails they used to climb. And a little baby too!! The waterfalls were awesome, we played in the the spray of the falls and jumped off some cliffs into the refreshing, cool water.

So today we are off down the beach to a little place where they let you camp. I think we will stay here for the rest of the week and on Saturday there is a little market for a couple hours that I would like to set up my jewelry and try and sell a few. Then I would like to go to Monteverde where there is two cloud forests (rainforests way up in the mountains you are always in the clouds) to hike around a couple days. Then off to Ometepe, Nicaragua where I think I am going to volunteer at a spiritual community called InanItah for about a month. 

Blessings! Until next time...

PURA VIDA!

46day I think?! lost count.

Hola!
So we made it to Costa Rica! It took a long time at the border since we caught it at a time when everyone was trying to cross over. We waited in a really long line up but met some awesome people that were also headed to the festival coming from Ometepe, Nicaragua. It was nice to engage in some conversation with some liked-minded people in english! We finally got out of there and tried to drive to San Jose as quick as possible to meet Joey and Lisa who were flying in at around 930pm. It wasn't so far to drive and we thought we would make it in no time but it was slow going because of a one lane highway and as soon as it got dark there was no way we were passing anyone so we just stayed behind a huge truck and managed to make it to the airport at 930 exactly! We waited for our friends and started playing this horrible game where everyone took turns exclaiming: "OooH! There they are!" and everyone would look and get all excited, but really they weren't there. We ended up playing this until 1am! Turns out they missed a connecting flight because of weather and they were delayed until noon the next day. It was hard for us to figure this out with no internet or phone. Eventually we just parked somewhere for the night with a new friend we met at the airport who slept in the front seat. It was great to finally meet up with Joey and Lisa the next day! We took off right away towards Uvita and the Envision festival driving up through windy mountain ranges. I think we were about 3000 feet near the top. And drove past some valleys high in the mountains with beautiful pristine lakes, clouds and mist. At one point we had to stop and unload all of what was stored in the top front as the board was sagging from all the alcohol and beer we stored there!!

We had some trouble with the brakes of the van at the bottom of the hill and percariously pulled up to the festival. (The boys later bled the brakes and they are now working fine). We tried to set up camp under the canopy of a big tree but quickly moved after Lisa met a massive spider! There were spiders and fire ants all over. When I woke up I could see tons of spider webs in the grasses shining in the sun. I had to throw a few out of the tent... who knows how many I didn't see. We all got bit several times by the ants. It was hard to stay out of the way of their little ant highways! I was really sick this first night (and still have a cough almost 2 weeks later) and went to bed early after checking out a bit of circus/fire performance. The days at the festival were stifling hot! I wanted to attend more workshops but it was almost impossible in the heat! It forced us to wake up early even though were camped in the shade and we practically ran to the beach or waterfalls everyday. Security was blocking us from walking to the nearest beach because they said there were animals that would bite in the river you had to wade through to get there. So we drove with two ticos (locals) to a beautiful deserted beach. It was the first time in the water in Costa. It is SO WARM!
At low tide, almost hot! It was a peaceful place to swim and play.

 A while later (during the day, not after this pic was taken) I went in to swim on my own and went in to my stomach and swam about. A wave came in and suddenly I couldn't touch the ground anymore. I swam to shore and expected to touch right away but could not for a long time. I was getting tired of swimming and can't really swim exceptionally well so I panicked and started yelling for help. Everyone was quite far away so I don't think anyone heard me. I let some big waves push me in and was finally able to touch. I had a hard time catching my breath and shakily made my way back up the beach. I let everyone know what happened and that if someone wants to go swimming on their own it would be good if someone else kept a close eye on the one swimming. I passed out in the van. It took me a long time to get over the fact that I felt so close to being taken away by the ocean but I am much more cautious swimming now and definetly learnt my lesson. I just wish I wouldn't of had to learn that way. I am here and OK!
The festival was lots of fun! So many amazing artists and the festival landscape was so creatively set up! It was hard to stay awake after each day of brutal sun and I went to sleep earlier than I would've liked everyday and so missed a few djs I wanted to see. But so awesome!!! There were workshops during the day then an opening ceremony every day at 6; yoga to the Earth Harp a wonderful goddess played. It's hard for me to explain so watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJUZGy26_Uk
Then music all night!

One day during the fest we went to some waterfalls! You could slide down the waterfall into the pool below or walk down the river to some pools in the sunshine below. Someone brought a cooler full of this beautiful mud that they shared with everyone there and we all covered ourselves in this greyish-blue clay/mud! It was so soothing for the bug bites and was a great exfoliant! We let it dry and jumped into the cool pools. It was the cleanest we felt in a while!

The best performance of the weekend I think was by Lunar Fire, check it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtUX354ol7s

We left on Monday morning and drove with 3 other amigos to a little beach town not far called Dominical. We had trouble getting their as the brakes kept on being engaged! We pretty much crawled along. The van finally made it and the boys worked on it the next couple days and they bled the brakes and now they work fine! We found an incredible spot to camp on the beach.

We spent the next couple days relaxing in our hammocks, swimming in the ocean and hanging around the site. Joey and Lisa took surfing lessons. Eric bought a used surf board. We did some yoga. Had a few campfires. Joey and Lisa treated us to dinner at Tortilla Flats one night. (Thank youuuu!!)One night Sean and I went to a bar called Maracatu and saw this wonderful audio/visual performance by "the Yes Tribe" Our new doggy friend accompanied us to the bar and then hung around at the bar with us! She waited until we went home and happily trotted back home with us. One day we drove to another beach down the road for a little visit to get away from the brutal humongous waves that had been at Dominical for the last couple days from the full moon. There was such a high tide one day that Joey found some fish that had been thrown up on shore by the waves from the fishing boats. We asked if we could eat them but a tico (local) told us they were endangered and poisonous!

The morning after Sean and I took a walk along the beach at low tide. We found 11 beautiful sand dollars!! Later, Sarah and I got coconuts for everyone and we squeezed some limes and rum in them and sipped to our delight!

We met an awesome dude from Switzerland that camped near us for one night that was riding his bicycle from Mexico to Panama!!! Everyone we meet looks at us like we're crazy when we say we drove from Canada but I think this guy really takes the cake!

Nearing the end of Joey and Lisa's visit, we took a trip to Manuel Antonio Wildlife Refuge. We drove the van up this massive hill and it lost so much power that we all had to get out and push! It helped the van a bit further but it eventually stopped near the top of the hill while it steamed and smoked like crazy!! Sean and I were stuck on the side of the road with no shoes and I had no glasses to see. Sean had badly burnt the bottom of his foot from pushing the van on the hot concrete! There were tons of cars that got stuck behind the van  and someone towed the van up the hill enough to get out of the way. But then Sean and I were stuck on the side of the road in the shade for a while not knowing what was going on! We saw a fire truck go by us and I had visions of the van engulfed in flames. Sarah brought our shoes down for us eventually and I walked up to see the van still intact. Joey and Lisa got a hotel room where the van stopped which was conveniently at a part of the hill where there was a beautiful view of the northwest coast of Costa Rica... you could see for miles! Sean stayed at the hotel while we all went to the wildlife refuge. Joey and Lisa payed for a tour while Eric, Sarah and I just walked around. We saw a sloth lazing in a tree!! Sarah and I walked to the top of a path that gave us another beautiful view, this time of the southeast coast. So we saw down both coasts! It was really nice to finally go for a good hike. We walked down to a nice beach and took a swim. It was nice to get a relaxed swim in away from the crazy waves that had been at Dominical. At the hotel we were relaxing by the pool under some mango trees! Little ones kept on falling all around, they smelled so incredible! YUM!

We've seen some incredible sunsets here... life is good!

Thanks for coming to visit Joey and Lisa!! So great to spend some time with you guys here. We are back in Dominical in our same great campspot. We got new neighbours; a couple that drove from Quebec! Last night we had a campfire and some cool cats came along. A girl was playing the violin, a few people played my Dad's guitar and sang and Eric and Sean played a makeshift bass made out of a big bucket, a bamboo stick and a long string!! SO epic! We gathered quite an awesome crew around the fire last night. It was nice to meet more people and listen to music. yey!

Since the last entry>>>We drove a short distance to the border of Guatemala very early. We tried to book it as fast as we could through Guatemala as we heard it is quite dangerous... even more so than Mexico since they don't have much of a police force and lots of gang activity who apparently live in the jungle and will bombard your car if you stop along the highway. I'm sure it would be a wrong place wrong time kind of thing but we didn't want to take the chance. We just about made it through but night time fell upon us when we were a short distance away from the border. We got our first hotel room of the trip in Esquiplala which was much needed after some sleepless and humid nights. We were able to park the van in a gated parking lot and enjoyed some down time in the rooms watching spanish dubbed TV and some pizza! Honestly, out of all the little street meat vendors in the middle of no where and all the food we've been eatting, the pizza was the worst on my stomach! There were tons of ppl driving around in motorcycles, dirt bikes and 4x4s since I guess they have no real vehicle laws. It felt a little Mad Max.
Guatemala was the most beautiful country to drive through yet in my opinion. I spent all day staring out the window at the landscape rolling by. Saw banana trees full of nanners for the first time, incredible rolling hills and valleys with thick vegetation! We were going fast to get as far as we could that day. Got a little more interesting since it was now down to a one lane highway so we had to work on passing ppl when we could. The highway was very curvy and lots of up and down. In the first part of the road there were large sections of highway that was unpaved. We thought we were in for this sort of driving the whole way but there ended up only being two big sections that were like that, thank goodness!
This is where we started giving away our duffel bag full of toys and trinkets for the kids. Mostly at borders where the kids are hustling along side their parents. And to some policia and other adults for their little ninos and ninas (boys and girls). Tons of ppl ride bikes and they sit their little kids sideways in front of them on the bar and they hold on to the handlebars!! Similarly they let their kids sit on their laps as they are driving in cars. I have not seen one carseat in a car, not even for little babies! I guess they can't afford them here and have not been given enough education about driving safety. I thought that they would try and be as careful as they could with seatbelts as everyone drives so loco!? There are taxis with motorbike or pedal bike fronts and a little bench in the back to get driven around in.

We drove to Honduras border. Things were starting to get really exciting at the borders because you have coyotes approaching you as you drive up acting like they work for the border trying to show you where to go and how to do it all efficiently. We found out at one of these borders the hard way that they look and act official but they are not and even tho it helps you out to get things done a little quicker and clearer, it's best to just figure it out on your own and not pay him the ridiculous price he's asking for. Besides, after all the borders we've gone through we kind of got it down and know how to work our way around. Although it does get more confusing the further we go. Honduras was by far the most confusing... they all took their time in processing our paper work and never pointed us in the right direction and we had to double back  for a lot of things. Eric has been really awesome and getting all the stuff done for the van since it's in his name, it's just a lot of work and I commend him on being so awesome!
 After getting through the Honduras border we got lost in the little towns. Everyone was really nice about directing us where to go although their directions were pretty poor.We ended up driving to El Salvador border by accident. We turned around and got back on track going up the Honduras mountains. We lost a hubcap on a big pothole and I watched it roll down the hill. It was so steep driving up the mountains that the van slowed pretty much to a stop. It didn't have enough power to make it 3000 feet up so we turned around and headed back for El Salvador.  Drove by some beautiful volcanoes just after San Salvadore. My first time seeing a volcano! We stayed in a cool hotel in a small town where we kicked back in an open air space with some picnic tables; she served us beers and we watched  a spanish dubbed Fast and Furious movie. There was no running water in the room and we saw a cockroach in the shower area!!! My first real cockroach experience!

 Left early in the morning. They took us aside at the El Salvador border to talk to us. I guess at the Guatemala border the immigration officer asked for a bribe. we didn't give it to him so he marked Eric's passport for 30 day tourist card and the other 3 of us with 3 days. At the other borders the officers were trying to question us about it but we thought that stamp meant just for Guatemala but it is actually for all 4 countries (Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua have some sort of border agreement).At first we were thinking it was something really serious. Would we go to jail or be deported? But turns out we would just have to pay a fee and do a bunch of paperwork to extend the visas.Yet they were still suggesting we try and make it through Honduras (150k) and Nicaragua (420 k) So we jumped in the car to attempt! We would have made it if we didnt have to spend another long time at the Honduras border on the other side of El Salvador.We ended up staying Here we emptied a lot of the contents of our duffel bag we brought from Zoe's Thrift store who generously donated a bag filled with toys and trinkets. I gave away one or two things and in no time there were tons of kids around talking fast and vying for something in the bag. I gave a few things to each person but they all were coming back for more and more. We finally had to shooo them away so that we could go get our stuff done at the border. We got there around noon and they were on their lunch break! More waiting... Here is Sarah with a selection of the huge amount of bills we got! So much changing of money. In these smaller countries it's with guys with wads of cash on either side of the border, no money exchange.

We booked it through Honduras as fast as we could through the horrible potholes! We jarred the fridge loose from the wall on one of them. It was another intense drive. As soon as we got to Nicaragua the roads were way better and it was smoother sailing. We drove by some more cool volcanos, one that seemed like it was smoking and active. We were about to stop somewhere in one of the cities in Nicaragua when we went past some policia who looked like they were pulling us over. Turns out they were just looking for a ride to the next town after their shift! A whole bunch tried to pile in our van but we had to tell them only 2 more people could come. It was after dark and we usually don't like driving at that time but we figured it would be ok if we got pulled over with policia in our car. :D One of them directed us towards a nice Mission Hotel. They wanted $20 a night per person. We said we couldn't afford it and they graciously gave it to us for $10 a night each! It included a nice breakfast the next morning. There were some beautiful birds kept around by the hotel. Sad to see them in cages... but I think they are well taken care of. So we didn't make it over the border in the time we gave us but went early the next morning and we ended up not having an issue at all! We were definetely worried we would have to pay a lot.

We made it to COSTA RICA BABY! woooooOOoooO! Next up: Envision Fest and Dominical playa camping! We're in Dominical at the moment taking it easy... living slow. Hope all of you are well. LOVES!