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Over the past few weeks we’ve been working our way down Costa Rica’s beautiful pacific coast.
In our last email we started making our way down the Nicoya Peninsula. Since then, we’ve reached the bottom of the peninsula and returned back to mainland Costa Rica. |
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For the southern half of the Nicoya Peninsula we made the (wrong) choice to take the scenic road instead of the highway. The road was loose gravel, steep hills, we had to cross 2 rivers, and we got stuck!! Thankfully, locals were crossing the rivers at the same time, so they showed us where to go, and someone in a very nice 4x4 truck happened to be right behind us when we got stuck, so he towed us up the questionable hill. This route definitely made for an adventurous (and stressful) drive, but it did lead us to beautiful spots we would have otherwise missed, and since the drive was tough, we made sure to stop and enjoy the places we visited along the way. |
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We visited a few laid back beach towns that had long stretches of beautiful coastline that are perfect for surfing. So while in Nosara we bought a surf board off Facebook marketplace place! It’s a little smaller than we’d ideally like, which makes it harder to learn on, but we’re up for the challenge. |
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We plan on securing the surf board to our deck, but until we can pick up mounting gear, it’s “tetris”ed into the van, which as you can probably imagine, isn’t ideal 🤣 |
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One of our favourite places on the Nicoya Peninsula was this small town called San Miguel. It’s one of the only places on the coast we’ve come across that isn’t developed for tourism (most likely because it’s sandwiched in between terrible roads!). It’s got a beautiful long sandy beach lined with palm trees, and it was empty! |
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While we were parked at a beach, a local guy (Rufino) came to chat to us. He said he wanted us to have good memories of his town, so he showed us a spot to pick free mangoes, and he cut 20 coconuts out of a palm tree for us! He said they should probably last us until we get to Panama. We piled all 20 coconuts into our van, then he invited us to his house where he cooked us a delicious Tico (Costa Rican) lunch. We ate with him and his brother, Minor, and had a great time! |
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We sat with Rufino and Minor and watched them fish. They showed us how to spot a rip current, and then they used the rip current to send their line out into the ocean. |
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Unfortunately, we didn’t catch a fish. But we had a beautiful afternoon nonetheless. |
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We also didn’t take any photos with Rofino and Minor, but we do have great memories! And we’ve now incorporated a daily coconut into our diet. |
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After three nights of camping in San Miguel we were back on the road heading to Montezuma. |
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Montezuma is a fairly quiet beach town at the bottom of the peninsula. We stayed at a small campsite for a few days that had howler monkeys stop by to visit every day. |
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While here, we did a short, but surprisingly technical hike to a waterfall that involved river crossings and ropes. Finnley joined in on the action and had loads of fun. |
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This was also our last stop on the Nicoya peninsula. While making our way east to catch the ferry, we stopped for a quick visit to see a waterfall that drops directly into the ocean. According to our guidebook, there’s only seven in the world, so that’s pretty neat! |
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We then hopped on a quick ferry that took us back to the mainland. |
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We’re making our way down the Pacific coast, so we’ll share more about that in our next email. |
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We’ve uploaded two more videos in our Mexico road trip series! |
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That’s all from us this week. If you watch the videos, we hope you enjoy them!
Hayley, Jake and Finnley 🐾 |
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P.S. If you know of anyone who would like to receive our updates as we head south, please forward this email on to them so they can use this link to sign up to receive our email 😁👍
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Driven: 21,850 km / 13,577 miles |
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