Refugio Paraiso Santa Teresa

... way of fabulous food, friendly locals who happily let us hitch rides up and down the 3k main strip (too hot to walk) and beautiful beaches made for spontaneous relay races. We also learnt the skill to squeezing 4 girls plus 3 large surf boards into one 4x4; the answer is to leave the boot door wedged open by a Lolly as a Milly drives ever so cautiously with a Fi and an Al clinging onto the boards as they try to bob up and down in time with the pot holes.<br> <br>On ...

... the pizza, it was weird.<br><br>7. low season or green season or the rainy season or the wet season. you get the idea. there are not many visitors, many locals/ex-pats who own places take off during october, so it's pretty mellow around here now. i'm afraid for high season when the places gets over run. the first week or so we were here, there was no rain at all. recently it's started raining at night and during the day, which is just ...

... fried plantains were all very tasty and a welcome change from the ship's dining room (which really is like eating at the same restaurant every night). The Imperials (Costa Rican beer) were refreshing as well. We walked back into the town, along the littered beach, and browsed the strip of craft booths briefly before returning to the ship for Valentine's Day dinner (and the oh-so-romantic NyQuil Allen was sweet enough to procure for me).

... Couple with a baby - who have WON a trip tothe 6 ´chill and surf´camps around the world (Portugal, France, Capetown, Rio de Janeiro, Costa Rica and Indonesia)! After 2 days of pretty torrential tropical downpours - and ever uncreasing mud - the sun came out - what a relief! And it was HOT! We surf in the morning at about 8am and came back and have a MASSIVE breakfast with everyone down the table at about 11am. Then we surf again in the afternoon at about ...

Well, I finally decided that I've had enough of people telling me that I look "mas guapa" now that I'm "gordita" and that I was "muy flaca" when I arrived, but now I look better. Yes, I know that these are compliments. And yes, I know that us western women have a skewed vision of the perfect body and a warped idea of what the correct weight is. I know that the ideal Tica beauty with big boobs, big butt, and a little extra meat all around is way healthier than the slim waif ...

Costa Rican women love their shoes. And I mean LOVE in a way that even my college roommate, who must own at least ten pairs of cowboy boots alone, wouldn´t understand. These women are obsessed with shoes on a totally different level then American women. We´re talking Sex in the City meets In Her Shoes meets the aggression of those people who get up at 5 am to be the first one inside Target the day after Thanksgiving. Ticas LOVE shoes. And not just any shoes, they ...

I have a great job. Every day I am showered with little gifts from my students - candy, flowers, stickers, drawings. It's great. I always feel loved. But the other day one of my first grade girls comes in and hands me a little puppy. I exclaim how cute it is, as I always do when handed such random things as baby brothers and sisters, stuffed animals, and real animals. But this time when I started to give back the squirmy little thing, Angie shook her ...

While it may seem like the world is falling apart sometimes, what with the floodings, draughts, earthquakes, and tsunamis shaking the world right now, La Estrella has somehow managed to be untouched by it all. In my little corner of the world, surrounded by mountains and forest and morning fog, people talk about the weather, the latest horse purchase, and (of course) Teacher. If there actually was a newspaper in La Estrella the headlines from this week ...

... calls. I also saw what I thought was a dying turtle, but it turned out to be two turtles and it was turtle porn. Interesting. Anyway, I'm headed back down in a month to do a bunch of work and take it to a safer marina farther south in Costa Rica. This one doesn't have enough water under the boat, and when that 7.9 earthquake hit off Peru, my boat was in danger of being tsunami-struck. Thankfully the tsunami that hit was only ten inches.