Information about planning and experiencing the sabbatical in Costa Rica.
A major item on our to-do lists has been the application of a one-year visa for volunteer work. Yesterday, we went to the migration office bracing for the impact of endless queues, grumpy bureaucrats and Kafkaesque referrals from one desk to another. It was not that bad, and at points even fun and pleasant. … More The visa bureaucracy : not that bad
Yesterday night, at around 17.00 local time we landed at Juan Santamaria International airport, close to San José, the capital of Costa Rica. After getting through passport control, luggage collection and check and finding a taxi, we arrived to our new home for the coming week. That was two in the morning in the Netherlands. … More We made it!
Costa Rica, here we go! Tomorrow we are finally jumping on the plane that will take us to our new life in Costa Rica. Needless to say, we are very excited and very, very nervous. After all the planning and going through the last-minute endless to-do lists, this is it! All boxes checked, all things … More And the D-day arrived!
Oh my! Here we go! One of our criteria to select the destination for our sabbatical was that we could bring our furballs with us. So, despite most of our family and friends think we have finally lost our mind, we are taking them with us. Yes, we are aware that the flight is 12 … More Pets to Costa Rica
First impressions Close your eyes and picture a tropical jungle and a calm sea. Yep! That is the Golfito area in the Osa Peninsula. The Osa peninsula is really wild. In the Golfito, the green “lush” slopes of jungle end up in reddish deserted sand beaches and a sea teeming with large marine mammals. The … More The scouting trip (V, and last)- Osa Peninsula
First impressions It takes barely 1 hour to go from Manuel Antonio to Uvita. The road has a speed limit of 80/60 km although it is really good. It is a beautiful road with palm trees and forest visible throughout the trip. Arriving at Uvita is especially nice since one starts seeing the green mountains … More The scouting trip (IV)- Uvita
Before summer holidays, we still had more than six months to go before 2020. Almost seven months if we took the day of the flight. It all still felt comfortably distanced from the here and now. Within the blink of a summer’s eye, it feels completely different now. Yesterday we received potential tenants for our … More It’s official, we are getting nervous
Some years ago, Cris and I bought a GoPro camera for our holidays in Madagascar. It is a GoPro Hero+ LCD. The main reasons to buy this camera were the fact that it comes from the factory in a waterproof box. For most other cameras one needs to buy such a box separately and it … More Clip-on lens for GoPro HERO+ LCD
The road from San José to Nosara It takes almost 5 hours to drive from San José to Nosara. The first part of the road is really good -asphalted and well indicated- until one needs to deviate to Sámara and Nosara. The last 60 km of the trip is a dirt road full of potholes, … More The scouting trip (III). Nosara
First stop in the scouting trip: Puerto Viejo, in the caribbean coast of Costa Rica. Of the four destinations shorlisted, this is the one for which we have more doubts. On the positive side, Puerto Viejo is surrounded by a national park (Cahuita) and a protected area (Gandoca-Manzanillo); has access to one of the best … More The scouting trip (II). Puerto Viejo
THE FLIP FLOP LIFE 