Thursday 18th October 2012, 10.45am
Retirement is definitely not over-rated, at least not for me – Andrea may not agree with that yet! So we arrived in San Jose, Costa Rica on a classy Spirit Air flight from Fort Lauderdale and immediately paid too much for car rental. More research would have been beneficial as looks like we could have rented for the entire month in Playa Hermosa for the price we paid for 4 days in San Jose. Thanks Andrea for paying the full insurance price when we have it on our trusty Capital One Visa!
Touch down in our first destination, Costa Rica
We have rented a house in Playa Hermosa, a short 4 mile ride from Jaco and 70 miles from San Jose on the Pacific “surf” coast. We got a great deal on VRBO for a month which ended up being only $30 per night. When we arrived the caretaker, Ricardo, met us at the house for a full tour and had kindly provided us the best supplies – a 6 pack of beer! The house is a symmetrical 2 bed, 2 bath floor plan (for all of our friends who are coming to visit, we have no AC) with beautiful gardens and only 2km along Calle Hermosa, a dirt road leading to the Pacific ocean. Behind the house we have a 200 foot waterfall only a 10 minute walk away.
Casa Escondida living area
Ricardo, the Casa Escondida caretaker
Friday 19th October 2012
After a very turbulent nights sleep we needed no alarm clock to awake with the birds and roosters at 5am. When you’re this close to the equator morning comes real early followed by early darkness! This is not a bad thing as Andrea is remaining employed and gets the luxury of working remote, and yes this includes Costa Rica and hopefully many more countries to follow.
I decided to make the short hike to the waterfall with the escort of Ricardo after he found me wandering aimlessly in search of the right path! This was in full flow due to the amount of rain that was being dumped on us in the evening. It was great to be back at the house for second breakfast and a lie in the hammock until Andrea’s half day Friday was over at 10am prompt. This was another good thing we were discovering, that being 2 hours behind EST Andrea’s day would be from 6-3 and on Friday 6-10.
Discovering the waterfall at the back of our property
Lounging in the hammock at Casa Escondida
October 18th – October 19th 2012
