January 1-4 2026. Costa Rica

 

We begin the year at Lake Arenal in Costa Rica. The day begins with clouds, mist and wind.  Maybe its still trying to clean up last years mess!  

We are here until Sunday Jan 4th, then off to Panama for 2 weeks.

We did get a good walk in and Eric made it to the pool but cloudy and rainy most of the day.

Sitting on the balcony at 69 degrees, a bit chilly for us old folks.  1st time I had to get my couch blanket to sit out here!  Yes I do have shorts and a tank top on under the blanket.

Friday Jan 2: started out the morning walk pretty cool, 64 degrees!  That is the coldest temp we have seen since arriving here in CR. Luckily the wind was not blowing.  The sun came out and turned into a beautiful day!  Working on getting the freezer and refrigerator cleaned out. 

Saturday Jan 3:  beautiful day for a walk in the park!  On the way home we seen a White Hawk!  Life bird for us!   Lunch was at Corral, which is our closest restaurant.  The food and service were very good.  I had the fish plate and it was cooked to perfection.  

Finish up the packing, except for tomorrow's last minute stuff.  One last load of laundry, clean the car and walk around the house looking for stuff we might forget!

Final Sunset over the Lake did not disappoint 

A wonderful stay here in Aguacate.  The house was perfect, the birds were phenomenal.  We ended up with 185 yard birds in 34 days!  I am sure we missed a few, but wow...  So happy we came to enjoy this little piece of paradise.  Pura Vida!

Jan 4:  we are off early to the Gosen Retreat, where we will park our car and store our excess luggage.  Eduardo will take us to the Hampton Inn at the airport.  our journey is about 130 miles and estimated to take 4.5 hours.  hoping its less than 6 hours but that all depends on traffic.

It took us a bit over 4 hours with 2 stops to get to Barva. Which means we had no traffic to speak of.  

We found a park about 10 minutes from our destination.  Walked around the trails for a few hours. We arrived at the Gosen house at 2:00. 

Eduardo stored our luggage and showed us the property.  We got to meet a few cousins before heading to the Hampton Inn at the airport.  After checking in we went for lunch/dinner. Found a delightful place near the hotel. Our food was very good. Then we walked to a local park.  Lots of people enjoying being outside.