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Monthly Archives: December 2015

getting crafty

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December 31, 2015
Cabuya, Costa Rica
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the rhythm of life here in cabuya is slow. possibly even just a tad too slow, although i think a little bit of boredom is a good thing for our otherwise hectic lifestyles. the days are crazy hot, which has led to copious amounts of hang time on our back porch. including some delicious siestas, which i am so very fond of 😉 our general daily schedule goes a little something like this:

  • 6.30am: wake up. take blackie for a walk, make coffee. nayou uses his twenty mins of screen time watching a video or playing minecraft
  • 7.30am: coffee round 2, breakfast
  • 8am: its starting to get hot. i’ll read to nayou, brenda will potter about. we’re reading a series called the 39 clues which is great because its interesting for adults and children alike. we will work on nayou’s reading, which is coming along really well!
  • 10am: now its really hot. lunch, and then craft time. we’ve been slowly stocking up on art supplies, and have a pretty decent arsenal now. our raw materials are mainly stones, sticks and shells scavenged from the beach. more on that later.
  • 12pm: siestaaaa! its bloody hot. nayou seems to be unable to nap, so brenda and i need to tag team. if siestas aren’t on the menu, we’ll play cards. our favourites are telefunken, uno, or the minecraft card game. playing with the hose in the garden is also a popular item (aka. “going on a waterfall tour”)
  • 2-3pm: the laziness continues until the late afternoon at which point it finally starts to cool down. now its time to head to the beach for a swim.
  • 6pm: dinner and a show. we’ve been working our way through some cool documentary series – cosmos, bbc earth, human planet, life in the undergrowth, and austin stevens: snakemaster. costa rica is a great place to think about our greater place in the universe, what with the large number of stars visible in the night sky and all the wildlife about.
  • 8-9pm: at this point we’ve been up for a long time! its time for bed and get ready to rinse and repeat again tomorrow 🙂

we’ve all been kind of working on our own little art projects during the day. brenda has been using bbq skewers and toothpicks to paint really cute babushka dolls and decorate seed pods. they have been livening up the house and will probably stay when we leave.

IMG_0023 IMG_0010brenda also loves making image transfers from old magazines. she started in vancouver and has carried on here as well:

IMG_0030nayou has been doing his own thing, using his sketch pad and pencils he got from santa (merry christmas, y’all!).

IMG_0020 IMG_0018my favourite so far has been this series of me doing yoga. one night i wasn’t wearing any pants, and he dutifully reflected that in his art. those are gonna be framed, for sure.

IMG_0029 IMG_0028 IMG_0027 IMG_0026my project has been what we’ve been calling “mini monos” (mono means monkey is spanish). there are these seed pods all over the beaches here that have faces on them. there is a huge variety in their expressions, and many of the pods have convenient holes that driftwood slots perfectly into.

IMG_0014 IMG_0013 IMG_0016we are toying with the idea of creating little name tags for each of them, and selling them at a market or something to raise money for tanya, the lady who takes care of the stray animals around cabuya. possibly even seeing if restaurants and cafes in the area would sell them – i think they would be popular with tourists. we’ll see if we can get everything together in time!

a new friend

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December 29, 2015
Cabuya, Costa Rica

well, it took us a little longer than usual, but we have a new four legged friend who has joined our family. costa rica doesn’t seem to have as much of a problem with strays as mexico, but there are still plenty of pooches who need help. our landlady claudia told us about another lady called tanya who is running a one woman rescue operation for cats and dogs in the area. she used to have a couple of volunteers who were helping her, but they all quit and she’s been flying solo ever since. tanya has no less than nine dogs and three cats at her house and is understandably overwhelmed. brenda had a chat with her last week and tanya told her she had a very sweet dog (number ten!) that would be perfect to foster.

his name is “blackie”, which isn’t our favourite name, but it is what it is. he is eight months old, and is absolutely adorable. we had to keep him tied up for most of the first few days, as he ran away twice and brenda had to go and find him. he’s been sticking close since, although yesterday evening he went walkabout and didn’t return until this morning, looking very tired. that’s cool though – i think its nice for dogs to have the freedom to come and go as they please, knowing that they always have a place to return to.

IMG_0019i really hope that we can find him a permanent home here. he is so well behaved, walks like a champion, and has a very relaxed, easy going temperament. we would totally keep him if we weren’t jumping around all over the place! nayou, who is normally very wary of dogs, loves him. he’ll take blackie for walks and play with him, which is definitely not his normal reaction to dogs. blackie seems to get that nayou is a little human and is very gentle with him.

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inquiries from anywhere in the world are welcome. if you are thinking about getting a dog, or know of anyone who is, let them know about blackie. this is one awesome canine!

nicoya bound

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December 7, 2015
Costa Rica, Nicoya
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on december 2nd, the day nayou turned eight (eight!), we bid farewell to uvita, and our amazing river house. we had a birthday/farewell celebration at escuela verde on nayou’s last day at school. it was a nice way to close out our time on the southern pacific coast and for nayou to get some closure. they have a great thing going with that school, and i’m so grateful we got a chance to participate in it, however briefly.

IMG_1136.JPGour next destination is cabuya, a tiny town on the southern tip of the nicoya peninsula, where will be spending the remainder of our time in costa rica. it was a full day of travel to get here – a two hour drive to the puntarenas ferry, one hour on the ferry, and then another hour plus on some gravel roads.

IMG_1179.JPGnayou has developed quite the taste for imperial, costa rica’s favourite beer. we only give him a sip or two at a time, and a little bit for his birthday seemed appropriate 🙂

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IMG_1172.JPGwe arrived just as the sun was setting so our first impression of cabuya was just some dimly lit roads and not much else. luckily our landlady claudia is awesome and she took us out to an amazing local restaurant (called “sodas” in costa rica. and they are everywhere!). a fisherman called marvin runs it and we chowed down on some freshly caught red snapper with some rice and beans. it was delicious, and nayou impressed claudia with his post-travel appetite.

we’ve been in cabuya for four days now. its a very different experience from uvita – we’re in a much more rural location, for one thing. this is what the main road of cabuya looks like:

IMG_1260-1.jpgthe climate is drier, so it doesn’t feel like a rainforest jungle out here. the landscape is more pastoral, with cows and horses grazing around us. we have a cute two bedroom house (the farm view cottage) surrounded by pasture, within walking distance to the bakery, marvin’s soda and the supermarket.

IMG_1189-0.jpg IMG_1209.JPGthe whole place has a super tranquil energy to it and we have fallen into the slower pace of life with no trouble at all. there is a great river for swimming and fishing within a two minute drive, not to mention a string of jaw dropping beaches just a little bit further on. in any other place beaches like these would be built up with resorts but most of the time its just us and a handful of other people. crazy.

IMG_0004 IMG_0003 IMG_0006 IMG_0001 IMG_0007 IMG_0002when we’re not at the beach or the river, we have been spending our days playing telefunken, the minecraft card game, and poker (texas hold ’em, or “tetris hold ’em” as nayou likes to say). nayou and i are also working on our own card game called “break through”, which is shaping up to be pretty cool. basically, we’re chilling, and that is a good, good, thing.

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