Costa Rica, a new chapter.
After my birthday morning on the top of the tallest building in Santiago where we said our final goodbye to Chile, we went back to our Airbnb, picked up everything we owned and headed to the airport once again. We got on an 8-hour overnight flight to Miami for a 3-hour stopover followed by another short flight to Costa Rica.
Passing through Miami Airport was an interesting experience, as my brother and I had only seen America in movies, on TV, and social media. In the passport control room there were lots of very large America flags decorating the walls and it all looked very loud and official. A very flamboyant pilot walked past us in uniform, but wearing a tie with an American Eagle and the Stars and Stripes, rather than the normal company tie. He had long blonde hair and gold rimmed glasses. It was at this point that I unmistakably knew I had arrived in the USA!
Getting off the plane in San Jose the capital city of Costa Rica, we collected our bags and got a taxi to the apartment we were staying in. We were there for about a week - the building had a lot of amenities like a pool, gym and coworking space as well as a nearby café which we used quite often.
While here in my first week as an adult I started my FIRE journey (Financial Independence Retire Early) I might do a blog in the future about what FIRE is about. What this meant for me is that I started using some of my savings to start investing, but I will start to do more once I join the workforce back in Australia. It was a pretty cool experience to begin investing not even a week after I turned 18. I know I am far away from FI at the moment since I am only just starting my journey and don’t yet have a job, but it exciting to begin this journey. But my plan is to reach FI by a young age. This does not mean I am not excited to join the work force and have a fulfilling career; it is just that I want a nice sum of $$ behind me (maybe it is because of my Dutch- Indian genes😉)
Once our time at San Jose ended, we drove about four hours west to a town called Tamarindo. It’s a really cool little beach side town with lots of facilities, surfing and a happy outlook. We enjoyed the surfing and yoga here and spent about two weeks in Tamarindo. One thing that I learned in Tamarindo is that Costa Rica has squirrels I have never seen a squirrel before, so it was very strange to see it.
Then it was time to move again, this time it was to Jaco - another beach side town three and a half hours away. This trip took way longer because we had some torrential rain. We are after all spending our time here in rainy season. As Australian’s we are used to some pretty epic rain when driving on the escarpment, but this was still a new experience. It is rainy season in Costa Rica at the moment. Sometimes you couldn’t see the road while driving, other days we couldn’t hear each other as the rain was coming down so hard on the roof.
We did not like Jaco that much because the surfing was really bad. The sand was very coarse and dropped on a very steep angle into the water getting deep quickly, with lots of debris like sticks and building materials on the beach. We suspect the poor surf quality and debris in the water and on the beach was to do with the season and time of year, because online no one has ever said a bad word about Jaco. The alternative explanation is that we are spoiled Australians used to our pristine beaches. We did however continue doing quite a bit of yoga in Jaco, the apartment was pretty good, and we had a chance to relax a fair bit.
In my next blog we are going to La Fortuna, I’ll talk to you about sloths. 🦥🦥🦥