Life is Good

July 30, 2023 was a perfect day! Mark and I have also been doing yoga first thing in the morning. This has been really helpful in starting the day out in a good frame of mind. Electricity workers accidentally cut the lines to the internet, so finding our yoga class was a challenge. We finally found day four in our 30 Days to a Calm Mind with our Eliz, so we started our class by the pool. Just as we started relaxing into a stretch, we discovered the version we were using had lots of ads. Distracting, but we were going to finish our class. Plus, I learned from the ad for Spanish classes that in most English words ending in “ity,” the Spanish word is almost identical but ends with “idad.” Then, about halfway through our class, it started raining so hard that we had to pause our class and move inside. I was super proud that we finished the class despite a couple of obstacles.

I had legal work that I needed to do requiring the internet, so I committed to parking myself in a restaurant and getting things done early in the day while it was cool. I felt a little sorry for myself knowing Mark would be surfing while I was working. Mark got me settled at El Avion, a really cool restaurant in Manuel Antonio that is built around an airplane. I asked to be seated somewhere out of the way because I was going to be camping for a while, but they sat me with the best ocean view! I couldn't have asked for a better office and decided feeling sorry for myself was a waste of time.

Mark surfed while I worked. It was his fourth time out since the move to Costa Rica and he had a great day. He surfed for an hour and fifteen minutes and caught six excellent waves. He made friends with a local ("Cookie" is his nickname) while surfing.

When Mark picked me up and told me about the amazing time he had, I decided I was ready to give it a try. I was originally planning on taking lessons with a stranger, but we decided to risk marital bliss and just go for it. Before getting started, we walked up the beach for a few minutes. We got lucky and saw monkeys in the trees over the sand and a sleeping sloth.

Mark gave me a lesson on the sand. He told me to go from the cobra pose to a standing position without putting my knees on the board. No problem! I caught four waves. (Truth be told, Mark held the board and pushed me in white water catching the wave for me. More truth, three of the times I only got up on my knees, but still!) It was outstanding. I was trying to decide if the waves are a lot stronger here – even small waves have SO MUCH FORCE or if aging by a few decades and living away from the beach for so long made me much weaker. Mark thinks it is a little of both.

The beach is down a road that requires 4 x 4. A huge truck (not 4 x 4) got completely stuck. Mark passed him and pulled over to help. Mark towed this truck up the hill until he was out of danger. Mark LOVES our car! A view minutes later, we came across another stuck individual. She didn’t have rope (and neither did we), but he used his excellent driving skills to rescue her.

We were starving after all this surfing and walking and rescuing, so we headed up the hill for lunch and a view at Ronney’s.

In the late afternoon, after our swim, the birds all came to sing to us. We had a pair of parrots and a bunch of toucans. The parrots do not want to be photographed, but the toucans do. Life doesn’t get any better than this.