Costa Rica 2019 - Introduction

Wondering why, when & where?

Honestly, I have no idea. No, that's not it. It was a 'why not?!' situation. I think Telchac had thought about it for over a year but it took some time to get things at work to work in our favour and allow us to work from another continent. We went away for three months - a month in CR and two months in Merida, Mexico. It would have been the other way round, however, our government claims that you are only allowed to spend 30 days in CR (we're talking no visas, of course) - when we arrived (and I mean both times) we got a 90 days stamp - knowing this, we would probably have switched and had spent two months in CR. Obviously, we did not want to risk it based on only one previous visit so we had arranged it all in 1:2 ratio. 



Also, we chose these two Latin countries because we have been learning Spanish for quite some time and we wanted somewhere to practice. Telchac also thought about several other countries but again after comparing the cost of living, safety and weather (and also based on our trips before that) it slowly became clear where we wanted to go. 

When choosing our flights, our goal was to find a reasonable compromise among work, price and flight duration (it seems at this point that it was all about weighting different aspects of every possible thing :D). Btw we booked the flights in October which was probably quite late but alas we had to work with what was available. We flew via Toronto (4-hour stopover on our way there and overnight on our way back) so we had to apply for our eTAs (cost almost nothing, took maybe 20 minutes). 
Useful tip: Have your eTAs printed and inside your CABIN bag. Wisely I have put both of ours into one of the checked bags :D. Fortunately, they did not want to check it but if they had, it would have been complicated (a bit :D). 

Our Airbnb was a completely different story than choosing the destination or the flight. We knew what we wanted (more or less) and we were still going back and forth from one house to another. Finally, after a month of browsing Airbnb day and night, we chose our three favourites, made a preference list and got in touch with the first owner. In the end, we did not book this one because there wasn't a reliable wi-fi connection (which is not a problem during the dry season generally). However, I must tell you, if we went for this one, in hindsight, I cannot imagine how it would have gone. The house was open. Completely. No full-height walls, just shutters in the bedroom and bathroom. No shutters anywhere else. Also, the kitchen equipment and wardrobe space (also storage space for the suitcases) were both limited. However, we were somehow fine with that at that moment but (fortunately) because of the internet connection we moved on to the second place on our list. 



We knew we wanted to stay in the Nicoya Peninsula and Telchac knew he wanted to stay as much in the jungle as possible. Our second place checked all the boxes, including reliable wifi, and soon the second option on the list became 'our' finca. Short description: HUGE (that's what she said, right? :D), no people, amazing view, pool and equipped with everything we needed - there was no doubt this was THE place. Other than that when we found out the owners of the Finca had moved there from Germany we took it as another small sign that we should go for it (and Telchac speaks German, so basically a no-brainer).

Again, we were there (both CR and Mexico) working. All together we had around 10 days off (including the days needed to get there and back and from CR to MEX). So we did not have as much time as we (ideally) would have wanted. Anyway, being as we are, we squeezed in as much fun and as many trips as we could. Here's the map of all the places we went to during our month, what do you think? 



The location of 'our' finca gave us no choice but to rent a car for the whole month. We also considered an ATV but again looking back I would not recommend it for longer stays. The roads in CR are not all tarmac roads, lots of them are dusty roads which leaves you with a scarf all over your face sweating and cursing. So we chose a more traditional option, a car. In CR you cannot rent a car for a period longer than 4 weeks but as we were aware that we could plan accordingly. We chose a smaller (and more reasonable option when it came to the cost) 4x4  (which is absolutely required if you don't want to stay in main touristic paths) from 4x4rentacar.com and it was a really good choice (it's not an ad, I just remember we also find a recommendation on a blog which helped). 



With the flights, car and accommodation booked there was nothing else but to patiently wait till we get there. In the next post, I will tell you about our trips, about the beaches and about everything else that makes CR our second home.