Giving Thanks

Hello and Happy Thanksgiving!!!

So this year we will not be doing a traditional thanksgiving here in Puerto Viejo, but we wanted to express some thanks to you all.

We feel incredibly blessed to have friends and family like you.  We wish we could be there share this day of love and thanks, but we are very happy to be on the beach :)

Thank you all for supporting and encouraging us on our decision to come to Costa Rica, even without plans for jobs or a place to live.  It has made it easier knowing we have people rooting for us at home.  We are thankful to have roof over our heads and to have avoided the weather here that has swept so many homes away.  We are also so incredibly thankful, that thus far, we have enjoyed a safe and peaceful adventure.

We hope you have a wonderful thanksgiving wherever you may be this year and that you all have safe travels at the end of the holiday.

We love you and miss you, especially today.  Enjoy some turkey and stuffing for us :)

Ty and Ju

Vacay in Bocas

Hello,

Well we cannot believe we have been here for just about 90 days and that we are already half way through November!  This means that we have had to renew our visa, which is why we were in the beautiful Bocas del Toro in Panama for about three days.  Most people who are doing what we are doing are annoyed every time their visa is up and they have to leave for 72 hours.  We see it, however, as a vacation that we have no choice BUT to take.  I mean, doesn't that sound pretty awesome?

So, to get to Panama from where we live is actually pretty easy.  You take a 1 1/2 hour bus ride to the border, walk across a rickety old bridge (which is actually pretty scary), and then check in at customs in Panama.  From there we took a shuttle to a water taxi (also pretty scary because of the large amount of people on a tiny looking boat) to Bocas del Toro.  Bocas del Toro is an archipelago of a number of islands.  We stayed on the main island, Isla Colon, in the main town, Bocas town.

So as we mentioned earlier, Bocas is beautiful! We thought the water here was clear, but wow, the water is as clear as glass in Bocas.  The town also has a number of old colonial looking houses, and all waterfront houses and businesses sit on stilts over the water.  We decided that, since we will have to make this trip again, that this time we'd have a little bit more of relaxed trip, and not travel to a new island every night.  So we slept in Tuesday morning, slowly got up and had breakfast, and then watched the parade that was taking place for Bocas Founding Day (somehow we happen to be in the right places at the right time to watch parades).  Afterwards we rented bikes, and rode the 8 kilometers to Playa Bluff, a beautiful beach with golden sand and blue-green water.  When we returned, we expected that the parade would have died down, but the parade ended up going on all 24 hours of the day!

Foundation Day Parade in Bocas del Toro

Headed to Playa Bluff

Great swimming and beautiful clear water

The next morning we woke up fairly early to make it to our tour for the day.  Our tour was a great deal, $20 dollars per person to watch dolphins, snorkel (equipment included), go to a beach, and then go snorkeling one more time (if we wanted to).  Unfortunately we only saw one dolphin, but we did get it to play in our boat wake, which was a really fun experience.  After snorkeling and lunch we visited Red Frog Beach which is an absolutely gorgeous beach.  We spent most of the 2 1/2 hours we had there in the water.  We had a relaxing evening and prepared for our return trip to our little home in Puerto Viejo.

Delfines

Lunch at the isolated Coral Cay

Coral Cay is located in the middle of the sea , all by itself.

Red Frog Beach was large and spectacular

So here we are, back in Puerto Viejo, a little bit sunburned, and covered in chitra bites (nastly little buggers).  Even though Bocas was beautiful, it feels good to be home :)  And we have good news... Ju got a new job!  It is in town at a nice restaurant and she will actually be waitressing!  No more cleaning poop for Ju!  The job is awesome and Ju's coworkers are a bunch of characters (in a good way) which is always fun.  The pay is about normal but the tips have been really good so far, and we expect them to get better since we are coming up on high season.

In other news, Ju's mom, Ty's mom, and Koji have already booked flights down to visit us, and we are so excited to host them and show them around our little slice of paradise :)  Again, we would love love love to have anybody who can come and visit us.  We know November has totally crept up on us and imagine it probably has on you guys as well, but anyone who wants to come visit should start to think about it.  Not only so we have time to prepare and make sure nobody is overlapping, but also because once high season is here it will be much harder to find a place to stay.  

We hope to hear from you guys soon, we love and miss you!  Happy Thanksgiving everybody, we wish we could be there.  We know that we have so much to be thankful for this year.

Pura Vida,

Ty and Ju

Seafood Fricase and Filet Mignon

Hello Hello!

So here's the latest on the job front: Ty finished training for his job on Wednesday and is now an official employee at his restaurant!  And Ju, has moved to part time until she will be a waitress at the restaurant she was initially hired to work for.  This makes her so much happier since, instead of getting home at 5:30 (after dark here on the equator), she gets home at about 1:15, in perfect time for some beach if it is sunny outside :)

Halloween here was pretty much non-existent.  If anything, it was maybe a bit more crowded at one of the bars on the main street, not that we'd know though since we rarely get to go out.  There was supposed to be some costume contest, but it is very possible we missed it, because we didn't end up heading out until close to 11 since Ty didn't finish work until 10 that evening.  So we really didn't get much of a Halloween.  We'd love to hear about what you all were and see some pictures!

November 2nd was a special day for us as we celebrated 3 years of being together :)  We both had work in the morning, but celebrated by heading to the beach, watching Grey's Anatomy (this season is SO good!) and eating a phenomenal dinner.  Ty surprised Ju with some flowers he picked from the garden at the restaurant he works at in the afternoon, bought her this dress she was eyeing from a local designer, and fed her cravings for milanos, which he picked up for her from the local grocery store.  We don't usually get to treat ourselves with American brand cookies since they are a tad expensive here.  In return, Ju treated Ty to the best meal we have had since arriving in Costa Rica at this place called The Beach Hut.  We intended to take a picture of our meal, but after trying one bite, got so distracted by how good it was, forgot all about taking a photo.  In fact, we forgot about everything else, and literally spent the entire dinner discussing the food.  We wish we were kidding.  The food was amazing and the staff was very accommodating.  Afterwards, we headed back to re-watch an episode of Grey's Anatomy and munch on those delicious milanos.  It was a wonderful day.

Ju's new dress and beautiful handpicked flowers

Ju got crafty and made Ty a pop-up card, which he totally wasn't expecting here in Costa Rica without my supplies

At dinner

Demonstrating how delicious Ju finds Milanos

Oh, by the way, you might note that Ty's beard is a little out of control (at least according to Ju).  Well, and this is for you Kellen, Ty participated in Beardtober this October (an old college tradition).  Thankfully, it is now gone.

The weather here has become a bit overcast, and we've been told that November usually brings a fair amount of rain, although it rains mainly during the night.  The weather all over Costa Rica has been a bit rainy and a state of national emergency was declared in Costa Rica.  There have been a couple of landslides, particularly near San Jose, as a result of the heavy rains.  Some major highways and bridges were also destroyed last week.  We hope the weather clears up soon!

We are starting to get a bit more clever with our meals and are experimenting a bit more.  It is a little bit difficult to be super adventurous since we are limited without an oven and with fewer ingredients that we are accustomed to having in the US...

One of our more recent creations, using left over arroz con pollo to make mini burritos/tacos

  We also try to treat ourselves every once in a while for being so good at not spending tons of money since we've been here.  Last night, for example, we found a wine on sale and rented a movie from a movie rental place we found in town. We tried to find a funny, light-hearted movie, and ended up with a kind of weird and disturbing one.  It was still a nice evening though :)

Ty, beardless, with wine and our movie

We really appreciate the comments we got last week, it was so great to hear a little bit from all of you and to hear that you like our house!  We also want to say welcome to our new followers, P-Nasty and Su! We love and miss you guys...

Pura Vida
Ty and Ju

p.s- the title of our blog is what we ordered for dinner :)