Goodbye Jaco, Hello Home

The last month or so of living in Jaco was pretty much the same as the month before.  Lots of bike rides; lots of walks; and spending lots of time at the beach. 

I think that will be the thing I miss the most, watching the waves.  We spent many many hours watching the waves and it was great to head over to the beach whenever we wanted.

And even though we live very close to 4 of the 5 Great Lakes, they don’t even come close to producing the great waves of the Pacific. 

We also helped our friend Eida celebrate her 50th birthday a couple of weeks ago.  She had no idea about the dinner party and was totally surprised. 

And on our second last night in Jaco, Joey and Eida had us over for a shrimp boil.  And boy oh boy was it ever tasty!  Joey had been talking about his “famous” shrimp boil for months; and with just a night to spare we finally had it.  Reminded Mike and I of our crawfish boil that we had with a local family in Louisiana.

Wednesday, we had a very long travel day, 18 hours to be exact.  We ended up with a secondary inspection at the Atlanta airport, cause we had brought home some Cuban cigars.  But, because we are Canadian and we were in transit; it turned out not to be a problem.

We arrived back at our rig in Strathroy on Thursday, and much to both of our delight; we didn’t have any issues at all opening things up.  Even our Escape started on the first try… yay!

And yesterday, we went to Blenheim to celebrate Uncle Leo’s 80th birthday.  It was him who we brought the Cuban cigars for; and we’re hoping that he enjoys them.

It was great to see so many of Mike’s family and share lots of laughs.  We even got 3 games of pepper in.  And the day ended with Uncle Leo being roasted.  Lots of laughs for sure.

We thoroughly enjoyed our time in Jaco again this year.  The weather was perfect (for us).  Averaged around 100 F for most of January, February and March. 

The past month the rainy season had started; and although most days started out clear and sunny; by mid to late afternoon, the clouds had moved in, followed shortly by rain, thunder and lighting.  Really cut down on our sunset time; as most nights it was so cloudy that there was nothing so see.

One night a few weeks back, it was raining sideways; and harder then either of us had ever heard.  And lots of lighting storms.  In fact, on more than one occasion, we headed out to the beach to watch a passing storm over the Pacific… Nice!

We also had 8 earthquakes (that we were aware of).  The most powerful one was a 6.1, but no damage from what we heard. 

And talk about fun!  We met so many wonderful people this year.  The Pensacola group; The Canadian Crew; Phil and his daughters; Liz our landlady; and of course the locals from last year.  Joey/Eida; Chris, Claudio, Herman, Jose. 

And then our own company, Victoria for a month, followed by her parents David and Catherine.  We really enjoyed having all 3 of you come for a visit.  And getting to share a little of Costa Rica with you.

A lot of people over the weekend have asked if we’re heading back next year; and our standard answer is “probably not”.  Even though we had a great time and a lot of fun… the world is a very big place and there’s so many other places to see; and lots of new people to meet. 

I haven’t taken many pictures lately; but there’s still a few to see.  Click here to take a look.