la gran aventura: Costa Rica Weeks 2 & 3! Pura Vida!

Hi All! Sorry for the lack of blogging lately. We've been settling into life in Costa Rica, starting work, finding our first little piece of beach heaven. What a wonderful crazy couple weeks it has been.

The House
I think I mentioned in my last blog post that we had finally found a place to leave here (phew!). We're now all moved in and settled. I love it! The house is a little casita on a small hill behind another property. By day, you can see all of San Jose (or it could just be other suburbs, I truthfully have no idea). By night, the city lights are clear. We've even been able to see fireworks displays from miles away.

Here are some photos of the house and its fruit trees (naranjilla, papaya, and some other fruit yet to be identified). mmmmmmmm.

Walking up the stairs to the house...

Mmmmm Naranjillas

Mmmmm Papayas

The View from our Patio.

The View from the Back

Mmmmm Unidentified Fruit Tree

The house is not only beautiful, but it also comes with pets! Our landlord has two dogs and three cats that roam the property and have taken to hanging out in our living room. Yesterday it felt like Wild Kingdom in here!

Life Outside of the Casita
Aside from settling in to our new Costa Rican digs, Dan and I also started work this week. I'll let Dan blog on his job later, but here's a quick note about mine. I'm working as a Visiting Professional with CEJIL, the Center for Justice and International Law, in San Jose. The work thus far has been super interesting! I'm working on cases involving indigenous rights, LGBT rights, and fair labor practices throughout Central America. Working, speaking, and writing in Spanish all day has been quite challenging, but I'm hoping with time it'll become easier.

The Beach Getaway
We have thankfully been able to get out of the city a little bit and see Costa Rica's beaches. Last weekend we headed to Cahuita, a small town on the Caribbean coast about four hours outside of San Jose. The weekend was a gift to Dan for his birthday (tomorrow!), but happened to fall during mine, so it was a double celebration.

Cahuita is literally a two-street town with dirt roads, a lot of monkeys, and not a ton of people. Most of all, it was GORGEOUS-- long stretches of beaches with few people, warm water, but sadly only glimpses of sun. The beach outside our hotel was black sand. It looked beautiful from the photos online. Unfortunately, we visited Playa Negra the one week of the year it was totally clogged with wood from heavy rains in the mountains. Whoopsie!

Fortunately, the white sand beaches of Cahuita National Park were only a walk away and were absolutely pristine! I didn't bring my camera on that trip as I was afraid of getting it stolen while swimming. I wish I had since it was gorgeous. We hiked the 2 miles to Cahuita Point, got confronted by a very angry Costa Rican swamp racoon, a family of fearless monkeys, and felt like Robinson Crusoe (or in my case, Robina Crusoe). Here are some other fun photos from the trip: