So already just over two weeks have flown past. Can’t believe how quickly it’s gone. A quick update for those of you who would like to know how it’s going for us. Sorry not more photos  - available internet service is not up to it - will add later when have full wi-fi! Just I know that the next 10 days will be super busy and if I don’t post now, I won’t end up posting at all.

We’ve been up at six each morning, half an hour walk to school alongside the noisy, smelly and bonkers rush hour traffic and we’re in class by 8am. Then, four hours in class each day with the very patient Carlos, our teacher. As it’s out of season, it’s been like personal tuition, it’s just been us with him. We will find out soon, out in the real world, how much of the Spanish has stuck. Its one thing to write up notes in the afternoons and believe that we understand the written words but it’s a completely different matter to be questioned in a shop or restaurant and again feel like a rabbit caught in the headlights, not understanding one word! My little grey cells have been truly stretched, uncomfortably so. But maybe, while here in Costa Rica, we may thank our future selves for putting in the work. Time will tell.

During this time, we have stayed with a host family. Whilst it has been a fabulous opportunity to experiment with real Costa Rican Spanish, maybe we hadn’t fully realised the implications of staying with a family, and a young family at that. Our host ‘mother’ has unfailingly made us delicious, traditional breakfasts and evening meals and even did our laundry each week - that felt really weird for me! I realise how I am not usedto having someone do ‘my’ jobs for me and I’m not sure that I could get used to it. And she did all this while incessantly looking after her own family with so much patience and love. Her two boys have boundless energy that doesn’t need much recharge time; just watching them wears me out! I so hope we haven’t burdened her more. 

Everyone we have met, bar none, has been friendly, polite, courteous and considerate. I love that. No one seems too busy to talk. Nearly everyone passing in the street says the equivalent of hello. Everywhere people have this relaxed easy-going vibe. Guess that’s the Pura Vida that Costa Rica is known for. What doesn’t sit so well however is the apparent need for the cages that all the houses in the neighbourhood have, the impenetrable gates, fences and barred windows. It’s not everywhere, but it is here in the less affluent suburbs. Apparently these security measures have been made only recently, in the last 10 years. We haven’t really got to the bottom of it. There seems to be a perception that there is lots of crime, but we’ve not seen anything to back that up, even in the city centre, and even having been walking out and about at night.It’s so at odds with how the people are. Maybe it’s because of the old rare event fallacy that the media love, that blood sells and all that. Who knows and I kind of hope I don’t find out. 

In the past few weeks, we have travelled by most means possible, buses, taxis, train, shuttle bus, and even Uber! Uber? I know right! Wetreated ourselves and flew in a single engine 20-seat plane - locally known as a puddle-jumper - a taxi-boat and even an electric propelled canoe. It’s been an adventure. We were the only passengers on the plane, again due to it being low season. When we realised the guy who walked us out to the plane and offered to take our photo was actually the pilot, we had to laugh. The plane, however, gave the biggest adrenaline rush I’ve experienced for some while. Taking off in a heavy storm with wild thunder and lightening all around made the heart pump a bit faster I can tell you! But, the skilled pilots took it in their stride, with a smile of course, and we live to tell another tale. After landing on the laughable tiny airstrip, we waited around for the man we had to meet, and some locals pointed out a two-toed sloth with her baby. I found it all very touching. 

Due to limited time-scales of having only two nights available to go all that way, the plane really was our only option to be able to fit in the trip to Tortoguero and the only chance to see a turtle laying eggs as the turtles stop laying soon until June next year. All I can say was that it was awesome. We had to wait nearly 2½ hours on the beach, in the dark with more electrical storms rattling around us but wow, it was well worth the wait to witness it. I realise that it’s not everyone’s cup of tea to be part of a group crowding round the rear end of an oblivious turtle in the throes of pushing out eggs! I may never witness it again, our future generations may never get the chance neither. I feel so fortunate. 

The plane isn’t the only mode of transport to push up the heart rate. Just walking along the road is alarming at times and always there’s a need to be on alert. Not for the reasons you may think, but more from a safety point of view due to the paving and it’s lack thereof. Back home, it would be our council’s Health and Safety department’s worstnightmare. It is clear that the suing for negligence culture is not here in Costa Rica. The rain falls here as if you are under a power shower and the water has got to go somewhere. How they deal with it here is to have a ditch running along the pavement between it and the road. In some places 2 foot deep by about 1 foot varying up to 3 foot wide in places. Occasionally there’s the odd manhole cover missing or badly broken too – lethal if you are not paying attention, in the dark or are visually impaired.  Fortunately we found a more sedate route away from the potholes and storm drains, along part of the railway. 

Now how do I describe the railroad… Generally, both in San Jose Central and here in San Pedro, wherever you are you can hear the persistent honks of the train horns, even if it’s only in the distance, they are going on over the drone of the traffic. The train tracks run in the middle of the road in some places and across major junctions in others.  Here and there, there are barriers, only half way across the road, occasionally with a bell warning. It appears to be solely a common sense system of give way. Pedestrians and vehicles give way to the train, purely alerted by the deafening honks of the coming train – even if you were deaf, you’d feel their vibrations. Every time I am amazed that in the shuffle every one seems to emerge unscathed. These train drivers certainly like to honk about every few hundred yards, at every possible opportunity and crossing point. Each time the pattern is different and there may be a chance, if you lived nearby, you could possibly tell which drivers are which by the way they honk their horn! I wont be missing that! I am not a city girl, I’velearnt that much so far.

So now we are on the brink of the next stage of our adventure. I’m about to meet up with the field base team and into the countryside we’ll go. I far prefer the countryside and I am so looking forward to experiencing a new kind of environment. Not that the pace will be slower. I have received my briefing information on the position I am to cover here and I get the impression that the being rushed off my feet will continue. I’ll keep you posted.