Cabo Blanco

Our morning routine has been nailed down with yoga and then a hearty breakfast. The folks here even know I like hot sauce with my eggs and offer me a homemade sauce now (in the beginning they offered me sriracha, because apparently they love sriracha). Some photos of today’s morning yoga:





Today Marie and I booked a hike at the nature reserve and first conservation park in Costa Rica: Cabo Blanco. We learned Cabo means cape and our airport taxi driver took me, Marie, and Sarah - our retreat masseuse and de facto retreat leader to the park.

Upon arrival, the park ranger advised he was no longer accepting cash, but we should pay on our way out as his internet was down and could not charge our credit cards for the $12 foreigner fee. So we headed off on the trails and had a choice of the Danish trail which is a 2 km loop and the Swedish trail which was 5 kms one way. We decided on the harder Swedish trail which would be 10 km or roughly 6 miles roundtrip.

On our hike, we heard howler monkeys, heard many birds, saw a lizard, and many crabs. And we navigated the muddiness as it rained last night and technically this is rainy season. But we lucked out as it did not rain on us today despite our concerns and we made good time both ways. However, we were lapped by several pairs of young hikers. Some photos:











Here’s our packed lunch from the retreat caterer, since we were not at the resort:



We arrived at the famous beach, scarfed down our packed lunch, and walked around. We ultimately decided not to go in as the waves were thrashing and the beach was a little rocky. This may have been because we’re close to the full moon (the bioluminescence tour was cancelled for this reason). We were prepared to go in though and had packed for it:





On our way back, we made even better time, but for the last one km (which felt a lot longer), we hopped onto the Danish trail. Upon our arrival to the entrance, we realized the ranger had left - perhaps it was because his internet was down or presumably the park was closed? Anyhow, our taxi was ready to take us back to Montezuma.

As we headed to our hotel, we saw one of the hiking duos that had lapped us. They tried to hitchhike and although we initially turned them down, ultimately we felt like we should help them out. So they hopped into the back trunk area of the SUV. We learned they were French and brother and sister. This was a little surprising as we had seen her topless at the beach. Oh well, I guess they’re French? They were chatty and we dropped them off at the fork as they were staying in a hostel in town.

We returned to Aves and we dipped in the pool and enjoyed our late afternoon snack of a grilled whitefish and vegetables, with a fruit smoothie.

Then we had our evening yoga class which included relaxing pigeon poses and a nidra session which is close to sleeping:





Here’s a photo of our nightly walk back to our room after evening yoga - the hotel lit up with pretty lights:

Dinner was a tasty creamy pasta as we chatted about our days. Our retreat-mates had done an ATV tour today and were out and about exploring. As such, we decided we would do a little exploring all together tomorrow at Santa Theresa as our yoga retreat ends tomorrow!