Ok, FINALLY! we made a month long trip back to our beautiful mountain top in Costa Rica and it was O SOOOO Wonderfuliciously amazing!!!

We know a lot of you have been waiting for the pandemic to start subsiding before resuming regular travel around the globe and I think that time has come. TIME TO GO VITIST COSTA RICA!!! At least it was time for us. We all missed home SOOO bad. Just a quick bit – since we are dual citizens, we Got one way tickets down to CR but waited until we felt like coming back to book our return trip and it paid off. I grabbed return tickets about a week before we decided to head back stateside and they were only 215USD direct from SJO to EWR. Round trip I think we made it at about $460/ticket. Now I know most of you will need to show proof of return travel to get into Costa Rica, but remember to check your tickets regularly since many airlines will refund you $$ if you ever see that same ticket advertised on their site for less. Just set the notifications and call them if you see it for less! and take a pic of the price on the site. (btw, my daughter helped me set that up – there is NO SHAME in getting someone age 2+ to help you navigate today’s technology!)

But I digress – Costa Rica’s covid is not as loose as my daughter made it out to be back in 2020. She lived through the beginning of it in San Ramon from March 2020 to September 2020. She said no one really wore masks, and even my friend said people were lax about it in lots of public places. NOT ANY MORE. EVERYONE in San Ramon wore masks indoors and outdoors and I got stares for not wearing my mask out in the streets. I swear, I think they would have made me wash out my mouth with hand sanitizer at every store entrance if they were allowed to. LITERALLY every store (ok, maybe not the little local bodegas, but all the others) checks your temperature and makes you use hand sanitizer before walking in the front door. Many of the hand sanitizing stations check your temperature on your wrist at the same time as spitting their gooey chemicals on you – its pretty cool. At the malls, they check your temp before going in but then every store requires you to apply hand sani before entering. Every grocery store has a line outside so people can have their temps checked. It actually got annoying by the end of the trip since we had so much to do and so much shopping to get our rentals back in shape for all of you! You each owe me a gallon of hand lotion – my hands are still in detox.

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But moving on to the trip – many of our friends are social distancing but not masking person to person since most interaction is outside. Ironically, in NYC all our parks are open since the science shows outdoors transmission is almost nonexistent as long as you socially distance. Unfortunately, Costa Rica did not get the memo, at least not in San Ramon. The whole central park is closed, yellow police ribbons crisscross all the benches, sitting areas and playground, plus the stadium is closed and most schools. You go to the beach in Tamarindo and Brasilito area, however, and everything is open – even schools are in person, some private ones maskless. Sounds like the US, right? Depends on where you go. So When visiting Costa Rica during the pandemic, check the kind of lifestyle you want to lead here, and find the place that fits it best. Contact us if you want same help 😉

Below are some pics from the Museo de los Niños in San Jose. This time they grouped us into 20 person tours who visited each exhibit for exactly 5 minutes with a guide and again we had to use hand sani every time we entered and left a new exhibit!

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Aside from the Pandemic, everything is open, stores seem to be thriving, and all our favorite places are still open and doing well. My daughter takes the bus into town all the time from the bottom of our mountain and said people just wear their mask, and hand sanitize when getting off. Simple as that.

So is San Ramon still the same during the Pandemic? The rain is still wet, the sun is still bright, and the clouds are still filled with beautiful lightning storms for an evening of delight overlooking the Pacific Seaboard from our perch at 4000 ft above sea level. So if you think it is time for you too – come visit our newly revamped Vacation Rentals in San Ramon Costa Rica. Hopefully we will be back soon as well. Idania will help you settle in, though she does not speak a lick of English, but let us know what you need – the one thing we have learned this past year, if nothing else, is we can make anything happen, even remotely. Pura vida!!!!

Wellness, Relaxation, Adventure – what’s our Pura vida? Find it here at Vista Valverde…

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