A Perfectico Storm

The last time I wrote about Covid back in April there were very few cases here. The government had shut down the borders very quickly (quicker than in the UK) and for a few months things were kept extremely tight and under control. There were only repatriation flights. Only citizens could come in and they had to quarantine for two weeks. The land borders were closed and tourist visas were extended several times and currently up till mid November. We were due to do our first visa run in April, as you need to re-up your visa every 90 days, but we haven’t had to do one at all.  For a few months 10 people total had died and there were a handful of cases a day - and a handful of people getting better and for quite a while (around 3 months) the number of active cases was around 400-600 and dropping. Masks were brought in and there were driving restrictions. You couldn’t drive on some days and after certain times. Bars, beaches and national parks were shut. Churches couldn’t meet. Events ...

In the beforetime - before we left the UK, before *the virus* - when the “packing up our entire lives and going to live in the tropics” process was feeling particularly tough and I wasn’t 100% convinced my marriage or my sanity were going to make it here in one piece, there was an image that got me through... it had sand, sea, sun.  It actually took us a while to get to the beach and our first few beach experiences weren’t really what I’d been envisioning (we WILL get there eventually though!). BEACH #1 - PLAYA JACÓ The first beach we walked on was in Jacó (pronouced "hack-O" to rhyme with "whacko"). We went to Jacó on the way to meet a couple for a prospective house sit. We just went for an overnight. It was in late January which is the middle of summer here and we hadn’t done much acclimatising. We were still getting used to it being pitch black dark at 6pm and really hot and humid at the same time. Boy was it HOT. We got to Jacó as it was getting dark and had a...