Thursday, July 31, 2025: Welcome to our July cocktail hour. Let’s have some Flor de Caña 12-year-aged rum with Fresca, a drink easily made at home here in Costa Rica. We can congregate on the balcony and enjoy breezes and views of Lake Arenal. If you listen carefully, you can hear the grunting of the howler monkeys and you might even see a toucan fly clumsily by. You can visit our resident hummingbird, who has recently built a nest in a flower bush outside our kitchen window. You can even come along vicariously on our getaways to Ometepe, Nicaragua and to Tamarindo on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. Sunset is at around 6:00 every night of the year; twilight brings with it lots of mosquitoes, so be sure to slather on the mosquito repellent.
I have a variety of soda, seltzer water, or bebida de aloe for those of you who don’t drink. Thanks for joining us in our escape into a peaceful corner of the world, not a place completely free from danger, but safe from certain things we cannot abide, like living in a police state under a fascist government.
July marked our second month in Guanacaste, Costa Rica. It was in some ways a busy month and in other ways a laid-back, homebody-type month.
Our exercise & personal care routine
Three days of each week, we get up just after dawn (around 5:30), have breakfast and soon go to Monster Gym for our workouts. On Wednesdays we go to Living Forest for a yoga class. The remaining days of the week, we go on walks through hilly terrain, mostly to and around Tronadora or to the top of San Luis. Only once this month did I do an online Pilates class. Mike goes to swim in the cove near our house at least once a week.
I finally found a beauty salon where I got a pedicure and asked about hair straightening.
Dining out with a few musical interludes
We tried a lot of local restaurants during the month. At Soda La Macha, we found delicious tilapia and a pleasant setting. We went to Taco Tuesday at Lake Arenal Brewery where we danced to Jimmy Loop while playing handmade musical instruments. We ate out at Guadalupe, La Pradera, and Paseo del Viento (a food court near Monster Gym where Mike got a hamburger at 506 Snacks and I got a tostada cup filled with shrimp ceviche). We drove to Nuevo Arenal one evening for a nice dinner at Moya’s Place. We had ice cream treats at Pop’s in Tilaran. We enjoyed a lunch mid-walk at Soda Doña Chila’s in Tronadora. We had ceviche at Cevichera La Pasadita in San Luis. And finally, on Sunday the 27th, we went to hear Smooth Jazz on the Lake by Eureka at La Tortuga, on the north side of Lake Arenal.
Other events
We looked at and pretty much decided to rent a condo at Lake Arenal Condos for our second six months here. We went to a Blessing of the Boats at the cove.
A visit to the family in Ometepe, Nicaragua
We took a trip to Ometepe, Nicaragua to visit Adam and family for 6 nights in the middle of the month. It was stressful crossing the border with our car from Costa Rica to Nicaragua, but we managed to survive it and the ferry ride across to the island. We had a great visit with the family as the girls were out of school for the entire week plus Adam and Maria closed their business for the week so we could all spend time together. We saw Cristy, who was voted Queen of her school, march in a parade in Altagracia. We watched Andrea and Maria practice for a gymnastics competition coming up in Managua at their neighbor Manja’s gymnastics pavilion.
Mike and I took a chocolate tour at El Pital Chocolate Paradise and drank ceremonial doses of cacao. We walked on the beach most mornings and on the road to Santa Domingo two mornings. We swam in Lago Nicaragua and played at the beach with Adam, Maria and the kids. We ate meals with the family: takeout pizza from Pizzeria Mediterranea, lunch at Ojo de Agua, and dinner at Libélula (Dragonfly) Café and at Xalli. Mike and I ate on our own at Xalli, Cafe Campestre, El Pital, Bûstavö, and Pan de Mama. It was the best family time we’ve ever had in Nicaragua and we loved it all.
Soon after we returned to Costa Rica after our visit to Nicaragua, we heard that Andrea won the gold medal for her floor exercises at the gymnastics competition in Managua. We are so proud of her!
Tamarindo: a beach break
Finally, the last two days of July, we took a trip to Tamarindo, one of the most developed beaches, known for its surfing culture, on the Pacific beach. We hung out at the beach and at Langosta Beach Club, ate meals at Cha Cafe, Fish & Cheeses, Little Lucha and Kabuto Sushi, went shopping, and took an Estuary Boat Tour through Parque Nactional Marino Las Baulas de Guanacaste. It was hot, humid and sunny, quite a difference from our weather near Lake Arenal.
IsVeranillo here?
Apparently July to August is considered the “little high season” (also known as veranillo or “little summer”) with pleasant weather with minimal rain, moderate crowds and lower prices. We definitely lucked out in Ometepe with Veranillo, as we had near-perfect weather. In Costa Rica, it was a mixed bag.
Homebody stuff
I finished 3 books in July, bringing my total to 28/48. I especially enjoyed Speak, Silence by Kim Echlin. I learned a lot about the Panama Canal in the fictional The Great Divide by Cristina Henríquez. We watched two movies: The Life List, which I enjoyed, and Nonnas, which was predictable and mediocre. We started watching a couple of new series: The Survivors and Letters from the Past (Gelecege Mektuplar). We finished watching Thank You, Next, The Secrets We Keep, Istanbul Encyclopedia, The Manny and Sara: Woman in the Shadows. We continued watching Younger, North of North, Seinfeld, Togetherness, Pernille, Tuiskoms and Severance.
On my Costa Rica blog, you can find my weekly recaps of our lives in Costa Rica:
- a week of salon services & pizza; yoga, a sauna & soak; an exploration of tilarán on foot; & a walk to a pitaya farm {week 5/52}
- a week of lazy days, warrior wasps, swimming horses, & boat blessings {week 6/52}
- our first visit to ometepe, nicaragua to visit the family {week 7/52}
- a slow-motion recovery from our nicaragua trip & some unsettling warnings about safety around lake arenal {week 8/52}
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I hope you’ll share how the year is panning out for you, and what plans you have for the summer and the rest of this year.
How did your July go? Did you have any special family gatherings? Have you welcomed any new additions to your family? Did you celebrate any birthdays or anniversaries? Have you read any good books that can inform your worldview, seen any good movies, binge-watched any television series? Have you planned any adventures or had any summer getaways? Have you dreamed any dreams? Have you gone to any exotic restaurants, cooked any new dishes? Have you been surprised by anything in life? Have you learned anything new, taken any classes or just kept up with the news? Have you sung along with any new songs? Have you undertaken any new exercise routines? Have you marched or otherwise participated in political protests? Have you been battered, or alternately, uplifted by any news?
Please share your July with me by giving me the plot below, or a link to a post in your blog that tells about your month.
~ wander.essence ~ 
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