the january cocktail hour: a belated nicaraguan christmas & a trip to costa rica’s central pacific coast

January 31, 2026: Welcome to our January cocktail hour. Let’s have martinis and cosmopolitans to start off our year. We can stay inside to keep out of the constant rain and wind, or we can venture out to our balcony on the rare sunny day; maybe we’ll be lucky enough to see rainbows or the Wolf Supermoon. You can even come along vicariously on our trip to Ometepe, Nicaragua, where we celebrated a second Christmas with the family AND/OR to Parque Nacional Manuel Antonio, Quepos, Parque Nacional Marino Ballena, and Uvita, where we had an escape from the dreary weather. Sunset is is now at around 5:45 every night and if it’s not raining, we can enjoy some magnificent painterly skies at sunset.

I have a variety of soda, seltzer water, or bebida de aloe for those of you who don’t drink. Mike can also whip up some excellent smoothies. Thanks for joining us in our escape into a peaceful corner of the world.

January marked our eighth month in Guanacaste, Costa Rica. We had a busy month because we traveled to Nicaragua to visit the family and at the end of the month, we went on a 5-night trip to Costa Rica’s Central Pacific coast.

Meanwhile, back in the U.S., the country continued descending into madness. The U.S. attacked Venezuela and kidnapped its dictatorial president, Nicolás Maduro, and then Trump apprehended two Venezuelan oil tankers and is putting the sale proceeds from the oil in an offshore account which he controls; two American citizens have been murdered in cold blood by masked Nazi ICE agents in Minnesota; Trump threatened to take over Greenland and then to impose heavy tariffs on EU countries, and then backed off the threat (for now). Meanwhile, war continues to rage in Ukraine, with our president siding with Putin, the invader. The whole country is turning into a pariah on the world stage. I hope that everyone boycotts anything and everything in the U.S. for the foreseeable future.

Homebody stuff

Our time at home was spent doing the regular things: admiring the Wolf Supermoon, going to Monster Gym, walking when the weather permitted, booking the rest of our Guatemala/Belize trip for March, and writing in my journal(s). I committed to doing the 30-day New Year’s Journaling Project with Suleika Jaouad which has kept me busy. I’m also making more time for reading during the afternoons. We played three games of Scrabble, one of which I won, and two of which Mike won. We also started our “Multiple Parrots” puzzle.

I finished 4 books in January bringing my total to 4/48. I especially enjoyed Eva’s Eye (Inspector Konrad Sejer, #1) by Karin Fossum. We watched four movies, Rental Family, which was adorable; Goodbye June, which didn’t hold my interest; and As It Is in Heaven (Så som i himmelen), a movie in which a retired international conductor returns to his hometown in Sweden and manages the church choir, affecting the lives of the townspeople; and finally Mona Lisa Smile, an 2003 oldie but goodie. We started watching the mini-series: Families Like Ours (Familier som vones), a dystopian series about the closing down of Denmark when rising water levels threaten the country’s survival. We also started His & Hers, Ripple, The Upshaws (S7), and Between Lands (Entre Tierras). We finished watching Home for Christmas (Hjem til jul) (S3), The Beast in Me, Grantchester (S3), and Platonic (S2). We continued watching Younger, Seinfeld, The Manny (S3), Untamed (Yosemite), Emily in Paris (S5), and A Man on the Inside.

Dining Out

We had pizza at Gutierrez Family Pizza early in the month, followed by trying out a new restaurant up the mountain behind our condos in Parcelas, La Cervecería. When we returned from Nicaragua, we went with Anne and Jack to Lake Arenal Brewery; it will probably be the last time we eat there because the food is disappointing and expensive and the service is abysmal. We met with some politically like-minded folks in Nuevo Arenal for a Friday night happy hour at Pizzeria el Bambú and then had dinner after at Moya’s Place, where we listened to the funky sounds of singer Maf é Tulà. I enjoyed some Aztec Soup at Soda Doña Chila one rainy Tuesday, while Mike had his favorite Chifrijo. After Mike visited his doctor for a follow-up visit after his carpal tunnel surgery, we ate at Guacamole Mexican Restaurant within walking distance of his Orthocell office in Liberia. And finally, after our friend Carol finally returned from California, where she went for Thanksgiving & Christmas, we had drinks in our condo and then ate dinner at Lake Arenal Pizza & Seafood.

A second Christmas with the family in Nicaragaua

We ventured to Ometepe, Nicaragua from January 6-14 to visit the family and celebrate a belated Christmas. We braved the challenging border and stayed a night in San Juan del Sur before tackling the ferry the next day. Once we arrived in Nicaragua, we set up our Christmas tree on the family’s front porch, handed over one of our floor fans, bedding and other stuff we’d brought from Costa Rica. The girls performed their gymnastics routines several times. One night, we brought take-out pizza from Pizzería Mediterranea and gave the kids their Christmas gifts. We ate lunch at Pan de Mama, and another night we returned there for a poetry reading, after which Mike and I clashed a bit. The kids and family came over to Xalli to swim in the lake and hang out numerous times. I got a stomach bug or ate something disagreeable – I’ll never know the cause – which left me feeling miserable for four of the days we were there. We ate an Arayes and Avocado Love bruschetta at Bûstavö and green chicken curry and chicken schwarma at Café Campestre. We took Cristy and Andrea to the Saturday market for lunch, ice cream and bracelets, enjoyed a sunset at Totoco, and spent a lovely day with the family at El Ojo de Agua. We ate a lunch at El Pital, where I ate two bites of Mike’s lunch since I still had no appetite. Finally, the whole family had dinner together at Delfín Azul, a new beachside restaurant in Balgüe. Then we made our way back across the ferry and the border, arriving back home at 5:00 on Wednesday the 14th.

Drives, walks and local explorations

We haven’t been able to walk much because of constant rain and wind. We managed to take two walks near Sabalito, one in strong winds, and one where we got soaked by rain and battered about by wind. On Saturday morning, the 24th, we walked from Parcelas Quebrada Azul, a small town on the ridge above our condos where all the windmill farms are. It was astoundingly noisy up there. Not only was the wind howling as if through a wind tunnel, but it swished the tall grasses and clattered through the trees. The wind turbines themselves were noisy as well, making squealing sounds, mechanical rumbles of engines as well as clickety-clacks likened to a train going over train tracks. It was wild up there, and I had to hold on to my hat to keep it from being whisked away forever.

A road trip to Costa Rica’s Central Pacific Coast: Parque Nacional Manuel Antonio/Quepos & Parque Nacional Marino Ballena/Uvita

On Tuesday the 27th, we drove four hours southeast to Quepos, where we ate Pad Thai with shrimp and a Chifrijo Tico at Restaurante El Gran Escape – topped off with chilled cervezas – and shopped for sunglasses and tee-shirts. We hung out poolside at La Vela Boutique Hotel in Manuel Antonio. On Wednesday, we went to Parque Nacional Manuel Antonio, one of Costa Rica’s oldest but smallest parks, with tropical forest edging right up to the Pacific beaches. It is one of Costa Rica’s most popular, and thus crowded, parks. We swam and basked on Playa Espadilla Sur, walked around Punta Catedral, and then cooled off at Playa Manuel Antonio. After showering off all the sand, we ate lunch at Buru Garden by the Park and later shared a wood-fired pizza at our hotel. On Thursday, we cruised for 3 1/2 hours on the Tom Cat Catamaran in the waters off Manuel Antonio, where we had piña coladas, a lunch of pasta with (dry & overcooked) mahi-mahi brochettes and swam and snorkeled off the boat. Mike slid down the slide and jumped off the deck. Later, we grazed on Italian meatballs and pasta with burrata at Victoria’s Modern Italian near Quepos. On Friday, we checked out of our hotel and went on a spice tour at Villa Vanilla Spice Farm, where we learned about the cultivation and processing of vanilla, cinnamon, hibiscus, allspice, cacao, and pepper; nibbled on leaves, bark and peppercorns; and topped off the tour with a sweeping view of the farm and a vanilla ice cream tasting with “crumbly accoutrements.” We stopped for a curry and a satay at Phat Noodle in Dominical, then drove on to Uvita, where we checked in at Alborada Boutique Stay; we had a mediocre dinner at Zaika Indian Cuisine Bar & Grill. On Saturday the 31st, we walked along the endless flat and hot beach at Parque Nacional Marino Ballena to see the Whale’s Tail, a sand bar shaped like a whale’s tail that juts into the Pacific. We cooled off at our hotel pool, had a quesadilla and a wrap at Aroma a Café, then went on a little shopping spree at a cute boutique called Sol de Noche, where I found three dresses with the help of the friendly Argentinian shop owner Natalia. We finished off our time in Uvita by relishing another Italian meal at Ristorante Italiano @DolceUvita.

My Winter BINGO card

I checked off a number of things on my Winter BINGO cards in January:

• Visited la familia in Nicaragua. Celebrated our second Christmas with them.
• Got a wine-colored pedicure from my granddaughter Cristy.
• Finished four books: The Atomic City Girls by Janet Beard, The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina by Zoraida Córdova, Eva’s Eye by Karin Fossum, and Where There Was Fire by John Manuel Arias.
• Watched a Nordic movie & drank hot chocolate: We watched the movie As It Is in Heaven (Så som i himmelen) about a famous international conductor who returns to Norrland, his small childhood town in Sweden, for early retirement. He begins to help with the church choir, and changes the town and the lives of the people.
• Visited Manuel Antonio National Park/Quepos and Marino Ballena National Park/Uvita.

Family Happenings

Alex sent some pictures of little Allie dressed in her new butterfly costume. The whole of the U.S. East Coast suffered through a snowstorm on the weekend of January 24-25 and Allie was able to go out in the snow. Apparently she didn’t like it because when it stuck to her, she felt it was “dirty.” They continued to experience sub-freezing temperatures for the remainder of January so are living in the midst of a frozen tundra.

On my Costa Rica blog, you can find my weekly recaps of our lives in Costa Rica for the month of January:

• welcoming the new year in costa rica {week 31/52}
• another visit to nicaragua: a belated christmas celebration & family happenings (part 1) {week 32/52}
• last few days in nicaragua, return to costa rica, & friendly gatherings {week 33/52}
• another doctor visit & a down week before another adventure {week 34/52}
• exploring parque nacional manuel antonio, quepos, parque nacional marino ballena & uvita {week 35/52}

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I hope you’ll share how the year is panning out for you, and what plans you have for the winter and the upcoming new year.

How did your January 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 winter or holiday 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 created a Winter Bingo Card or dream list? Have you made any new friends? 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 January with me by giving me the plot below, or a link to a post in your blog that tells about your month.