Every Wednesday we visit our secret location.  It’s a beach called Playa Linda – apparently three times sign posts have been put up to signal where it is off the road and each time they have been ripped down by locals.  The Ticos want to keep it a secret and we can see why; it is so utterly beautiful and unspoilt.  The golden sand goes on for miles each way, lined with coconut trees and not a soul in sight.

We have been very fortunate to be included in a friendly gathering of holiday makers and those who have moved out here.  We have met some wonderful people.  Dave, who has lived here for 30 years, organises the day bringing with him body boards, Boca (American boules), golf clubs, parasols and chairs.  Last week we arrived to a glorious array of colourful parasols and a local selling coconuts for a dollar.   Slicing the tops off the coconuts with a machete knife the milk sprayed out offering a refreshing drink while basking on a baking beach with sand, so hot it scalded your feet!

Golf took on a new form with all sorts of crazy and fun rules.  Summer saw a golf ball  flying towards her. She lifted up her leg to miss it.  Too late! It cracked into her ankle.  Hobbling back to the parasols she spent the rest of the afternoon with her foot raised and bottles of iced water resting against it.  She was still smiling, just!

On the way home we stopped to check out the Caiman that our friends Jim and JoAnne had spotted in the mangroves.  No sign of it that day, we were secretly relieved I think.  So we headed off to find the turtle sanctuary just up the road. Costa Rica offers dozens of nesting beaches for sea turtles and there are a number of sanctuaries around its coast providing protection from poachers who are after their eggs.

Behind the beach at Matapalo there was a fenced off area of sand with individual wire cages set in lines making a grid.  Each cage had a number of turtle eggs buried below it with the date they had been buried.  Every evening volunteers would go out along the beach with torches waiting for the turtles to come ashore, make a hole in the sand and bury their eggs.  The volunteers would then take the eggs back to the sanctuary, bury them in the sand there and put a cage over them with a date on it.  About fifty days later the eggs hatch. The day we went they had 45 turtles hatch and that evening they took them down to the sea and watched them crawl into the ocean.Driving back afterwards it was absolutely pitch black in the forest and very eerie and we were very glad to get back to our cosy home, high up in the rainforest and plan the adventures for the following day.

Kate