Seems
we've been stuck on the Happy Holidays page for too long!
So,
now the question is: why?
Why has Life in Punta been wishing all of our friends a Happy
Holidays for 3 months? Could be because we are REALLY in the holiday
spirit down here. Or, could be because we've gotten REALLY lazy!
Or could be because we are actually working REALLY hard (by Tico
standards, of course) and haven't had time. Or maybe...just maybe....it's
a combination of all of the above.
So now that we have finally gotten around to it, the question
is....where do we start? How do we catch up? We, of course, had
a wonderful holiday season. We've had lots of visitors since December
that have spent some time with us and shared the "Pura Vida"
life. We've decided to try to segment the past 3 months into several
different stories to be posted over the next few days - all with
great pics to enjoy.
So
this page will cover some activities - of the Christmas holidays.
Santa visits!
December 24th: It's Christmas and Maya was - as expected - very
excited. We had our Christmas dinner, etc - and all went to bed
- anxiously awaiting Santa's arrival. At sometime around 1 am...Manuel
woke up, sat up in bed and realized the house was SHAKIN! Quickly
realizing what it was, Manuel jumped out of bed, ran into Maya's
bedroom, grabbed her and ran down the stairs - almost falling
- while screaming for Emmanuelle to wake up and get out of bed.
Maya and Manuel found themselves outside - pitch black - a fully
naked in a light rain and the ground still shaking. Maya interpreted
this activity as nothing less then Santa's arrival, and he shook
the house as he came down to deliver the many presents (childhood
is a beautiful thing!!) What really took place was a strong earthquake
(6.3) that shook the whole country. Emmanuelle never woke up and
experience the somewhat impressive event.
Since
then, we have felt 2 other earthquakes (5.8 and 6.1). The last
5.8 was 'weaker', but also occurred in the middle of the night.
It felt like a huge truck had run into our house. Most locals
here say it was the strongest jolt felt on the coast since the
famous 7.6 earthquake of 1991. An earthquake in the middle of
the night is sort of neat, in the sense that the jungle is awakened,
and you have a sudden chaotic chorus of monkeys and birds and
God knows what else screaming as they have been woken up so abruptly.
The earthquakes caused no significant structural damage.
Surf
Report
Manuel has finally taken the plunge and taken up surfing. He's
taken a few lessons, almost gotten killed once or twice, collected
a few bruises and almost drowned once - but Hey - it's great!
There is definitely a correlation between being on a mountain
top and skiing to being in the ocean waiting for the next wave.
Like so many things in life, you have to experience it to understand
it! The January / February surf season was busy with LOTS of surfers
in the ocean and plenty of big waves (too big for Manolo). Since
then, the ocean has come down and the surfing is actually good
for beginners...maybe that's why the web pages haven't been updated!
