The Costa Rican portion of our trip is coming to an end quicker than we originally expected… We originally had plane tickets on Air Madrid to return to France on the 20^th of February, which we had to purchase before returning into Costa Rica from Panama, to show that we were indeed leaving the country at some point. Unfortunately, out of the thousands of airlines out there, this is the one that had to file for bankruptcy and cancel all flights two weeks later…

Luckily enough, a headline on a Costa Rican newspaper caught my eye soon after that, which related the bad luck of the thousands of passengers stranded in airports right before Christmas… But we basically didn’t have a return ticket anymore…

Of course, the airline was unavailable to answer calls and it was not taking responsibility for anything… so after many unsuccessful attempts, we resorted to getting brand new tickets… that worked out OK, but now, instead of leaving around the 20^th of February, we’re leaving the 12^th, which was definitely cheaper… but… that’s less than a week away!

So we’re now getting psychologically ready for cold weather and enjoying our last few days of warmth and beach. For me, it’s a mixture of excitement at going home again and at the same time a bit of dread at the thought of the lovely Paris February weather (wet and cold), for which we’re definitely not prepared!

In the meantime though, let’s not waste time and take advantage of the last Costa Rican days for a little lesson in surfing technique, with Mr. Topp…

And here, the proper technique in doing a cut back…

And this is what the same technique should result in if applied to bigger waves (Playa Cocles).

And here, a great demonstration of the Nose-Ride.

And finally, last but not least, the tricky Walk-on-Water technique.

Tada! and if you can master these, you're on your way to good surfing...

OK, so this is what we will be doing (well, really, what Paul will be doing, and I will just do what I can… surfing well is definitely harder than it seems!) during our last few days in Puerto Viejo. We are due back in San Jose on Saturday for the last minute Mercado Central shopping and then on the plane on Monday.