How weird is this. With friends Joellen and Jonas and their daughter Astrid we decided to visit the Pacific Ridley Sea Turtles laying their eggs at the beach in Ostional National Wildlife Refuge. As we find a guide and start walking down the beach, trying to avoid all the broken eggs shards and egg goo, we are approached by a Japanese film crew. They are apparently filming a documentary about the turtles laying their eggs and the importance of preservation and they are asking if they can film our families as we visit the beach. I personally hate being interviewed and filmed, but ever professional JoEllen (former auctioneer so…)  steps right up and expertly answers all their questions and she naturally sounded like she knew all about turtles.

It was quite amazing seeing all these turtles in one place. Over a few days, several times a year, the arribadas (arrival) take place;  the turtles come to shore, slowly make their way up the beach, dig a hole, lay their eggs, and then equally slowly make their way back to the sea. Unfortunately there are so many turtles, laying so many eggs, that the beach gets over crowded and turtles that arrive later tend to dig up other turtles’ eggs and break them in the process. The last few days of the arribadas, teh ebach is full of rotten eggs and shells. Another issue is the ever present poaching of eggs. Poaching, selling, cooking and eating. Apparently these turtle eggs are a delicacy. Now adays the preserve is guarded even at night to protect the eggs and the baby turtles.

Visiting the beach is done with a guide. The guides were all biology students engaged in the preservation of the Costa Rican wildlife and our guide knew quite a lot and was very helpful. The cost was usd 10 per person and the guides are available at the entry to the beach. To get here make sure you have a good car since the roads are awful. We actually left our sedan at at he hotel and hired a driver with a jeep to take us to the beach for usd 50, arranged by the hotel. That was a good choice as we traversed several mini rivers which would have undoubtedly broken our car.

We stayed at the L’Aqua Viva Resort and Spa, about 15 minutes from the beach on the road between Nosara andPlaya Guiones. It was nice, almost deserted, in the middle of lots of greenery, just off the main road. The place felt kind of eery since no one was in the restaurant for dinner, the staff looked surprised to see us and we were alone most everywhere we went in the resort area, and it was generally just an odd feeling. For breakfast the next day there were more some people and it felt more normal, less like we were intruding. The greenery made it very humid and very, very mosquito prone. bring lots of repellant! As most places in Costa Rica the restaurant was expensive and the food bland, but it was nice and quiet. They had several pools and best of all small kid play area in a corner of the restaurant. This is quite brilliant, the kids are entertained and the parents get to relax!. The hotel is around usd 100 a night. The rooms are clean and modest, but overall the impression was of a place that has seen better days and that needs some staff overhaul, some service lessons and some cleaning up. Do not get a room near the road as the morning traffic noise is awful.

The next day, on our way back to Tamarindo, we stopped in Nosara for lunch. We found the much recommended Beach Dog Cafe. It was good! It was like finding an American Burger(sandwich joint hang out smack in the Costa Rican jungle. I had a chicken sandwich, with avocado, lettuce, tomato, bacon, the works, just like I always use to love back in San Francisco. It was so good, and actually the best thing I had in Costa Rica for the whole month. No offense Costa Rica but food is not your thing. The guy who ran the place was very friendly and sweet, great service and nice ambiance all round.! I highly recommend it if you are passing by. It was also on the less expensive side in Costa Rica.

Nosara and the small towns around are nice, they are not really much to speak of as towns, they seemed pretty deserted when we were there, not  a lot of people and very, very laid back, which is a good thing, but sometimes some more action is desired. Ss with many places in costa rica, if you are not into surfing, diving or yoga, well it is not much to do. The scenery is beautiful, the greenery very green and the beaches very nice.

The roads between Nosara and Tamarindo are ok. Some really bad ones with potholes, other new and paved. if it is the rainy season, do get a four wheel or at least a car that sits higher of the ground. A sedan will not make it and most insurance does not cover breakage due to your driving in unsuitable conditions.

Watching the turtles was magical. We were there just before sunset and it was quite amazing seeing all these turtles, fewer at first, more and more as it got darker, slowly make their way across the beach, leaving marks along the sand. My son found it utterly captivating (well, for the first half hour, after which went of on his own adventures). especially as the turtles were swept off back into the waves. Seeing how the eggs were laid, in the newly dug holes was another special moment. The kids got to experience first hand how nature ‘works’ and learn why it is so important to preserve their habitat and guard their eggs. I have never seen anything quite like it!.

I am a fan of Richard Dawkins. Some say he is too hard core, too unapologetically atheist, too hard on religion, too pro science. I don’t see it that way. Some say he is disrespectful of religion and they are right, he is. He describes the world as he sees it, as do many others. He describes the world based on reason, common sense and with an evidence based worldview. Not having respect for religion however it must be noted, is not the same as not having respect for people. If you do not agree, so be it. It is interesting though how many people can just not accept others pow. Debating is one thing, healthy and interesting, but to resort to shit-flinging? Well, it kind of  just reinforces Dawkins’s stand, doesn’t it. If you haven’t already check out his serie of documentaries on religion.

Someone actually wrote, and got paid, to write a piece called ‘How not to hate your job’ for Linkedin. What a depressingly low threshold. How to not hate, not love, or enjoy, but just ‘not hate’. How to basically suck it up and survive?

This must of course mean that hating a job is prevalent enough to warrant commissioning an article. God, just thinking about it is so depressing. I stay away from Linkedin, as I do from most social media, time sucks that they are. I do have a Linkedin account, to be honest. Ages ago, I  thought it would be good for my business, perhaps finding buyers or writers, but it never leads to much. Besides I refuse to pay for a premium account so I never use it for anything, my account is just there, ticking away. That is it. I am sure others see benefits from Linkedin, or at least I hope so. If one is into networking and such ‘stuff’ I am sure it is good for something, but regardless, damn it is depressing. All these work centered profiles, ugly lay out, boring emails, it is quite anachronistic, if one can say so about an internet site, when the site is not much older than the internet era itself. Besides Linkedin itself is so, well silly. Does anyone read what they print? I mean really read it? Does anyone question it? Anyone? Anyone?

Here is a choicy selection from the latest Linkedin posts:

“You go girl, managing your career”

(What about, ‘You go boy, managing your career’)

“10 signs you are working to hard, and how to stop”

How I ask, do people not know if they are working too much? How about anything beyond the contract? This is my reasoning, if a company wants my time, they pay for it. if my contract says 8 hours, then that’s what I will work. If they want more, then show me the mulah.

“Are you a dud in meetings?”

Who isn’t? Meetings are a time suck. Meetings are duds.

“Have you ever lied to get a job?”

Of course, how else would one get that first job waitressing or bartending or any job? We all lie to look good. If we were all completely honest and said ‘ I really don’t give a shit about quarterly reports and marginal profit, I just want a paycheck’, how would that work out? So we lie.

“Leader spotting: the four essential talents”

So there are exactly four leader traits, and they can be spotted? That is quite revolutionary. If we do not possess these traits, should we just step aside and realize we are not the future leaders of tomorrow or any day?

“10 practical ways to turn ideas into action”

One. Don’t read self evident stuff like this, stop wasting time, and just do it. Act. Now. Practical I’d say.

“How a year of unemployment boosted my Career Trajectory¨

Wtf is a career  trajectory and who wants one?

“Super secrets of Harvard negotiators”

Oh, so Harvard negotiators are in one tricks no one else knows, but now they are spilling? Oh, tell me, tell me.

“Do you have this critical success trait?”

I wonder so if I do. If not I am doomed. Dare I look?

“Leadership is a contact sport”

So touching your employees is no longer off bounds? Inappropriate touching is appropriate?

Housekeeping. Cleaning, The relentless picking up of stuff, and finding somewhere to put it. I am not interested in doing it. I am not amused. I don’t have time for it. So I am not going to do it anymore. That’s it.

Don’t get me wrong. I am generally not lazy. I tend to be the opposite in fact, I work til I drop, doing my share and then some. I have no problem with, and I am actually very good at manual labor. I have worked as a waitress, I have cleaned hotel rooms and toilets, I have flipped houses and done the manual labour myself. I have no problem doing chores as a real job, if you see what I mean. Working hard at a job is fine, because at a certain point you are done, and you get paid. Whereas at home it never ends. Stuff. Picking, up. Wiping. Organizing. More stuff. When chores are such a large part of daily life they take up far too much time, and they are too much trouble, there is too much nagging involved and I want no part of it.

After all the Macroeconomics (and Micro), theory I have read, I came to the simple solution that this, too, is simply a matter of allocation of resources. Where is my time best spent? What would I rather pay for (or just avoid altogether)?

Dumping stuff and not having a permanent, permanent residence turns out to be the best way of minimizing household chores. I don’t have to do chores when we are on the road. For one we have much less stuff, so there is little to pick up or organize or stow away (of course there’s the packing for the next leg of the journey, but that’s just fun). We don’t have to clean since we always rent with cleaning included or stay in hotels.

Yet intermittently we settle down somewhere for longer stretches, when the house owning bug gets to us, and unavoidable the housekeeping creeps up on me. Kids have stuff. I have stuff and unfortunately, I love shopping. It is fun, but it begets stuff. Thus I have vowed to not purchase anymore useless stuff, and whenever I do, it must be useful, needed and pretty. Yes, pretty, because pretty things make us happy. http://www.androidcentral.com/htc-funded-research-shows-beautiful-things-make-people-happier

Also, I get rid of stuff. I sell or donate. I don’t need it, my family does not need it. It does not, make us happy to have a lot of stuff. Some stuff helps, but not a lot. I never want to be tied down by stuff ever again.

The absolutely major perk of travel and “relative budget living abroad” for me is not having to cook. I just loathe it, whereas I just love eating well. I can cook decently, but I don’t like it much (unless it is for a big huge party!) and besides, so many others do it so much better than I do. In Thailand for example, where we can enjoy a delicious, healthy, spicy and fun meal, the whole family eats for under ten bucks, give or take. In  France a couple of Baguettes Americains make a delicious lunch for the same ten bucks. Then there’s better fruit and vegetables, tastier, different and less expensive than what is found in cold, windy, snowy gray, did I mention cold, Sweden, and they don’t require any prep or cooking!

Thats my idea of happiness. Not cooking, but eating well and lots of it! The food is better, more nutritious, better looking, more exotic and we are all just that much happier. There is no nagging, no cleaning, no thinking of what to cook. We just enjoy. It is a spoiled life, and we know it, and we worked hard to attain it.