Get Outta’ Town

Even though I work in front of the beach and spend lots of time enjoying ocean breezes, I recently discovered that I was in a work-eat-sleep rut.

It’s kinda’ surprising how this can happen — especially since I consider my current living/work situation to be a rebellion from the work-eat-sleep life I used to live.  How’d I get into this rut?  It started with my end of season sale and filling orders, then I was remodeling the shop, then I was refilling the shop, then it was Christmas.  Now it’s nearly the end of January and I realized this past week that I have not had a day on the beach or even a decently long beach walk since AUGUST!!  I don’t even have tan lines anymore. What the…??  I even got off track on what used to be my daily outdoor workouts — a long dog walk or a hike, which is way out of the ordinary because I am normally a really active person.

This past week I made it a point to try to get myself back into a more balanced routine.  I went exploring a bit more in the new neighborhood early morning with the dogs and found a great new hiking trail literally steps from my new house (SO excited about that!!).  So every morning we’ve been doing the trek.  It’s felt so good to get moving again and the dogs are super happy — of course.

Then I was hired to do the make-up for a wedding this weekend in Nosara and let’s just say I was MORE than happy to get out of town for a bit and get a change of scenery.  Nosara is a beautiful beach town south of where I’m located, a spot mostly known for yoga retreats and surfing.  It’s a beautiful drive down the coast, along dirt roads and through lots of small fishing villages, farms and of course cows.:)

Nosara — despite being only about 2 hours south of where I am — is a completely different place.  It’s cleaner in every aspect of the word.  Let’s just say that Tamarindo (despite being where I have my shop which I love) is really a party surf town.   In the years that I’ve been here I’ve seen a huge surge with drugs and crime.  Sure, it’s a cute little beach town, and you can definitely avoid those aspects of it – but it’s always there right under your nose.  You walk down the beach and you can easily spot the riff-raff that’s moved in and so the problem has grown considerably. The whole vibe of Nosara is opposite of Tamarindo.   You can feel the difference on your skin.

Arriving there yesterday was a really refreshing change.  I had one appointment in the afternoon, then went to an amazing location in Playa Pelada named La Luna, had a cocktail and watched the sunset.  What a great place to end the day.  Between the pelicans flying about and then nose-diving down into the surf and the man on the rocks to the left fishing with his hands and a net, the day could not have ended any more beautifully.

I woke up early this morning, had a great cup of coffee and decided to do a beach walk since I had nearly 2 hours until my appointments.

Nosara is a quite a long beach from end to end.  I wanted to get in a little exercise AND get some sun (geez, I’m sure pale for living at the beach) so I guestimated that if I walked at a good pace I’d have plenty of time to do the beach end-to-end and still get back in time to shower and get ready for my appointments.  What a beautiful beach.  I was absolutely thrilled to come across a number of spots filled with one of my favorite things on the planet – driftwood!!  Whoo-hooo!!I am not kidding when I say I could spend the entire day digging through these piles in search of driftwood for all the ideas I have in my head.  I was in heaven…for a very short time.  Short because I quickly realized that I had in fact lost track of time and needed to hurry back to get ready.  I was at the opposite end of the bay so started walking back as quickly as my tired legs could carry me.  I thought I had made a good landmark on the beach (a huge log) to mark the spot where I came into the beach from my hotel (Nosara is pretty undeveloped and there is NOTHING on the beach).  So as I trekked back, I kept my log in sight but as I got closer and then arrived, I realized that it was not where I had come onto the beach.  I back-tracked a bit – then went back again in search of the entry point.  I can’t remember the last time I was lost – but I was in fact lost right there on the beach.  I had no idea where my street was and did not see any entrances (there aren’t many) that even resembled my spot so I finally just picked one that went up into the town (and there’s not much of a town there!) figuring I’d find my way.

Wrong.

The little neighborhood there is a labyrinth of streets and paths leading in all directions.  Finally after nearly 30 minutes of being lost and disoriented, I finally found my way back to my hotel…30 minutes before my first appointments.  Needless to say, my legs were like rubber bands – so tired from walking so quickly.  But it was totally worth it.  I got some great driftwood pieces and can’t wait to hit the shop on Monday and make use of them.

I had my appointments and then headed back to Tama feeling a bit refreshed from something so simple as a night away.  These little things really do make a difference.