Muerto el perro, se acabó la rabia

Literally, this idiom means "died the dog, finished the rabies," with the figurative implication being that when the reason for a problem disappears, the effects of the problem also disappear. For example, when we left San Jose, our problem, to spend a week on the Caribbean coast, our problematic stress seemed to dissolve. Even though we encountered some obstacles, including a persistent flat tire, our heart rate still never rose to the same levels as when we are doing the daily grind.

This idiom is also apt for this post because this trip was the first where we were able to bring our dog. Unlike our last planned expedition to Puerto Viejo, we were allowed to rent a car, because we had entered from the United States less than three months ago. One problem dead. As relaxed as he is, Sage is not a stress-free pet. Recently, he was attacked by a dog in our neighborhood, and even before that, he was starting to be less sociable. When he fought with two dogs right before we brought him home from the kennel, we realized our tension was part of the problem. We had concerns that our nerves would cause him to not be friendly with all the roaming dogs on the beach, but he proved us wrong, thereby helping him and us chill out.

One of our favorite places to hang out, including for the dog, was the porch of our beach house rental. It was a good place to drink potfuls of coffee, read three whole books, and do dozens of Sudoku puzzles, which is what we did for the first couple of days because it rained so much. And we didn't mind at all.

Since Sage seemed comfortable enough and is not a fan of water in any form, we left him at home while we explored nearby Punta Uva and Manzanillo. Unfortunately, we got trapped behind a fallen tree coming back from our first trip, which meant that I walked 3 kilometers back to the house to make sure Sage was all right. He didn't even seem to realize that we were gone. So later, when we went to see Playa Chiquita and Cahuita later in the week, we weren't as worried about leaving him alone.
On my way walk home, I saw even more downed trees, some of which were precariously and scarily hanging on power lines. Even though the tree our car was stuck behind was moved within an hour (Tim pulled up to the house just as I arrived on foot, of course), the storm wreaked havoc on the local infrastructure, leaving us without water and electricity for the evening, so we had to head into Puerto Viejo for dinner. After a straight 24 hours of rain, we decided Sage would have to suck it up, so we drove him down to Manzanillo and took him out in the light drizzle. He wasn't exactly thrilled to get damp, but he seemed to enjoy the empty beach. And he even got along with a frisky street dog who was overeager to play, giving Sage a dose of the medicine he doled out when he was a puppy.
After the rains receded later in the week, we took Sage to the remote sands of Playa Chiquita, within walking distance of our house. Because the beach is rocky there, we saw hardly any people. But Sage did get to meet yet another friendly beach dog, who hung out with us for at least an hour before he suddenly whined loudly and, after I didn't respond to his request, inexplicably ran off.
We didn't see very many people, but toward the end of day, we did see a group of 20 or more monkeys migrate down the beach through the treetops. We tried and tried to get Sage to look up, so he could figure out the source of all the rustling branches and falling leaves, but he never did spot them.In fact, it was hard enough for us to spot them because they were moving so fast, but I did manage to get at least one photo where you can tell from the tail that it is actually a primate. We couldn't tell for sure, but we think these were capuchins, because they were not making the noises of the ubiquitous howler monkeys, whose early-morning grunts would've made me think monster if I hadn't been made aware of their presence.Sage also didn't see this sloth, literally hanging out about 100 meters from where we set up camp on the beach. I wanted to get the animal's face, but it refused to budge, and besides, I wouldn't have had the patience to wait for it to move; their actions truly are slo-mo. Some other wildlife too quick to take pictures of that we saw and Sage didn't were the green and black poison dart frog, chesnut-mandibled toucan, and blue morpho butterfly.When the weather had cleared for good, we were too afraid popular Playa Cocles would be packed on a Saturday, so we left Sage at home. But even though the sand was smoother, we still saw very few people, and even fewer dogs. Clearly, we would've been okay to share the waves with Sage, not that he would've swum in them.
On our last day on the coast, we decided to give Manzanillo a third chance to be the cool beach town we hoped it would be. We were rewarded with the most swimmable water in the region, the most welcoming Caribbean community vibe, and the most picturesque (and actually only) view of the sunset.