¡PURA VIDA! — arielle leon yoga

Costa Rica Retreat

January 4-11, 2020
Montezuma, Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica
Kenna + Arielle

After seven days in Costa Rica, I returned home ready to pack up my husband and pup and move to the jungle to make babies. The abundant plant-life and wildlife and "Pura Vida” lifestyle is what attracted Kenna Crouch and I to Montezuma for our fifth retreat together. On the southern tip of Costa Rica’s Nicoya Peninsula, we walked barefoot all week and ate pesticide-free, nutrient rich food. We practiced yoga twice daily and participants chose their own adventures to the Playa Grande, Montezuma Waterfall, Cabo Blanco Nature Reserve, Zip Lining with Sun Trails Tours and snorkeling on Tortuga Island. We loved it so much that we’re going back this November for another retreat and teacher training module. Read about our journey below and see if you have what it takes to attend our next epic excursion!

A direct flight from Los Angeles or Toronto will get you to San Jose, Costa Rica, in about six hours. From there, you’ll hop on a smaller plane that seats six to twelve passengers. Enjoy a brief thirty-minute tour and watch the city transform into a jungle; cross the gulf of Nicoya and the islands of Tortuga, and arrive in the outdoor terminal, Tambor, in the province of Puntarenas. Here you’ll find a cab waiting to take you thirty-minutes south to Hotel Los Mangos and Montezuma Yoga.

Our participants arrived throughout the day and checked-in to their private bungalow, perched on a wrap-around deck and adorned with a hammock. Inside their new home is a queen-sized bed and full-sized bed, private bath, mini-fridge, secure safe and a pair of fans (no AC). Above, we could hear iguanas walking across the pitched roof, howler monkeys hollering from the treetops and tropical birds singing sweetly. We walked to the small town just five-minutes down the road and jumped in the ocean at Montezuma Beach. Everyone gathered at El Pescador Restaurant for our first supper at six o’clock. Here we met our retreat facilitator and friend, Dagmar Spremberg, who helped us plan all our excursions and meals for the week.

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Dagmar told Kenna about Montezuma Yoga three years ago when they met in Switzerland for a yin yoga teacher training. She has been managing this studio for seventeen years now! And when we inquired about leading a retreat, Dagmar made our experience seamless and easy. She collaborates with several restaurants in town to host our group for breakfast and dinner, and coordinates with our participants to schedule their individual excursions and massages. This was the first time working with a retreat center and we could not be happier!

Photo+Jan+05%2C+4+02+46+AM.jpg — DAY 2: SUNDAY

January 5, 2020

Our first full day on retreat started with the sunrise for some, while others rolled into Amor de Mar Hotel and enjoyed several cups of coffee. At 7am we began our first yoga practice in the open-air yoga shala with the sound of monkeys and tropical birds playing in the trees and ocean waves crashing on the beach just fifty yards away. Kenna and I alternated teaching and invited our students to consider what inspired them to embark on this journey to Costa Rica. We set an intention for the week and smiled with gratitude upon finishing our first class. Yesterday’s long journey brought us to this tropical place, vibrant with healing energy and growth, and it was totally worth it.

We ravenously enjoyed a delicious breakfast at Amor de Mar Hotel with fresh tropical fruit (papayas, pineapples, cantaloupe, watermelon, strawberries) with yogurt and granola, freshly baked bread and homemade spreads, eggs anyway you want with pinto gallo and avocado! After breakfast we walked through town and accessed the beach that leads to the Playa Grande. Through the jungle and over river outlets, we arrived at a huge stretch of beach and swam in the warm shallow waters til we couldn’t take the sun any longer. Fresh coconuts were sold for 100 colones (roughly $2) and several of us appreciated the thirst quencher! Upon our return, some explored in the little town of Montezuma to shop, snack and drink.

Our evening practice was led by Kenna who taught a lovely yin yoga class from 4-5:30pm. This slow paced practice was just what I needed to recover from the long journey. After this moment, I finally felt like I had arrived in this magical paradise. We slowed down enough for presence to catch up. This evening we enjoyed fajitas for dinner at Cocolores, a restaurant in town, and for dessert we walked across the street and had a few scoops of ice cream. I’m still dreaming of that passionfruit ice cream. YUM!

The sound of howler monkeys greeting the sun as it rises over the ocean is the only alarm clock you need in the jungle. I watched the sunrise at Amor de Mar Hotel and enjoyed a delicious cup of coffee as I prepared for the practice I’d be guiding at 7am. Today’s intention is to embrace the freedom that comes from “vacation mode;” when everything is new and anything is possible we get to enjoy a lack of expectation or anticipation. We practiced listening; to the monkeys and birds, as well as our thoughts, our body and feelings without criticism, judgment, resistance or rejection and instead with pure acceptance. Our asana practice started slow with movement meditation and increased to include twists, backbends and handstands, with a break half-way through for some balancing breath work (nadi shohdanah).

After breakfast we walked into the jungle to Montezuma Falls, the most famous waterfall in Costa Rica. My sixty-six year old mother impressed everyone with her willingness to hang onto the support ropes while trekking across slippery river rocks. And once we were at the top, we were greeted by a giant iguana! The fresh water was satisfying to jump into and wash off all our sweat. A few brave souls followed the locals and jumped off a cliff into the cool depths below the falls. On the way back we stopped at a soda for lunch; a small restaurant that sells typical Costa Rican food.

Our evening practice was guided by Kenna who offered another yummy yin class to soothe our achy muscles from a day of adventure. Dinner this evening was at the Playa de los Artistas, a Mediterranean restaurant on the beach owned by an Italian family. This is where we will eat dinner for the remainder of the week. Tonight we enjoyed bruschetta, grain salad, homemade bread + spread, squid stuffed with kale and pistachios over sweet mashed potatoes followed by seafood lasagne (yum!) and for dessert, a watermelon shaved ice with compari.

Kenna guided a Katonah inspired yoga practice this morning and showed us how our body parts fit into themselves like puzzle pieces to create perfect harmony, balance and sacred alignment. In preparation for Friday’s full moon, we opened our hearts with backbends and let go of our past to make space for our future. This is the year of the warrior, where we must summon our courage to stand in our truth and followthrough with our greatest dreams that are aligned with our highest self. Because, if not now, then when?

After another delicious breakfast at Amor de Mer Hotel, the group split off into separate adventures: snorkeling, zip-lining, massages, swimming and lounging by the beach. My group went zip-lining through the canopies above the waterfall we ventured to yesterday.

After a quick 15-minute taxi ride, we arrived at Sun Trails Adventure Park and harnessed up right away. Rachel was the brave soul who jumped off the platform first, followed by Kenna, myself and then Tina. We could hear Tina hollering all the way down the line, and when she arrived at the next platform she asked the crew if she could do something a little more daring: an upside-down hang. At first they replied with a firm no. But as the old adage says, “if at first you don’t succeed, try and try again!” By the last round she and I were hanging like monkeys upside-down!

We stopped halfway through our tour to swim in the waterfall pool that was sitting above the one we visited yesterday. We took turns jumping off a 17 foot cliff and when it was my turn, my heart was racing; I needed a moment to catch my breath before leaping with a yelp! on the way down. It was invigorating! I did it again, five more times, until that fearful feeling transformed into excitement.

After flying through the sky, I guided a grounding yoga practice where we stayed lying on our backs for 40 minutes. We rolled around like happy little pigs in the mud, stretching our legs, shoulders, spine and hips, with a nice long savasana. At dinner we enjoyed a choice of pork or fish with scalloped potatoes and finished our night like we always do: huddled around the reception area for wifi to contact our people back home and let them know we survived another audacious day in the jungle.

In our morning yoga practice, I continued our theme of courage and “if not now, when?” by guiding everyone through a visualization meditation. After finding a comfortable seat, we arrived in the present moment and thought back through the past year. We considered all the accomplishments and challenges we faced and continued to travel even farther back in time eventually arriving at the very beginning of life as we knew it. We acknowledged our growth and transformation throughout this existence, with our selves, our family, relationships and friendships. This helped us realize that we are capable of change and transformation and with enough time, anything is possible.

Then we moved into the future. I talked us through a day in our life in the year 2030; from the moment we wake up to the moment we go to sleep, and everything we imagined our life being in between. I loved hearing everyone’s vision over the breakfast table. Some were specific and clear, others more vague but with an essence of happiness. Several of us couldn’t imagine where in the world we would be, however we could identify our surrounding environment.

We then practiced a strong asana inquiry with imagery of swords, bows & arrows, and fireballs. We cut through the veil of illusion (that little voice of doubt), pulled back the arrow and took aim at our intention, fired the arrow and courageously stood in our truth as a warrior, with strength to persevere but without attachment to the outcome. We released our intentions into the heavens and took all the power we had and gave it back to the earth. Which held us through the strength of side-plank and the vulnerability of wild-thing. It was epic and if you want to experience it too, the meditation and asana sequence will be available online soon.

Today’s post-breakfast adventure brought us to the pacific side of the Nicoya peninsula to Santa Teresa, about a forty-minute cab ride away. The surfers of the group rented boards ($15-30 USD / half-day rental) while the adventurers swam, walked, explored the town and shopped. Waves picked up as the tide grew and we used the courage of our previous practice to charge through!

After another yummy yin class taught by Kenna, we enjoyed dinner of stuffed sweet peppers with ricotta, grain salad with shrimp, tomato salad and en entire smoked fish for two to share!

After a strong Katonah-inspired practice with Kenna this morning and a quick, delicious breakfast, we ventured into the jungle with Daniel, a Swedish man who has lived in Costa Rica for thirty years and is the partner of Dagmar, the facilitator of our retreat. Daniel spent twelve years in the jungle, cooking over a fire and living off the land. We walked up the river slowly and methodically as if our feet were our hands, feeling our weight on the slippery rocks, and arrived at Daniel’s former home.

Along the way, he stopped to show us some medicinal plants and trees the locals would use as fire starter as well as mix with water to create a health supplement. This country is in the “blue zone” where inhabitants often live to over a hundred years old — this is why! Our final destination was a private waterfall about twenty feet high and once again we all jumped in for a swim. The cool water was a nice welcome from the heat we experienced on this day, the hottest day all week.

Upon our return we visited Nina, a local Tica who makes her own coconut oil and ylang-ylang oil; we’ve been enjoying her homemade preserves all week at breakfast and finally get to meet the woman behind the marmalade. She and her husband David showed us two ways to open a coconut: Nina with a machete and David with a wooden spike ascending from the earth that he would hit the coconut into. Both ways looked ridiculously challenging and provided yet another reason why people live a long healthy life! We ate the shavings and the delicacy of the fruit once a coconut is ready to root.

After several of us purchased homemade oils, Daniel brought us to the thousand-year-old banyan tree, El Higeuron de Cabuya, and we marveled at it’s size and climbed inside! Afterwards, Chris taught yin yoga and did an amazing job. He educated us on the benefits and background of yin yoga, and shared anecdotes with every pose. At one point he talked about kula or community and had us think about all the connections we’ve made on this journey. Everyone contributed to the experience by sharing their own special gifts. That’s the beauty of leading a retreat — it always comes back to the people who create the experience. This gift offered by Chris materialized as a friendship bracelet which he had bought for each of us the day prior in Santa Teresa.

Dinner this evening consisted of fresh tuna salad, homemade bread and spread, and a main course of grilled white local fish over corn polenta. YUM!

On our last full day we embraced the power of the full moon and practiced Super Flow in the morning, a class designed by my teacher Eoin Finn that transforms your yoga mat into a surfboard. We courageously workshopped handstands and set an intention of bringing home a lesson we learned on this trip. The most rewarding part about leading a retreat is knowing the people we teach will return home to uplift their family, friends and community, exponentially transforming our world. And it all starts with you, the moment you sign up!

Several students explored the beach and returned to the soda where we had lunch on Monday. I stayed local and enjoyed an Ayurvedic massage with Maya at 12:30pm; her touch was soft yet effectively deep, getting into the muscles I had been engaging all week. Dagmar organized the massage schedule with two masseurs who work on three people per day (90 minutes for $90 USD or 60 minutes for $70 USD).

Prior to my massage I jumped in the ocean and finally utilized the snorkel and goggles I brought from California. The river outlet between our hotel and breakfast spot was the perfect place to access the ocean on this clear day. I made sure to wear my reef-safe zinc sunscreen and swam out to the rock positioned just beyond the tide pool. I swam through the underwater canyon and saw a school of yellow fish hiding out, along with some blue sparkly fish and silver fish. It was remarkable to see an abundance of life just beyond the breakfast spot we’ve been enjoying all week!

Our full moon practice on Friday evening was guided by Kenna and myself. We practiced backbends to let go of our past and some yogis explored forearm-stand (pinchamayurasana). After class we walked to the beach to watch the full moon rise over the ocean and the hermit crabs scatter across the sand. This beach connects to our dinner restaurant Playa de los Artistas, where we enjoyed fresh fish in multiple forms and finished with ice cream and berries. Some of us went to town afterwards and danced with the locals, celebrating the birthday of our new friend from Toronto, Kavita, as well as the wedding anniversary of our Portland friends, Jon and Pati. After late night talks on the bungalow veranda, we were off to bed for our last time in Hotel Los Mangos.

Thank you, Costa Rica! Your land is healing and magical, it is fruitful and abundant. You showed me how to be a steward of planet Earth and from this day forward I commit to protecting this place we all call home.

PURA VIDA!

Love yoga. Live yoga.

¡PURA VIDA! /January 31, 2020 by Arielle Leon