Goodbye to Costa Rica

Today I’m just sitting in my hotel posting this blog. It’s our last night in Costa Rica and the unfortunate thing about staying at the airport is that it pretty much isolates you from seeing anything anywhere. There’s nothing around here so you would have to drive and I’m just not into that. It took 4 hours to make the drive from Tamarindo into Allajuela (the actual location of the San Jose airport). It’s also raining out so we can’t really enjoy any final sun by the pool here at the hotel. This was a good final day as we didn’t miss a thing. We did have one amusing discovery this morning. I was doing something on the computer and Brooke was looking at something and she asked me what day it was today. I responded that it was Monday, but she also asked if it was the 24^th. We knew we flew out on the 25^th but we had it in our head, and this was mostly me I’m sure, that the 25^th was Wednesday. We had had plans to visit with Steve and Emily tonight for drinks at their place which we were so looking forward to. We popped by their surf shop and had to apologetically decline the social engagement. It was amusing but also sad. How did we screw up what day we went home? I guess being on vacation for nearly 4 weeks puts you out of touch with days, dates, times…… Well, it all worked out fine and even though it is a bit embarrassing to mention, we did at least eventually figure it out leaving us with an amusing story to tell later. So, adios from Costa Rica and farewell to a great little country. And it is little by the way. I figure that Alberta, from Calgary southwards, is the same size as the whole of Costa Rica. But we don’t have any beautiful beaches or surfing or summer all year long. Every place has something good about it, and Costa Rica has plenty.

Costa Rica Blog, over and out.

One last walk along the beach before departing Tamarindo.

Rincon de La Vieja and Dancing All Night

Today was action packed. We had a great geological experience, right in the heart of volcano country. Brooke suggested a tour through really cool volcanic vents at the national park Rincon de La Vieja. There were fumerolas, a volcanito, a waterfall, mud pots, water pots, and a fumarolic lagoon! In English, this was bubbling mud, bubbling water, a few steam vents, and a waterfall. It was an incredibly interesting and stinky place to walk around. One vent looked like pure boiling sulphur and it stunk like it too. You can’t put that on film or video but if I could you’d be smelling rotton eggs right now – oooooh. We basically had the whole park to ourselves except when a group of elderly French tourists all came down one of the steepest, mudiest trails in the whole place. Some of them had dress shoes on – their tour guide sucked I think. The trail was a loop so it was far better to go up this steep muddy bit and follow the trail around. It’s only 3km and they must have hiked over 1.5km to get to the main attraction. The trail even suggests going the way we went yet their guide insisted on taking them the wrong way round. We had fun being able to say “bonjour” and “au revoir” along with a little bit of “comment ca va?”.

We got back to the hotel, washed up, and went to a movie at the local “cinne-mas”. An entertaining couple from the states ran it. It was a little commercial space that had been transformed into a makeshift theater. It was a nice little home theater basically with about 8 rows of theater seats about 5 wide. So, you could theoretically put 40 people in there but we were the only ones. We picked our own flick from their index and they had beer, wine and popcorn for us. All in, we spent about $20 on a private showing – it was great!

After our theater experience, we hit a cool bar for a drink; my Grey Goose martini was fantastically smooth. We continued down to the local nightclub where the $4 cover entitled you to an open bar. It did take us a good 10 minutes to get a drink. So we tipped the bartender well to give us doubles – quick thinking. The DJ was subpar but the dancing and the crowd was just fine. We danced into the morning, something that we now try to do on every trip we go on. It’s just so much fun.

Costa Rica view of our day trip.


Close up of where we drove to get to Rincon de La Vieja.


Some of the traffic we had to pass.


The rangers station.


We were walking the right hand loop.


Satellite view of our hike. I used my GPS watch to track our walk.






















































































Too many men for one little truck.



A movie to start the evening.


Drinks before going out.


Brooke and Cory at the club.

Playa Flamingo and Playa Grande

We spent today driving around the beaches north of Tamarindo. We pulled in at a little beach that suited us. Playa Flamingo was formerly called Playa Blanco, the white beach. They changed the name a few decades back when a new hotel was built – the Flamingo. We pulled up behind the only other car parked on the road next to the beach and set up our beach stuff. It turned out later to be a couple from our hotel. We had been crossing paths with them so regularly that it was as if we were stalking them. Eventually they left and we had the whole half kilometer long beach to ourselves. I’m not sure why but even though there are hotels around, there was no one at the beach. It isn’t a great beach for swimming or surfing. The waves are big but break close to shore so no time to ride them.

We also stopped in at Playa Grande, which is 20 minutes walk from Tamarindo along the beach or a 20 minute drive because the roads are weird. If you want to buy a luxury location here in Costa Rica, this is the area to do it – acreages galore.

Later today was our big event though, we met up with the couple, Steve and Emily, that own the surf shop. They had friends visiting and invited us to all go out for dinner. It turned out that we all had a lot in common. As a result, we had a lot to talk about and had a really fun time. The other couple Steve and Stacy really surprised us. Steve is a geologist working in Calgary and Stacy is planning on going to veterinary school! How funny! We had fantastic pizza at this great Italian restaurant. After, we all had a bit left in the tank so we went out for a drink at Kahiki bar. It was a ton of fun and there’s nothing like meeting people when on a trip and being able to let loose.

Playa Flamingo. Renamed for the Flamingo hotel built here decades ago.


Almost by ourselves on the beach.


Beer model.


Dork.








Beer belly.


What you intake between beers.


Playa Grande - the local for big scale future development here.


Playa Grande is only 20 minutes walk from Tamarindo or a 20 minute drive!