Our journey on the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica began with Jaco. Not the most beautiful spot as it is slowly being built up with condos and apartments but it was a good base for us to meet Ed and Will, friends we would be travelling with over the next few weeks.
Luckily though just up the road is a beautiful beach called Hermosa. We managed to find an awesome spot to stay right on the beach. The beach was beautiful with black sand and really warm water. The boys got some good waves but you had to pick them as there were quite a few closeouts.
From Hermosa we headed further South and got the full experience of Costa Rician roads. Pretty much you pass when you want to, pot hole dodging is the style of driving and most of the rivers have dodgey bridges; though later on in our journey we would come to appreciate rivers with bridges.
Our next stop was Dominical, a really cool relaxed town. We managed to find a place right by the best smoothie joint in town, so good and the perfect breakfast each morning. The boys got some more waves, we went for a couple of bush walks and Anna got some diving in. I dived at Cano island, a wildlife reserve about an hour off the coast. It was quite different diving in sea currents and the water visibility was amazing. It wasn't a coral reef rather a volcanic one but I got to see lots of cool stuff; schools of parrot fish, white tipped sharks, sea snakes, eels etc. The dive trip ended with a bit of a twist when the van got stuck on the beach, so I got the full experience of Costa Rica's rainy season getting drenched for 2 hours on the beach. Who would have thought you would get just as wet out of the water as in it??
We headed back up to the coast to Manuel Antiono, a favourite holiday spot for tourists. It has an amazing national park which is set right on the water. We visited the park early as it does get rather crowded. Finally managed to see a toucan, though it was only a fleeting glimpse as it flew past us. The park was really cool full of sloths, howler monkeys, racoons etc.
Back on the road again we drove up to Puntarenas to catch the ferry across to the Nicoya peninsula. Here we fell for our first Costa Rican scam. There was quite a queue at the car ferry and we were a bit worried that we wouldn't make the ferry. A ¨helpful¨ local, honest John, as we would come to call him said he could get us on a ferry going now for $20. Seemed too good be true and it was. We ended up on a different ferry, not going to our intended destination and we could have easily got on the other ferry. The end outcome wasn't too bad just meant some extra driving through some beautiful scenery and reminded us not to be so impatient and trusting!
Our next destination was the town of Santa Teresa, which consisted of just one dirt road separated from a beautiful white sand beach by the lush Costa Rican bush. The town had a really relaxed vibe with lots of places to chill and relax. We found an awesome little 'cabina' to stay in which even came with it's own friendly cat. We were woken up every morning by Howler Monkeys in the trees and Squirrells runnig over our roof. The boys hit the waves again and I made good use of the hammock and beach close by. We had some fantastic food at a place run by a Kiwi girl from New Plymouth and her Costa Rican boyfriend, the fish was amazing especially the black tuna steaks.
The journey from Santa Teresa up to Ostinal was a bit of an interesting one. We reached Ostinal (about 80km away) approximately 24hours after we first left Santa Theresa. Our plan was to follow the road up the coast but one small problem, a big river!!! Not all of them have bridges and one rather large one stood between us our our destination; 11km up the road. We then got a flat tire, which took about 3 hours to change as our tire iron broke but a friendly farmer helped us out in the end. We ended up heading back to Santa Theresa covered in mud and started our journey again the next morning. This time taking the long route, around 7 hours.
Our next stop was Ostinal, a really small town which like all Costa Rican towns has a soccer field in it's centre, a church and a soda (local cafe). We stayed in a cool place called the perfect wave and the boys not surprisingly managed to get some more waves. We were also hoping to see the turtles nesting but unfortunately we had missed them by just 4 days. We did see a few turtle eggs on the beach that the vultures had dug up but that was as close as we got.
After a few more river crossing, a bit shallower this time, we reached our next destination Avellanas. Avellanas is close to the famous surf spot Playa Negra from the Endless Summer II. Unfortunately the waves at Playa Negra were small and crowded but the boys managed to catch some good ones at Avellanas. Avellanas is a beautiful spot whose beach goers include a pig called Lola, the waves are fun, the sand is white and the water is warm, bliss!!! The boys surfed with tropical fish and turtles while I relaxed on a beautiful deserted beach out front from our ¨cabina¨. We stayed in Avellanas for a few days, it´s quite remote so there are limited eating options but we were lucky to be staying across from a cafe with amazing Israeli food. We got to indulge in fantastic falafel, shashuka, homemade pita and shawamas each day.
Our last stop in Costa Rica before we headed back to San Jose was Tamarindo, another town made famous by the movie Endless Summer II. Thanks to the movie and the resulting influx of Gringos it´s a ¨bit¨ bigger now but still has a nice feel about it. There weren't any waves so we just relaxed around town and had a fun night out on our last night there. Costa Rica was yet another amazing place to visit, such great scenery, beaches and really friendly people.
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