Lifes a beach

Monday, 6 November

Welcome back to Monteverde- Sorry for the long gap in posting, but we’ve been exceptionally busy here. First, we had our first (though brief) really rainy spell of the rainy season: 9 days of pretty much alternating drizzle and downpour. Apparently a tropical depression formed off the Pacific coast (which is typical this time of year), and slowly moved toward the north and Mexico, drenching us in the process. Since then though, we’ve had two more weeks of wonderfully sunny and remarkably dry weather. I’m told this is the result of another of the el niño – la niña cycles in the central Pacific, and that this is one of the more severe in recent memory. In any event, we’re experiencing the driest rainy season in 30 years, and it is expected to continue through next year. So needless to say, we’re not complaining ;-)

When it did rain, we took advantage and did quite a bit of studying Spanish (mostly Norma, who is getting pretty good with her vocabulary now) and writing and design work (I’m getting swamped with requests for work through the Institute). I spent a fair amount of time out surveying two different sites with a laser level and tape measures making base maps, and now I’m starting the design work… I’ve also been photographing things like crazy (as you’ll note from the pictures), since I finally got a new replacement camera ;-)

More recently, Niall just finished his second (of 6) terms in the school year, and we had a week off during which we all went to explore the beaches on the Pacific coast of the Nicoya Peninsula. The Nicoya is the piece of land that we look out to in the view from our house, about 50 miles to the west of here. The peninsula is pretty sparsely populated and consists mostly of low but rugged mountains in a mix of deciduous dry tropical forest and cattle ranches. More importantly, it is fringed by some of the most scenic coastline to be found anywhere in the world—long crescents of nearly deserted beaches, rugged cliffs, rocks and tide pools, and lots of little towns that were once fishing villages but now focus more on surfers and beach tourism.

We spent 7 nights in Playa Samara on the far central coast to begin, and then one night in Playa Montezuma at the southern tip on our way home. The drive to Playa Samara is a pretty easy one from Monteverde, only about 3 hours, and most of that on pretty good roads, including some of the nicest in Costa Rica on the stretch leading to and from the new Amistad suspension bridge over the north end of the Gulf of Nicoya. There is a road that then goes almost straight across the Peninsula to Samara—paved all the way, and not too filled with pot holes ;-) We also were able to see the small city of Nicoya on the way; it is a thriving agricultural center with lots of shops and services, and most importantly a grocery store that is better stocked than almost anyplace we’ve been in Costa Rica short of San Jose. You never know where you might find your favorite breakfast cereal or chili salsa, and this place had both! Nicoya also had a wonderful farmer’s market selling, among many other goodies, glasses of fresh squeezed orange juice for 50 cents a piece – mmmm!

Playa Samara is a small (pop. 5000+/-) beach town of very diverse cultures, ranging from California surfers who stayed & went native, to a variety of European, Canadian, and American snow-birds, to full-time expats from all around the world; plus the typical Tico community that makes up about 75-80% of the permanent population. Like most Tico beach towns, it is a little scruffy (mostly dirt roads, no real architecture to speak of, etc.), but in general, it is also very laid back and peaceful. “Muy tranquilo” as they say here ;-) We found nice little hotel (Hotel Fenix for those interested) for less than $60 a night, with as Norma puts it-- the beach “trifecta:” room, pool, and high tide line all within about 50 meters. We also had the added bonus getting a full kitchen and suite style bedrooms, so we didn’t all have to call it a day when Niall’s bedtime rolled around. Plus Niall was in heaven, as the owners of the hotel had their 9 year old grandson “Derrick” living with them! In the course of 7 days they were almost inseparable. Our typical days at Samara revolved around moving from beach – to pool – to beach- and so on as the tide or sun angles changed. After a little coaching from Derrick, and one lesson from a local surf shop, Niall graduated onward from boogie-boarding to actual surfing on a real board, and was easily standing up on the board on small waves by the end of our week.

In addition to hanging around Samara, we visited friends up the coast to the north at Playa Nosara (another nice surfing beach that is almost entirely populated by ex-pats), as well as traveled down the coast to Playa Carrillo and Playa Roble. Playa Roble in particular is a spectacular setting, with a short crescent of sand enclosed by lava cliffs and rocks with tide pools on either side. One of the tide pools is elevated about 10 feet above the low tide, but completely encloses a real pool of about 100 square meters 1-2 meters deep. Inside, the pool was filled with fish and crabs, etc, and we snorkeled among them just like we were on a reef well off shore.

Our one big excursion in Samara was to finally do some off-shore fishing. Typically the price for these trips has been way out of our budget, as they aim mostly at hard-core types who are after billfish like marlin or sailfish. A half day usually starts at $350-400! We finally managed to find one of the local fisherman who takes tourists out during his days (most of these guys fish commercially at night) for extra spending money, and got a half day for $125 for the four of us (Derrick as well as Norma, Niall and I) to both fish and snorkel at some of the off-shore coral reefs. Fortunately, we got lucky, and Niall managed to hook (and with assistance from Dad, land too!) a nice 10 pound Dorado or Mahi Mahi. It took about 10 minutes to get back to the boat with lots of leaping and running, and was an absolutely beautiful fish when we got it into the boat, with almost iridescent coloration along the sides. After catching the one fish, the boys quickly got bored, so we then headed back in shore and snorkeled along a reef off one of the nearby off-shore islands. After being in the water only about 15 minutes, we all watched our poor guide almost get capsized by a huge rogue wave! We were all glad NOT to have been in the boat at the time, but decided that it was probably time to get back in shore as the waves seemed to keep getting bigger! Luckily, the rest of our trip was un-eventful, and the best part was yet to come, as we feasted on the Mahi Mahi for the next three nights’ dinners!

To finish our trip, we decided to explore a little more of the Nicoya Peninsula to the south. We had heard really great things about Playa Montezuma and Malpais at the tip of the Nicoya, and they looked pretty close on the map, so we figured we would spend a night in one of those towns on our way home. In the dry season, we might have just followed the coastline south on rough but typically passable roads, but during the wet season, the rivers don’t have bridges, and the fords are often impassable, so we had to dive back inland and work our way over what were at least nominally more “major” roads. Well… at least they have bridges over the rivers. Most of the time. In at least one lane! In between brides, some of these roads were, believe it or not, some of the worst we’ve seen here during our stay. While fording one creek, the water actually came welling up and over the hood of our truck, but we managed to get all the way through without any real incidents!

About 4 hours after we started, we finally bounced into Playa Montezuma in our mud-covered Galloper. And after looking at several hotels along the way in Playa Naranjo and Playa Tambor, we were pleasantly surprised to find not only was Playa Montezuma just as beautiful as advertised, but inexpensive too ;-) Montezuma is a funky little place with a kind of 60’s hippy feel to it, focused on a series of small sand beaches between rocks and cliffs dropping into dramatic surf. While it isn’t so great for swimming, it has some of the most picturesque coastline anywhere. It looks a lot like Laguna or Carmel 50 years ago! We were again fortunate and found a great little spot with a balcony overlooking the beach, and promptly settled into the pool to let our bodies recover from jouncing through 100 km of ruts, potholes, and mud-wallows.

Our final day on our trip we took the ferry across the Gulf of Nicoya to Puntarenas. We got very lucky timing our arrival at the terminal, and within 5 minutes of arriving we had purchased tickets and were on board the ferry and pushing off to the east. The ferry ride itself is a great little excursion, with fantastic views to both the peninsula and the mainland, and lots of fish and birds to watch during the crossing. Fortunately, the ferry is considered “transportation,” and like all public transportation in Costa Rica, it is fairly efficient, no frills, and very inexpensive. The 1.5 hour trip cost US $10.00 for the 3 of us and our car. For a walk-on passenger, it’s only about $1.50!

Once in Puntarenas, we spent a couple hours shopping for Niall’s school supplies in the bustling downtown, ad then had a nice lunch on the waterfront before driving up the hill to Monteverde. More on our arrival back here and other tidbits soon!