stephem
Jul 18, 05, 6:11 pm
Here is a trip report from a visit to Costa Rica during February 2005, it was a busy spring so I’m just getting around to finishing up the trip report now. Continuing a three year routine, we mixed it up, spending half our time in the Lake Arenal area doing some windsurfing and the other half of the time roasting on the beach and surfing along the Pacific coast.
Outbound Flights:
We’ve learned that Costa Rica flights can get very cheap during the summer and spotted some $400-ish fares on Continental in August (these “v” fare classes so we avoided the 50% EQM silliness that CO imposes on cheap-o fare classes). These were for SEA-IAH-LIR (CO 1086 SEA-IAH departing SEA 8:40am arriving IAH 2:43 and CO 1198 departing IAH 4pm arriving LIR 7:29 pm). Liberia is the airport in northern Guanacaste along the coast. If you are heading to the Arenal area or the Pacific coast, this is the much preferred airport (over San Jose). You skip the terrible drive over the mountain pass that you have to endure from San Jose. San Jose flights might be a bit cheaper, but not by much and any extra you pay for flying into LIR is well worth it for the convenience. The Liberia airport is also small and easier to deal with.
I flew down several days before my wife with my windsurfing buddy, as a NW Platinum I snagged a 5 day upgrade and got my buddy a seat in F at the gate. The SEA-IAH leg was a 757 and the IAH-LIR leg was a 737. My experience with CO to Central America is that you have a great chance of getting upgrades (even on these small 737’s) since there are lots of leisure travelers with no status. The year before I snagged my friend companion upgrades both ways when I was only a WP Gold member. My wife came down 4 days later on the same flights and got her own upgrades as a WP Silver (and she said there were empty seats in F).
Continental F service is decent, but more than anything I appreciate the extra space. CO has some phone service that allows you to do email for about $5, so I played around with that while we were over Mexico. It has a delay of about 5 minutes, but I was able to “chat” with a few folks as I watched the sun set off the right side of the plane. The flight from IAH goes by pretty fast. We came in for a landing in Liberia as darkness set in, after taking a wide swing in to the South over the coast, pretty much over where we would be staying later in the week.. We were greeted by some killer winds on our approach for landing, something that excited me, since I was heading up to sail for a few days. The airport is really just an open hangar, with the wind swirling and whipping around as you wait for your luggage. Don’t expect priority luggage treatment here, all the bags get heaped in a corner. Customs is quick, because after all this is the only flight arriving at this time.
Car Rental:
If you rent a car, which I think is advisable, this flights gets in after the places close, but you just need to call ahead and tell them you are on a late flight and they will have someone there to pick you up and take care of you. The roads are terrible, especially up around Arenal, so you should either get a good 4x4 or be prepared for a terrible drive. I found that the Jeep wrangler really performed well on the washboards and potholed roads. We have also tried various Daihatsus etc, but the Jeep is our fave.
LIR- Arenal:
I’ve done this drive a few times before, it was well under 2 hours, so the evening arrival really wasn’t that bad. There is nobody on the road to Arenal once you turn off in Canas, so you can make good time. I was up in (chilly) Arenal at the Rock River Lodge having a beer in no time.
Lake Arenal:
It was chilly this year and spitting cold rain. I really was looking forward to windsurfing, but the idea of 95+ degree heat on the coast was also enticing. Rock River Lodge is our old standby, it’s fairly rustic and the windows and doors make it pretty drafty. I was freezing the first night! I’ve stayed in both the bungalows here and the “lodge” which is 6 or so separate rooms side by side in a long building. The bungalows are larger, more private and higher up on the hill so the views are amazing- I had a view of the lake from my bed! I was there with several friends so this year they convinced me to stay in the “lodge” building. It has a nice front porch that spans the length of the building with nice views of the lake (hundreds of feet below) and the beautiful lush countryside. The countryside reminds me a bit of upstate NY, rolling green hills, but obviously a bit more tropical. There are a number of other places to stay around here, many less expensive than Rock River. Most can be reserved in advance, but it was my impression that you could get a better deal showing up and driving around to a few places, especially if you were going to stay for a week or more.
We sat out and drank beer and rum and played cards as the rain squalls blew over. That was the theme for most of the nights there, hanging out and catching up on the porch after dinner. I ate pretty much everything, pretty much everywhere in the Arenal area. I think the food is much safer up here than in the San Jose area (where I got very sick once). I think one of the best parts of visiting Arenal is trying out a few of the local “Sodas” as the local eateries are called. The breakfasts are my favorite part, huge feasts of eggs and sweet French toast. The lunches and dinners are ok, but really just some calories to fill up on after a day of intense sailing. I prefer the grilled meat places for dinner (Bar Ecus is a good place for dinner and the dance club back behind it is a must see on Saturday nights). Overall though the food in the area leaves a bit to be desired- the beans and rice accompaniment can get old pretty fast. Rock River is pretty overpriced for dinner, but they do have a good fresh salad which I craved one night.
We sailed for 3 days, as always the wind left nothing to be desired. It was well into the 20’s and even 30’s. This is fairly advanced bump and jump stuff, not for the faint of heart or beginners. One year we had a beginner with us and he was thoroughly beaten and frustrated. Even after years of sailing in the Gorge, I was frustrated my first visit to Arenal. The chop is closely spaced and very, very firm, unlike the softer rolling waves in the Gorge. We rent gear from Peter at Ticowind, he has a great selection of JP and Neil Pryde stuff and he’s a fun guy. There is also a fun crew of regulars that hang out and sail from the Ticowind launch. The weather was decent for Arenal, but only a mix of sun, there were definitely periods where I was wondering if I had actually left Seattle. Arenal is high up in the mountains and really gets a dumping of rain, even during the dry season, so keep this in mind before you visit. You can have great warm sunny days, but also a good mix of squalls blowing through. Three days of great sailing, I had my fix and was ready for some hot sun and called my wife to tell her I would pick her up in Liberia and we would head to the coast. She would not have appreciated Arenal, given that she wanted 4 days of relief from the Seattle winter. My friends picked up there significant others at the same time, but chose to head back up to Arenal and meet us at the coast a day or so later.
Back to Liberia and on to the coast:
The drive down to Liberia was easy and after getting a second car to enable us to split up we realized we had lots of time to explore Liberia before picking our newcomers up at the airport. We found a nice bar/restaurant on the central square in Liberia. I can’t recall the name, but it is the only 2 story place, I think it’s on the southeast corner of the square. But there were plenty of other nice places to grab a drink or bit to eat. It was hot but breezy and as the wind went down it got quite pleasant.
Around 7pm we headed over the airport grabbed our respective spouses and parted ways. We decided to make a quick drive for Playa Junquillal, which is around 90 minutes to the Southwest on the coast. The drive there is pretty easy, about 80% on nice paved road (again with little traffic at that time of night). We stopped for some beers and water along the way.
Playa J:
I had previously stayed at the Hotel Hibiscus, in Playa J, so we called Reinhart the friendly German owner and told him we would be there around 10:30pm. This place is a great comfortable and clean place a few steps from a completely empty stretch of beach. The place is three or four separate little bungalow-ish buildings, each with two rooms, so it’s a very small place. It’s basic, but again it’s very clean and in a great remote spot. It’s about $60 a night, including breakfast, I can’t recall if dinner is included too, but he also cooks for you and the other guests (family style). Now that I think more about it, I think dinner was extra, but it was very reasonable and a welcome break from the standard Costa Rican meals. We spend the night there, woke up to fresh juice and coffee and then were welcomed by Rhienhart for great breakfast. Also got our first view of the giant Iguanas and Howler monkeys getting their breakfast up in the trees. Lots more on howlers later.
We could tell it was going to be hot, so we decided to do some adventuring in the morning before it got so hot we would just park it in the water later. The weather was indeed hot the entire time we were there, as promised. It was in the 90’s each day, one of two days we had a cooling breeze, but for the most part lots of swimming in the ocean was in order. The ocean is very refreshing, but not too cool by any means. January and February seem to deliver up lots of this kind of weather along the coast.
First we walked south down the beach for about an hour, dipping in the water every few hundred yards. There are beautiful tidal pools where volcanic and coral outcroppings stick out in the ocean. It’s not just a flat sandy beach, it’s actually very interesting and full of sea life. There are some very nice houses along the beach, we thought it would be great to rent one of these with our extended family. The heat started to get to us so we decided some wind in our hair would be a nice touch and we hopped in the Jeep.
Playa Blanca and Avellanas:
I had never driven north along the coast and my crude map showed a few other beaches, including Playa Negra and Playa Avellanas. These were both accessible dirt roads typical of Costa Rica. During the dry season even a Hyundai accent could tackle these roads (although comfort might be an issue), during the wet season I guess you would need a 4x4.
We checked out Playa Negra first, grabbing a beer and watching the surfers. The surf was down, but the break looks pretty decent, I think this place has a reputation for being a good surfing spot and I can see why. We were there at high tide and the beach was very small, and the ambiance at the bar wasn’t what we were looking for, so we decided to keep moving on north.
We almost missed a turn to the beach into a small parking lot filled with about a dozen cars and if we had the rest of our trip might have been very different. We ambled in through some deep ruts, parked and got out. As we grabbed our beach bag (word of advice, never leave anything in your car at the beach) we started to hear some very cool, hip music—sort of “W” like music that you would hear at the bars at the W hotels. We both looked in amazement at the lounge/beach bar a short walk ahead of us. We had discovered Lola’s, a very hip spot complete with stylish tall back chairs carved out of hardwood and comfortably angled away from matching tables to allow for simultaneous eating and lounging. Then other details started to pop out, great looking drinks and dishes on the tables, manicured palm trees providing much needed spots of shade, a great beach and wait a 900 pound pig! Overall, I would expect to find Lola’s somewhere along the coast in California, it’s not at all something I would expect in Costa Rica. Well, it turns out one of the owners is from California, but they have thankfully adopted a healthy dose of Costa Rican laidbackness, so this place fits well on a beach in Costa Rica. Plus, there more of a local and European crowd around us, rather than the Americans we would find several days later when we ventured up to Tamarindo (yuck!). We parked ourselves at a table and that was it for the next few days, our place. The first day we dined on seared Tuna, an assortment of tropical smoothies (juiced up with some rum or tequila of course) and $1 beers. Everything is so reasonable considering the atmosphere, location and quality of what you are getting. The beach is also very nice, with plenty of room, even at high tide. The surf break looked good, although again the surf size was down during our stay.
Toward the end of a very rough day at the beach, we headed back to Hibiscus to meet up with our friends who had decided to come join our bliss. Rheinhart cooked us a great meal of fresh seafood and steaks, accompanied by plenty of wine. What a great time!
The next day we awoke to another stellar breakfast and headed out to Avellanas. We had another incredible day there- everyone joining us was as stunned as we had been the day before that something as hip as this existed in Costa Rica. Another day in bliss. We ran a tab for the entire day, having lunch, drinks then a late afternoon snack and it was roughly $25 per person, including a very large tip. We dinned on seared tuna and this time built up the courage to try the ceviche and other seafood items. Good stuff!
For some reason we had originally planned to drive up north and stay in either Tamarindo or Playa Grande for a night or two, I think it had something to do with the perception that those places would be “more happening” and that we might be closer to the airport for our eventual departure. We started to question both of these beliefs as we sat on the beach at Lolas, watching a 900 pig roll around in the surf, sipping on fresh fruit cocktails, it was hard to believe things could get better than this. Of course they couldn’t and wouldn’t.
Playa Grande and Tamarindo:
We had made a reservation in advance at Las Tourtougas Hotel in Playa Grande (and put down a deposit), so we decided around 5pm to hit the road. We stuck along the coast and took the dirt roads as opposed to heading inland to the “highway” and it turns out this is the way to go. The dirt roads are only about 40 minutes and then you cut onto the main road anyway, so a nice shortcut. Overall it’s not far to Tamarindo only about 45 minutes to an hour. Playa Grande is unfortunately another 30-40 minutes, even though you could throw stones at it from Tamarindo. There is a river separating the two towns and no way to cross it in near Tamarindo, so you have to drive inland, around a mountain and down into Playa Grande on a dirt road. It was dark by the time we arrived at Hotel Tortugas.
I was worried right away. It’s probably a great place for other people, but clearly wasn’t what we were looking for. I think people go there to see the turtles at night and accommodations are secondary. The rooms were dark and dingy, my wife would have died from her asthma if we had stayed here. The room layouts were also not really as described on the internet. After some diplomacy on my part (and sending one of my buddies back to the bar to drink some rum and cool down) I convinced the owner to let us take a look at some new apartments he owned nearby that were vacant. These did the trick, and after some tense negotiations (with what I later learned was a somewhat intoxicated owner) I was able to get us out of our next nights stay that had been guaranteed with a credit card. We finally were able to sit down and laugh it off, but then I had one more bizarre run in with the owner. He came back to our apartment to tell me he didn’t think this was a good deal and he was moments away from kicking us out. I worked on him for about a half an hour and told him that we should sleep on it and talk again in the morning. At this point I just wanted places for us to all sleep! The next morning the man had come to his senses, he ripped up our deposit, charged us a reasonable amount for our one night and agreed we could leave without further penalty.
We decided to see what Tamarindo was all about, because we had always heard people talking about it. We drove into town, got about midway through and decided that we needed to get ourselves back to Lola’s at Playa Avellanos. Tamarindo was overrun with tourists. While that normally doesn’t necessarily bother me, cheap, loud, drunk Americans are not my favorite. I also think the accommodations in Tamarindo are overrated. I decided to pull into one of the top-billed properties and ask to see a room. Nothing to write home about, I’d rather stay in a simple clean place like the Hibiscus Hotel and have a nice beach to myself. This was like Daytona beach, we were outta that place in 15 minutes and on our way back to Lola's in Playa Avellanas! But to each his or her own, I suspect many people like Tamarindo, it is after all crowded.
Mono Congo Lodge: Playa Negra
On our way back we decided to try staying at a new place called Mono Congo Lodge that we had seen on the dirt road between Hibicus Hotel and Lola’s. We all liked the sign they had and the building looked something like a cross between a giant tree house and a safari lodge. It just looked like a cool place. We called them up and they had rooms for us at around $75 per night. What a score this place wound up being. What Mono Congo has on the outside is a pretty good reflection of the inside. The owners are a family from Virginia and they have dumped some cash into renovating the place. It has thick plaster walls for sound and heat insulation, high capacity central A/C, DVD players in the rooms and assorted other creature comforts. The place was apparently built with one or two massive trees from the mountains, everything is exposed beams, it is beautiful. There are enormous shady decks with hammocks and the real treat is the top floor crow’s nest with panoramic views up and down the coast. If you stay at Mono Congo, you should be up here for at least a few sunsets. Overall, I loved this place, although as with other places in Costa Rica the meals other than breakfast left a lot to be desired.
We spent a couple more days in our routine at Lola’s, the surf finally picked up just a little and we rented some surf and bogie boards and had some fun on the waves. We also got to spend a day in close company to a large family of howler monkeys. They showed up in one of the large trees at Lolas one afternoon, had some lunch and then took a nap. What a site, watching them sleep for a while really put us out too! Then they awoke and we got to watch them move on through the trees, with some very daring moves to get from one side of Lola’s to the other. And then suddenly they were gone. But we had many other experiences with them, including a few where we got to hear their calls, and came to understand why they are called “howler” monkeys.
Lola’s was great, we plan to go back and make it our home next year. We did have one incident with the ceviche the last day we were there, but this is something that comes with the territory and I wouldn’t dissuade you from eating it or the many other amazing seafood dishes at Lolas. This was clearly something very toxic, we were sick and then perfectly fine within about three hours of eating it. Like I said this comes with the territory with raw fish, over the years I’ve had it happen at some of the finest suishi restaurants in the world. Anyway, we recovered and then had a short night of sleep due to our 8am flight out of Liberia.
Returning to Liberia and rental car drop off:
The drive back to Liberia isn’t that bad, even for an 8am flight. The rental car places open at 6am and I think we targeted getting there around that time, so that meant getting in the car around 4:45am and driving pretty fast. The rental car return is a breeze.
Returning Home:
Check in was less than efficient, you have to go trough one line and pay a departure tax and then get in line to get your boarding pass. This is so stone age to me, I am surprised that Costa Rica stills does something like this that effectively results in a pain in the ... to get out of the country. Add the tax to our tickets, or better yet, get rid of it altogether. It’s not like we’re coming down there to live off you welfare system or anything, we are spending money! Having NW Elite status sped things up for us though and we were into the waiting area and onto the plane in short order. The flights departs LIR at 8:15am and arrives in IAH around noon. There is a decent flood of folks into immigration around in IAH this time of the day, so we had a bit of a wait even though we were first off the plane. We hit the President’s Club and took quick showers to refresh while we waited for our 2:45pm flight to SEA. At around 2 we headed across to the gate to get on our spacious 757 back to SEA.
Outbound Flights:
We’ve learned that Costa Rica flights can get very cheap during the summer and spotted some $400-ish fares on Continental in August (these “v” fare classes so we avoided the 50% EQM silliness that CO imposes on cheap-o fare classes). These were for SEA-IAH-LIR (CO 1086 SEA-IAH departing SEA 8:40am arriving IAH 2:43 and CO 1198 departing IAH 4pm arriving LIR 7:29 pm). Liberia is the airport in northern Guanacaste along the coast. If you are heading to the Arenal area or the Pacific coast, this is the much preferred airport (over San Jose). You skip the terrible drive over the mountain pass that you have to endure from San Jose. San Jose flights might be a bit cheaper, but not by much and any extra you pay for flying into LIR is well worth it for the convenience. The Liberia airport is also small and easier to deal with.
I flew down several days before my wife with my windsurfing buddy, as a NW Platinum I snagged a 5 day upgrade and got my buddy a seat in F at the gate. The SEA-IAH leg was a 757 and the IAH-LIR leg was a 737. My experience with CO to Central America is that you have a great chance of getting upgrades (even on these small 737’s) since there are lots of leisure travelers with no status. The year before I snagged my friend companion upgrades both ways when I was only a WP Gold member. My wife came down 4 days later on the same flights and got her own upgrades as a WP Silver (and she said there were empty seats in F).
Continental F service is decent, but more than anything I appreciate the extra space. CO has some phone service that allows you to do email for about $5, so I played around with that while we were over Mexico. It has a delay of about 5 minutes, but I was able to “chat” with a few folks as I watched the sun set off the right side of the plane. The flight from IAH goes by pretty fast. We came in for a landing in Liberia as darkness set in, after taking a wide swing in to the South over the coast, pretty much over where we would be staying later in the week.. We were greeted by some killer winds on our approach for landing, something that excited me, since I was heading up to sail for a few days. The airport is really just an open hangar, with the wind swirling and whipping around as you wait for your luggage. Don’t expect priority luggage treatment here, all the bags get heaped in a corner. Customs is quick, because after all this is the only flight arriving at this time.
Car Rental:
If you rent a car, which I think is advisable, this flights gets in after the places close, but you just need to call ahead and tell them you are on a late flight and they will have someone there to pick you up and take care of you. The roads are terrible, especially up around Arenal, so you should either get a good 4x4 or be prepared for a terrible drive. I found that the Jeep wrangler really performed well on the washboards and potholed roads. We have also tried various Daihatsus etc, but the Jeep is our fave.
LIR- Arenal:
I’ve done this drive a few times before, it was well under 2 hours, so the evening arrival really wasn’t that bad. There is nobody on the road to Arenal once you turn off in Canas, so you can make good time. I was up in (chilly) Arenal at the Rock River Lodge having a beer in no time.
Lake Arenal:
It was chilly this year and spitting cold rain. I really was looking forward to windsurfing, but the idea of 95+ degree heat on the coast was also enticing. Rock River Lodge is our old standby, it’s fairly rustic and the windows and doors make it pretty drafty. I was freezing the first night! I’ve stayed in both the bungalows here and the “lodge” which is 6 or so separate rooms side by side in a long building. The bungalows are larger, more private and higher up on the hill so the views are amazing- I had a view of the lake from my bed! I was there with several friends so this year they convinced me to stay in the “lodge” building. It has a nice front porch that spans the length of the building with nice views of the lake (hundreds of feet below) and the beautiful lush countryside. The countryside reminds me a bit of upstate NY, rolling green hills, but obviously a bit more tropical. There are a number of other places to stay around here, many less expensive than Rock River. Most can be reserved in advance, but it was my impression that you could get a better deal showing up and driving around to a few places, especially if you were going to stay for a week or more.
We sat out and drank beer and rum and played cards as the rain squalls blew over. That was the theme for most of the nights there, hanging out and catching up on the porch after dinner. I ate pretty much everything, pretty much everywhere in the Arenal area. I think the food is much safer up here than in the San Jose area (where I got very sick once). I think one of the best parts of visiting Arenal is trying out a few of the local “Sodas” as the local eateries are called. The breakfasts are my favorite part, huge feasts of eggs and sweet French toast. The lunches and dinners are ok, but really just some calories to fill up on after a day of intense sailing. I prefer the grilled meat places for dinner (Bar Ecus is a good place for dinner and the dance club back behind it is a must see on Saturday nights). Overall though the food in the area leaves a bit to be desired- the beans and rice accompaniment can get old pretty fast. Rock River is pretty overpriced for dinner, but they do have a good fresh salad which I craved one night.
We sailed for 3 days, as always the wind left nothing to be desired. It was well into the 20’s and even 30’s. This is fairly advanced bump and jump stuff, not for the faint of heart or beginners. One year we had a beginner with us and he was thoroughly beaten and frustrated. Even after years of sailing in the Gorge, I was frustrated my first visit to Arenal. The chop is closely spaced and very, very firm, unlike the softer rolling waves in the Gorge. We rent gear from Peter at Ticowind, he has a great selection of JP and Neil Pryde stuff and he’s a fun guy. There is also a fun crew of regulars that hang out and sail from the Ticowind launch. The weather was decent for Arenal, but only a mix of sun, there were definitely periods where I was wondering if I had actually left Seattle. Arenal is high up in the mountains and really gets a dumping of rain, even during the dry season, so keep this in mind before you visit. You can have great warm sunny days, but also a good mix of squalls blowing through. Three days of great sailing, I had my fix and was ready for some hot sun and called my wife to tell her I would pick her up in Liberia and we would head to the coast. She would not have appreciated Arenal, given that she wanted 4 days of relief from the Seattle winter. My friends picked up there significant others at the same time, but chose to head back up to Arenal and meet us at the coast a day or so later.
Back to Liberia and on to the coast:
The drive down to Liberia was easy and after getting a second car to enable us to split up we realized we had lots of time to explore Liberia before picking our newcomers up at the airport. We found a nice bar/restaurant on the central square in Liberia. I can’t recall the name, but it is the only 2 story place, I think it’s on the southeast corner of the square. But there were plenty of other nice places to grab a drink or bit to eat. It was hot but breezy and as the wind went down it got quite pleasant.
Around 7pm we headed over the airport grabbed our respective spouses and parted ways. We decided to make a quick drive for Playa Junquillal, which is around 90 minutes to the Southwest on the coast. The drive there is pretty easy, about 80% on nice paved road (again with little traffic at that time of night). We stopped for some beers and water along the way.
Playa J:
I had previously stayed at the Hotel Hibiscus, in Playa J, so we called Reinhart the friendly German owner and told him we would be there around 10:30pm. This place is a great comfortable and clean place a few steps from a completely empty stretch of beach. The place is three or four separate little bungalow-ish buildings, each with two rooms, so it’s a very small place. It’s basic, but again it’s very clean and in a great remote spot. It’s about $60 a night, including breakfast, I can’t recall if dinner is included too, but he also cooks for you and the other guests (family style). Now that I think more about it, I think dinner was extra, but it was very reasonable and a welcome break from the standard Costa Rican meals. We spend the night there, woke up to fresh juice and coffee and then were welcomed by Rhienhart for great breakfast. Also got our first view of the giant Iguanas and Howler monkeys getting their breakfast up in the trees. Lots more on howlers later.
We could tell it was going to be hot, so we decided to do some adventuring in the morning before it got so hot we would just park it in the water later. The weather was indeed hot the entire time we were there, as promised. It was in the 90’s each day, one of two days we had a cooling breeze, but for the most part lots of swimming in the ocean was in order. The ocean is very refreshing, but not too cool by any means. January and February seem to deliver up lots of this kind of weather along the coast.
First we walked south down the beach for about an hour, dipping in the water every few hundred yards. There are beautiful tidal pools where volcanic and coral outcroppings stick out in the ocean. It’s not just a flat sandy beach, it’s actually very interesting and full of sea life. There are some very nice houses along the beach, we thought it would be great to rent one of these with our extended family. The heat started to get to us so we decided some wind in our hair would be a nice touch and we hopped in the Jeep.
Playa Blanca and Avellanas:
I had never driven north along the coast and my crude map showed a few other beaches, including Playa Negra and Playa Avellanas. These were both accessible dirt roads typical of Costa Rica. During the dry season even a Hyundai accent could tackle these roads (although comfort might be an issue), during the wet season I guess you would need a 4x4.
We checked out Playa Negra first, grabbing a beer and watching the surfers. The surf was down, but the break looks pretty decent, I think this place has a reputation for being a good surfing spot and I can see why. We were there at high tide and the beach was very small, and the ambiance at the bar wasn’t what we were looking for, so we decided to keep moving on north.
We almost missed a turn to the beach into a small parking lot filled with about a dozen cars and if we had the rest of our trip might have been very different. We ambled in through some deep ruts, parked and got out. As we grabbed our beach bag (word of advice, never leave anything in your car at the beach) we started to hear some very cool, hip music—sort of “W” like music that you would hear at the bars at the W hotels. We both looked in amazement at the lounge/beach bar a short walk ahead of us. We had discovered Lola’s, a very hip spot complete with stylish tall back chairs carved out of hardwood and comfortably angled away from matching tables to allow for simultaneous eating and lounging. Then other details started to pop out, great looking drinks and dishes on the tables, manicured palm trees providing much needed spots of shade, a great beach and wait a 900 pound pig! Overall, I would expect to find Lola’s somewhere along the coast in California, it’s not at all something I would expect in Costa Rica. Well, it turns out one of the owners is from California, but they have thankfully adopted a healthy dose of Costa Rican laidbackness, so this place fits well on a beach in Costa Rica. Plus, there more of a local and European crowd around us, rather than the Americans we would find several days later when we ventured up to Tamarindo (yuck!). We parked ourselves at a table and that was it for the next few days, our place. The first day we dined on seared Tuna, an assortment of tropical smoothies (juiced up with some rum or tequila of course) and $1 beers. Everything is so reasonable considering the atmosphere, location and quality of what you are getting. The beach is also very nice, with plenty of room, even at high tide. The surf break looked good, although again the surf size was down during our stay.
Toward the end of a very rough day at the beach, we headed back to Hibiscus to meet up with our friends who had decided to come join our bliss. Rheinhart cooked us a great meal of fresh seafood and steaks, accompanied by plenty of wine. What a great time!
The next day we awoke to another stellar breakfast and headed out to Avellanas. We had another incredible day there- everyone joining us was as stunned as we had been the day before that something as hip as this existed in Costa Rica. Another day in bliss. We ran a tab for the entire day, having lunch, drinks then a late afternoon snack and it was roughly $25 per person, including a very large tip. We dinned on seared tuna and this time built up the courage to try the ceviche and other seafood items. Good stuff!
For some reason we had originally planned to drive up north and stay in either Tamarindo or Playa Grande for a night or two, I think it had something to do with the perception that those places would be “more happening” and that we might be closer to the airport for our eventual departure. We started to question both of these beliefs as we sat on the beach at Lolas, watching a 900 pig roll around in the surf, sipping on fresh fruit cocktails, it was hard to believe things could get better than this. Of course they couldn’t and wouldn’t.
Playa Grande and Tamarindo:
We had made a reservation in advance at Las Tourtougas Hotel in Playa Grande (and put down a deposit), so we decided around 5pm to hit the road. We stuck along the coast and took the dirt roads as opposed to heading inland to the “highway” and it turns out this is the way to go. The dirt roads are only about 40 minutes and then you cut onto the main road anyway, so a nice shortcut. Overall it’s not far to Tamarindo only about 45 minutes to an hour. Playa Grande is unfortunately another 30-40 minutes, even though you could throw stones at it from Tamarindo. There is a river separating the two towns and no way to cross it in near Tamarindo, so you have to drive inland, around a mountain and down into Playa Grande on a dirt road. It was dark by the time we arrived at Hotel Tortugas.
I was worried right away. It’s probably a great place for other people, but clearly wasn’t what we were looking for. I think people go there to see the turtles at night and accommodations are secondary. The rooms were dark and dingy, my wife would have died from her asthma if we had stayed here. The room layouts were also not really as described on the internet. After some diplomacy on my part (and sending one of my buddies back to the bar to drink some rum and cool down) I convinced the owner to let us take a look at some new apartments he owned nearby that were vacant. These did the trick, and after some tense negotiations (with what I later learned was a somewhat intoxicated owner) I was able to get us out of our next nights stay that had been guaranteed with a credit card. We finally were able to sit down and laugh it off, but then I had one more bizarre run in with the owner. He came back to our apartment to tell me he didn’t think this was a good deal and he was moments away from kicking us out. I worked on him for about a half an hour and told him that we should sleep on it and talk again in the morning. At this point I just wanted places for us to all sleep! The next morning the man had come to his senses, he ripped up our deposit, charged us a reasonable amount for our one night and agreed we could leave without further penalty.
We decided to see what Tamarindo was all about, because we had always heard people talking about it. We drove into town, got about midway through and decided that we needed to get ourselves back to Lola’s at Playa Avellanos. Tamarindo was overrun with tourists. While that normally doesn’t necessarily bother me, cheap, loud, drunk Americans are not my favorite. I also think the accommodations in Tamarindo are overrated. I decided to pull into one of the top-billed properties and ask to see a room. Nothing to write home about, I’d rather stay in a simple clean place like the Hibiscus Hotel and have a nice beach to myself. This was like Daytona beach, we were outta that place in 15 minutes and on our way back to Lola's in Playa Avellanas! But to each his or her own, I suspect many people like Tamarindo, it is after all crowded.
Mono Congo Lodge: Playa Negra
On our way back we decided to try staying at a new place called Mono Congo Lodge that we had seen on the dirt road between Hibicus Hotel and Lola’s. We all liked the sign they had and the building looked something like a cross between a giant tree house and a safari lodge. It just looked like a cool place. We called them up and they had rooms for us at around $75 per night. What a score this place wound up being. What Mono Congo has on the outside is a pretty good reflection of the inside. The owners are a family from Virginia and they have dumped some cash into renovating the place. It has thick plaster walls for sound and heat insulation, high capacity central A/C, DVD players in the rooms and assorted other creature comforts. The place was apparently built with one or two massive trees from the mountains, everything is exposed beams, it is beautiful. There are enormous shady decks with hammocks and the real treat is the top floor crow’s nest with panoramic views up and down the coast. If you stay at Mono Congo, you should be up here for at least a few sunsets. Overall, I loved this place, although as with other places in Costa Rica the meals other than breakfast left a lot to be desired.
We spent a couple more days in our routine at Lola’s, the surf finally picked up just a little and we rented some surf and bogie boards and had some fun on the waves. We also got to spend a day in close company to a large family of howler monkeys. They showed up in one of the large trees at Lolas one afternoon, had some lunch and then took a nap. What a site, watching them sleep for a while really put us out too! Then they awoke and we got to watch them move on through the trees, with some very daring moves to get from one side of Lola’s to the other. And then suddenly they were gone. But we had many other experiences with them, including a few where we got to hear their calls, and came to understand why they are called “howler” monkeys.
Lola’s was great, we plan to go back and make it our home next year. We did have one incident with the ceviche the last day we were there, but this is something that comes with the territory and I wouldn’t dissuade you from eating it or the many other amazing seafood dishes at Lolas. This was clearly something very toxic, we were sick and then perfectly fine within about three hours of eating it. Like I said this comes with the territory with raw fish, over the years I’ve had it happen at some of the finest suishi restaurants in the world. Anyway, we recovered and then had a short night of sleep due to our 8am flight out of Liberia.
Returning to Liberia and rental car drop off:
The drive back to Liberia isn’t that bad, even for an 8am flight. The rental car places open at 6am and I think we targeted getting there around that time, so that meant getting in the car around 4:45am and driving pretty fast. The rental car return is a breeze.
Returning Home:
Check in was less than efficient, you have to go trough one line and pay a departure tax and then get in line to get your boarding pass. This is so stone age to me, I am surprised that Costa Rica stills does something like this that effectively results in a pain in the ... to get out of the country. Add the tax to our tickets, or better yet, get rid of it altogether. It’s not like we’re coming down there to live off you welfare system or anything, we are spending money! Having NW Elite status sped things up for us though and we were into the waiting area and onto the plane in short order. The flights departs LIR at 8:15am and arrives in IAH around noon. There is a decent flood of folks into immigration around in IAH this time of the day, so we had a bit of a wait even though we were first off the plane. We hit the President’s Club and took quick showers to refresh while we waited for our 2:45pm flight to SEA. At around 2 we headed across to the gate to get on our spacious 757 back to SEA.