COSTA RICA PACIFIC COAST

PLAYA HERMOSA

Herein began the tour of the Pacific coastline and visiting Playa after Playa. The journey was an interesting one – it’s no exaggeration to say our Uber driver spent 95% of the journey on his phone (not on calls, seemingly playing games) which made for a somewhat terrifying journey and probably explains why his car was so bashed up. Through one of life’s miracles we arrived at the hotel unharmed and I swiftly ordered a medicinal margarita to overcome the trauma.

 

Playa Hermosa is a stunning stretch of beach with a sandy shore and a warm sea. Everything you would want in a beach! We quickly began the obligatory hunt for gluten-free beers and Playa Hermosa did not let us down (Side note: by ‘we’, I obviously mean me – Rob has reverted to his teenage years and has developed a predilection for Smirnoff Ices. We’re talking black, raspberry, apple, guarana – he doesn’t discriminate)

We had a couple of good evenings here – one in the hotel where a local band made up of ticos and gringos played a mix of Spanish and Western bangers. And the other in a restaurant called Gingers. The food and wine were tidy but the highlight was spotting a SKUNK as we left the restaurant. Incredible scenes.

PLAYA BRASILITO

We moved onto Playa Brasilito with an Uber driver who respected our desire to stay alive. Walking along the beach, we saw a number of brightly coloured dead snakes and immediately realised our life was in danger. We dealt with this by walking a couple of hundred metres along the beach and getting in the sea there instead. Quick thinkers.

Our bathroom was plagued with ants and we had a visit from one cockroach which met its demise underneath my flipflop. We have come to realise that bathroom ants seem to be a regular feature of Costa Rican seaside hostelries. My bestie, Amy, reminded me that every creature deserves to live (I disagree with her when it comes to cockroaches) so I eventually ceased my evening routine of killing every ant in sight.

We spent Valentines Day with an unmatched level of romance. We walked for what seemed like miles along a busy road in sweltering heat in order to find a place that served Acai bowls; I genuinely don’t know when we became so London.

We took a different route back where we stopped off for strong cocktails and a tequila slammer. Rob’s decision making was perhaps impacted after this impromptu sesh – and he decided to set his drone off from the beach. It turned out his drone wasn’t a big fan of sand.

As it was Valentine’s Day while we were here, it was a given that we should have a romantic evening meal. Struggling to find somewhere that was able to cater for our restrictive diets we decided we could do better ourselves.

What’s better than a salad served on top of a plastic bag, with a side helping of olives and sweetcorn. Lush.

PLAYA GRANDE

A superb surf beach where it was easy to wile away hours watching the surfers catching some gnarly waves. I realise this was probably something surfers said 20 years ago but I take a while to catch up with the lingo.

This spot brought me the joy of gluten-free fish tacos. We ate at the same place 3 days in a row, Pots and Bowls. Rob is currently on a strict diet with the hope of managing his MS and, as a result, we spend hours talking about what food he is missing and I have regular updates on his microbiome, with whom he seems to set up strong lines of communication. We’re a really annoying couple to eat and drink with so I’d advise you to avoid partaking in any activity with us that requires eating or drinking together!

As with all our beach stops, Playa Grande was great for beach runs, sea dips and meditations. Our hotel, Sugar’s Monkey, had a lush yoga deck and weights available so I was super happy here.

PLAYA LAGARTILLO

This beach was the first with a rocky outcrop bringing a new dynamic to our beach walks and a wealth of bird life including dozens of pelicans and male and female magnificent frigate birds (with thanks to my brother, Tom, for identifying them for me).

The wildlife has been incredible along the beaches with howler monkeys and birds being a regular feature. Rob also found a junk bug – which was also identified by Tom.

The hotel we stayed at here – Blue Zone – was the best accommodation we had stayed in so far. A fantastic room and a lush pool area with bar and yoga deck. Backpacking at its finest.

Whilst here, we opted to try out the hotel’s bikes to head out to the supermarket – in search of gf beer and Smirnoff Ice, naturally. We dismissed the receptionist’s warning that they weren’t in great condition and confidently set off down the hill to the main road. It quickly became apparent that the brakes didn’t work and as I reached the bottom of the hill, i realised my tyre was flat. Undeterred, I switched bikes and we set off on the 3km (easy, right?) ride to the pub. Now, has Rob spoken about the roads in Costa Rica? It’s difficult to describe how truly terrible they are. They’re essentially made up of thousands of biggish rocks. Driving along them is bad enough but it transpired that cycling along them amounts to low level torture. To make matters worse, the supermarket did not stock any gf beer so I had to drink Smirnoff Ice. It was today that I found out Smirnoff Ice is not gluten free. May as well have stuck to the beer. 🤦🏻‍♀️

After a great few days in Playa Lagartillo we were heading further down the coast, but the availability of quality accommodation had proved quite lacking. We booked somewhere in Playa Negra, just a couple of miles away for one night, as we couldn’t find anywhere in Nosara – our next planned stop – and our hotel were happy to oblige in getting us a taxi which would take us this couple of miles for a fee of $20.

A bit pricey for the distance, but having no other option we reluctantly agreed, expecting that at least it would be car of the utmost quality taking us to our next stop. They didn’t disappoint 😂

PLAYA NEGRA

A quick but joyful stop at a place called Latica, an ecolodge with an incredible pool built of natural stone.

The owner gave us a lift to a great little restaurant as we didn’t have a car to get anywhere.

On our return, we sat by the firepit with Marco, one of the volunteers, and talked about pretty much every subject. This place was stunning and we were blown away by the kind people who worked there.

NOSARA

Onwards to Nosara – a much more commercial town than anywhere we had previously visited along the coast.

Once again, we got completely stung by the taxi fare to our next destination. This has been a continual area of frustration for us – with staying at places that are, in the main, not on the tourist trail, we have often been left with one choice of taxi to get us to the next place. This has meant they can charge what they want. Everything in Costa Rica has been super expensive.

With Nosara being a bit more of a tourist trap it did make a welcome change for us to have chats with people at our hotel and there was a good choice of restaurants. I can’t decide if I preferred it to the quieter, less touristy spots than we have visited. I guess a balance of both is good.

Rob hired a surf board here and spent a couple of hours trying to catch those aforementioned gnarly waves. Once again, I spent ages sitting and watching nature and spotted a couple of turquoise browed motmots outside our room. We also went to a sound bath at the nearby Bodhi Tree Resort. It was held in a yoga shala and, if you’re unfamiliar, involves lying down on a yoga mat, closing your eyes and focusing on the sounds being created by different instruments such as gongs and bells. It creates a meditative state and can be super relaxing. I tend to find myself battling to stay awake, kicking Rob because he’s snoring and then waking myself up with my own snoring. So, it’s not an overly relaxing experience for me personally.

We discovered Octordle in Nosara and spent too many hours obsessing over it.

PLAYA CARILLO

The next stop on our Pacific coast beach tour was Playa Carillo. We travelled there via Tuktuk which was a complete treat. I suffer horrendously with travel sickness so the windy rubble-filled roads have not been my friend. I think the tuktuks with all the fresh air help to balance that out. Another contender for my favourite beach – I swear I declare this as soon as we arrive anywhere. We saw a baby turtle on the beach when out running which was a first and spotted three Scarlet Macaws grazing in the trees – the wildlife continues to be a complete treat.

Our hotel was in a gorgeous spot, about 5 mins walk from the beach, with incredible views. And who knew that they would do such incredible food?!

PLAYA SAN MIGUEL

A one-nighter in this beautiful place, My word, the beach goes on for miles in each direction. The water is clear, full of whelks which look like sea fairies swimming in the sea – so magical to watch. The hotel staff spoke very limited English and the universal language of kindness and smiles struck me so clearly here. We had some great conversations with the other guests – shout out to Neil and Mandy who gave us many laughs.

I am unexpectedly counting down until we move onto Guatemala. Whilst I’m full of gratitude, this country has not stolen my heart. I’ve got good vibes about Guatemala.

MONTEZUMA

Our last stop before moving onto Guatemala. This is a cool, surfy town – very busy and a bit more party. Not that we have been joining the party – I seem to be up at 5am and in bed by 9pm (I mean, admittedly, it’s been closer to 7.30pm on some days).

We stayed at a hostel here with a huge communal area overlooking the sea. I spent hours in the hammock watching the Panamanian white-faced capuchins playing together and a huge white iguana traversing the roof. And the shared kitchen gave me opportunity to reconnect with my love of cooking.

We didn’t do loads here – or anywhere else really, other than taking sea dips, hikes and sunbathing – but we hiked to the waterfall on one occasion. You’ll see this in Rob’s video, in which I call him a bellend.

 

MONTEZUMA WATERFALL – VIDEO DIARY

LEAVING COSTA RICA – CLOSING THOUGHTS

Thanks to Holly for being a guest writer here and sharing her memories of the 2.5 weeks we spent travelling down the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. This is Rob again!

In closing out our time in this gorgeous country I just wanted to share my reflections of what I thought of our 4 weeks in Costa Rica and what I consider the pros and cons to be, to give a taste for other travellers of what they might be in for.

PROS:

• The wildlife. It’s so so diverse and you’ll be spoilt for the variety and amount of exotic creatures that you’ll stumble upon while just aimlessly wandering around in Costa Rica. Never have I experienced anything like this in terms of the sheer abundance of wildlife. Still sad we didn’t see a sloth though 😢
• The beaches are lush. Huge stretches of golden sand with a mix of both still waters, ideal for swimming and huge waves, creating a surf paradise. We also ran along a few of the beachfronts, followed by a cooling dip, which was the perfect start to the day.
• The weather. I can only comment on the dry season as that’s when we were out there, but literally every day was stunning. Bright blue skies. Hot, but bearable, and humidity was never a problem. I assume the same couldn’t be said for the wet season, but hey, why would you choose to go in the wet season??
• It’s incredibly safe and very accepting of tourism. Not once did I feel that there could ever be anything bad that could happen to us while we were out in Costa Rica. It’s considered the safest place to travel in Central America and I can’t disagree with this.
• The people of Costa Rica are ever so friendly and chilled. Something which the next point will explain a bit further.
• The mantra of Pura Vida. A simple phrase that translated means “Pure Life”. The Costa Ricans, or Ticos as they proudly refer to themselves, have a very laid back way about them and embody the essence of this mantra in their way of life. Pura Vida simply means to enjoy life, relax and take it easy and be happy, but can also be used as a greeting or a response to literally anything. This proved ever useful as a response during our time here as we have limited Spanish language skill (and by that I mean none). Sadly it wasn’t a universal phrase and wouldn’t serve us in Guatemala.

CONS:

I’m sad to say that all is not rosy and there are some significant cons to visiting Costa Rica. If we’d have known what we know now then we would have reconsidered visiting the country, or at the very least, changed our plans in terms of how we managed our visit:

• The price!! I was so unprepared for how expensive Costa Rica would be. I don’t know why I naively thought things would be similarly priced to Asia. How wrong was I. The prices were more in line with London, which might be fine when here on holiday, but not at all suited for a 3 month backpacking budget! We’re talking everything here – accommodation, food, booze and the most completely out of whack – transport. That deserves its very own bullet point.
• Transport – getting around in Costa Rica really is ridiculous. Things didn’t start off so bad for us, as in San Jose and La Fortuna we were able to get Ubers to take us around, which although still expensive, were similar to UK prices, so we could get our heads around this. When we got down to the Pacific Coast though it was almost impossible to get hold of an Uber – technically they’re illegal in Costa Rica, although they do still operate, but on the coast the local taxi drivers seem to have scared off the Uber drivers. Due to this, we had to resort to using local taxis which were next level in terms of price. It cost us $120 to go 25 miles, for example. The 25 miles did take around 2 hours though, due to the roads. More on this later!
  • Oh and one more thing about transport and something I could never understand. It wasn’t like there were no other options to get around. There were some public buses, but they were sporadic in their availability and were quite limited in terms of their coverage, so not the most useful if going away from the beaten track. The other option was designated group shuttle buses going to the main tourist areas. In my experience and with a logical mind you would have thought that getting a shared shuttle bus would be many degrees cheaper than getting a private taxi, right? Wrong. For the life of me I couldn’t understand this. For example, heading from La Fortuna in an Uber would be roughly $50. To do the same journey in a shuttle bus would be maybe $100. And that’s per person! WTAF!
• The roads. Oh, the fucking roads!! The stuff of nightmares. Even now writing this, a couple of weeks after leaving Costa Rica, the thought of the state of the roads causes me such feelings of rage. I can’t comment for the country as a whole, but the Pacific coast’s roads were the worst I’ve ever encountered and I’ve been in some underdeveloped countries. I don’t even think they can be considered roads. Potholes, huge rocks, water crossings. They’re basically off road trails and you can only drive at a snail’s pace. Oh how I prayed for some asphalt. It took several hours to get from one town to the next, when it was literally only 15-20 miles and we paid handsomely for this pleasure.
  • We had been advised to get a hire car for this reason, specifically a 4×4 and in hindsight we should have done this, but it proved impossible to get a rental car once we’d arrived. Trust me, if you’re going to Costa Rica get a rental car!
• No cider. Anywhere. Given that I’ve been on a strict gluten free diet on these travels I’ve been unable to partake in the obvious drink of choice – beer. As an alternative I’d always opt for cider and I literally could not find any anywhere and it wasn’t for the lack of trying. This is why we ended up relying on the Smirnoff Ice tins, which later proved to contain gluten 🤦🏻‍♂️

Despite the negatives there is one thing that has stuck with me and which I believe will stick with me and for this I’m grateful to have travelled around Costa Rica. What is that?

PURA VIDA 🎉

Now onto Guatemala!! 🇬🇹

Sorry about the humongously lengthy post. If you got to this point well done and thank you!