Panoramic Beaches of Guanacaste

Playa Conchal

Seeing double on La Penca Beach

We drove the longest and most arduous route possible to Guanacaste to get to our humble B and B in Playa Portrero, where our tattooed and braless hostess welcomed us with open arms, pointy nipples and a basketful of fruit. Just fruit. Not a euphemism.

That evening, thirty seconds before the sunset, we made it to Playa Penca, black with volcanic sand and lively with PDA. After a spectacular sunset, we ate a yummy fish dinner at Estero Azul, near Playa Flamingo. The food was delicious, but the place smelled of eau de swamp, not surprisingly, because estero means swamp, of course.

The next day we romped with friends and beers at Playa Conchal, which currently, in our esteem is ranked as the prettiest beach in Costa Rica, stellar and stunning with it’s crushed white-shell sand and turquoise waters. It’s so spectacular that we were sad to leave the next day at noon, when we headed back to try to beat the traffic returning from the Costa Rican Day of Culture holiday weekend.

We do a lot of racing to try to catch sunsets when on vacay in Costa Rica, so we left early for it this time to get to Playa Danta. The clouds beat us to the punch, masking the descent, but we took advantage of the evening by getting mosquito bitten as we chugged cans of Smirnoff Apple spritzers.

We get a bit misty eyed these days, as we realize...”This may be the last time we ever come to Playa Conchal.” In our third and final year here in Costa Rica, it seems like we are more aware of the places and activities that we enjoy here.

First Day at School 2016

Hooray for actually managing to get a first day photos for the first time in 13 years. All the rest have been on day two or three.

2014

2015

 

2016

Sporting their special 8th grade shirts, they are middle school royalty... at the top of the food chain and a whole bunch of other badly mixed metaphors.

Soaking it up at Arenal and Don Juan's Farm

Our favorite, soak spot is the Thermalitas in La Fortuna near Arenal, and it's a great price to boot!  We brought in a whole roasted chicken, made ourselves a salad and drank cubra libras from a can (in a can! pre-mixed rum and Coke!).  Then the rain started.  Then the explosive thunder and lightening.  Not to be deterred, we waited a bit, until only the distant lightening brightened the sky to daylight every ten minutes.  Soaking in the hot, hot natural spring water in the evening with those distant flashes was some kind of magical, let me tell you!

La Fortuna waterfall, by the way, crowded and pricey and that's all I have to say about that.

We slept ate and toured the farm at Finca Educativa Don Juan.  I love this place.  Framing the volcano at Arenal, Don Juan's farm is thick with flowers and edible plants, which they serve to guests for breakfast.   The tour was fascinating as we tasted and tried both the delicious and the horridly bitter medicinal plants that he was growing there.  Steve's favorite part was the Math Garden, which at first seemed like an oxymoron until Don Juan explained that he had planted his garden in such a way as to visual describe difficult concepts, like pi and how to find area.  Also, he pointed out the brilliant mathematics in nature (and the prevalence of the number 5!)

harvesting yucca

fern imprints!

processing sugar cane

Sweatin' and Spottin' Turtles in Tortuguero

Phew! I started this post with "It was as humid as...."  Then tried "It was steamier than..."  but suffice it to say that it was simply HOT! Even after a cold shower with the fan blowing on all four of us, it was still HOT!

Despite the copious sweating, we sure had a great experience.  We went on a night hike to the beach and saw four turtles in process of laying their eggs and camouflaging their nests!  We watched one drop more than 80 eggs.  Well, actually, we only watched a portion of that, because we were led to the beach in small groups, so each group probably watched the process for two or three minutes!  There were probably 200 tourists visiting Tortugero beaches that night, each having paid about 25-30 bucks to see nature do her thing.

The next day, we rented a canoe from Ernesto (for about 5 bucks a head!) and paddled our own way into the National Park.  The jungle was thick and wild by the brown river, and we saw loads of turtles, parrots, Jesus lizards walking on the water, a howler monkey and even a nutria (or maybe it was a river otter.)



Tortuguero on a budget:  We had hesitated to go to Tortuguero because we thought it would be out of our price range, but really, it can be done economically.  You can park right by the docks,(unless you feel a burning need to spend ten bucks/day to have your car surrounded by a wire fence), Hotel Tortuguero is right on the beach and about $15-20 a head (We didn't stay there, but I won't even list the place where we did. The owners were lovely, but the cockroaches were huge.) and we ate two meals at the BBQ lady's stand--hot rib, bbq chicken, skewers plus yucca potatoes and salad for $4!

Nauyaca Falls (Again) Manuel Antonio (Again)

Lower Falls

Yep, we headed back to some of our favorite spots (for the fourth or fifth time) before summer drained away.  Nauyaca is really one of the most spectacular cascading waterfalls y'all can find anywhere in the world, and I'm not prone to hyperbole.  (Okay, that's not entirely true.)

Upper Falls

This time, we enjoyed a dip in the river on the way out.  Refreshing after a super sweaty hike...

Directions to get there from Manuel Antonio and Dominical are on an earlier post, so you'll have to read that, too.

http://blattsincostarica.blogspot.com/2015/02/superlative-nauyaca-falls.html

I've included some gratuitous photos of a few of the many animals that we saw there. I'm not really an animal photographer, and if you blow them up, they get really blurry, but , hey, five sloths!  Who could resist taking photos when you see FIVE sloths, right there.  We saw this slotherific excitement visiting friends from Seattle at Tulemar resort.Five!

A Summer in Seattle

Well, like Mark Twain said, "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in Seattle."  He was not far off.  But despite the first couple of breezy and grey weeks, we did seek out the sunshine.
We all were so proud of Benji and Marina who did their big Bar/Bat Mitzvot in Costa Rica this March, and then did a "mini-me" B'nei Mitzvah for family and relatives in Seattle (and both of our brother's came in for the event, too!)  Benji spoke about qualities of a leader and Marina gave her drash about telling the truth-both kids spoke with maturity, humor and intelligence.  Way to go kids!

Highlights of our stay:

• Playing  full-contact basketball in the Samena pool.
• Hiking at Poo-Poo Point, Bandera Mountain, Hurricane Hill and Snow Lake.
• Laughing at the dinner table with Uncle Jonathan and Uncle Joel
• Completing a 300 piece puzzle of Florence Italy into the wee hours of the night.
• Camping at Scenic beach park with a hot raspberry pie delivered right to our campsite.
• Delicious food and great company with the familiar, relaxed feel of hanging out with old friends.
• Eating foods we've missed: Indian, Chinese and Thai, tofu and Washington apples!
• Visiting with adorable Rascal ;)

Back for one more school year in Costa Rica.  We'll miss you!

Photos galore...keep on scrolling!

Just Be-cuz

Call to the Torah.   Bar/Bat Mitzvah squared.

Beautiful Phantom Lake!

Pre-fart leapfrog

Post-fart leapfrog

Twin Falls

Marina and cousin Phoenix

My bro visits!

Snow Lake with Sylvia...too cold to swim this time!

Man, I really like your hat!

Franklin Falls and Levine cousins

Puzzling times with Dave

Camping can be scary with this crew haunting the woods.

We had hot blueberry pie delivered to our campsite. Talk about "Glamping."  So nice, we did it twice!

Visiting with Rascal at Marymoor Park

Skipping stones at Scenic Beach

Not much of a view at Hurricane Hill in the Olympics...
Just some seriously big mountain goats appearing like ghosts out of the fog! 

Hiking to Stump House at Guillemont Cove

Mmmm.  But not as good as Martha's duck l'orange.