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Finally! I'm ready to do my epic Costa Rica entry. I'm sort of dreading this...especially with the new picture hosting thingy and all. *fears change AND technology...so, is terrorized twice over*
Anyhoo! Costa Rica! It's the skinny part of Central America. It connects North America to South America like a little third world balloon string. My sister-in-law, Marya, kind of fell in love with it, so guess where 60 members of family and friends had to go for Marya's wedding? Yep. Costa Rica.
This is what I saw from my balcony, every day. Jungle and Pacific ocean. It was really easy to get used to. The breakers started oh, about a MILE from the shore. Which meant there was no soft "plash, ebb, plash" but a big freaking ocean roar that sounded like a jet engine. It was heavenly!
That's just a teaser. Here's my story.
Oh! And "Pura Vida" is something just EVERYONE says in Costa Rica. It means "The pure life".
Anyhoo! Costa Rica! It's the skinny part of Central America. It connects North America to South America like a little third world balloon string. My sister-in-law, Marya, kind of fell in love with it, so guess where 60 members of family and friends had to go for Marya's wedding? Yep. Costa Rica.
This is what I saw from my balcony, every day. Jungle and Pacific ocean. It was really easy to get used to. The breakers started oh, about a MILE from the shore. Which meant there was no soft "plash, ebb, plash" but a big freaking ocean roar that sounded like a jet engine. It was heavenly!
That's just a teaser. Here's my story.
Flying into Liberia was of course frightening as hell because of thunderstorms and heat turbulence, but the flight attendants very kindly distracted the hell out of us by providing us with very very important entry documents to fill out (but no pens!!). The airport was really funny and scary at the same time. We shuffled into a huge open warehouse and were funneled through a haphazard customs gate while goggling at monster-sized bugs. It was full dark at 7:00 pm (the sun drops like a flaming rock into the Pacific at the same time every night because we were so close to the equator) and HOT. Really very very hot. About as hot as you've ever been, imagine THAT kind of hot, plus about 90% humidity. That's your average temperature in Costa Rica.
Anyway we survived the bugs and the customs agents and found our driver. Here's the funny part: the roads in Costa Rica are SO bad that I was more frightened by the one and a half hour drive to Tamarindo than I'd been all day during my flight! The roads are narrow, often just dirt, and very often completely washed out. Pot holes as big as cows, COWS as big as cows, wash outs, trees, brown people on bicycles...just ANYTHING could and did materialize in the headlights. I quit looking out the front window and tried not to panic.
So, after getting bounced around (I'm SO not exaggerating, we caught some serious hang time on a few of those bumps) we reached our destination. Sorta. We got dropped at the wrong address initially, but everything got sorted out and we ended up at the Casa De Las Tortugas. After my ride which had been peppered with night time bare bulb glimpses of A Day In The Life Of Third World Costa Rica (goats, chickens, dogs walking in and out of huts with no doors or windows...people getting around on horseback, not for fun but out of neccessity...stuff like that) , I really didn't know what to expect.
The Casa was the most beautiful, enormous, luxurious house I've ever been in...and I used to summer in Newport RI so that's saying a lot. My MIL Bonnie rented it for two weeks through the wedding planner's agent, and the place was simply awesome. Seems tourism came to Costa Rica only about twenty years ago, and oceanfront property on this one wild stretch of beach in Tamarindo got snapped up by a developer with a flair for creating multi-million dollar homes. Casa De Las Tortugas (house of the turtles...because sea turtles lay their eggs on that piece of beach that was part of the property) was estimated at about 12 million just this year. We were staying on Millionaire Row! Very cool. Bonnie said "Go pick a room" and Greg trotted off. He came back talking about the ocean view. This I had to see for myself, so I got lost in the southern wing of the house before finding this HUGE second story room that had a twenty foot ceiling, gigantic fan, really good air conditioner, and a private balcony overlooking the jungle with the beach just beyond. I came downstairs to say "...No freaking way." to Bonnie, who laughed and assured me that the master bedroom was even neater than ours, so we were more than welcome to our perch over the ocean. Char was on the opposite side of the mansion in her own room (with her own balcony).
Casa de las Tortugas, view from the beach
Charlotte's balcony.
...view from the central veranda.
Bonnie and Gerry's porch.
Pool, beach path down to the ocean.
Funny thing about American Money in Costa Rica...everybody wants it. So, to protect the rich Americanos there were TWO armed security guards patrolling the property. The front gate was a big iron deal operated by remote control and there was a scary looking guy in a uniform out there, and the beach was patrolled by another even scarier dude with a gigantic mag light that he kept flashing up into the treetops (I suspect, to provoke the bands of monkeys that swung through there at all hours of the night). It freaked me out the first night, but I eventually got sort of used to it. It's a funny thing, how having security guards actually makes you feel MORE insecure.
Monkey troop in our jungle!
They're everywhere, like squirrels.
The beach was just as lovely as I'd hoped, and twice as wild as I'd ever have guessed. There was NO swimming in the surf. It was massive. There were rocks too, not soft worn granite like I was used to on RI's rocky shoreline, but sharp black volcanic basalt. The sand was either white as snow or black as ink (volcanic sand beaches are SO soft though, just lovely to drag your feet on). Char and I gave ourselves beach pedicures daily.
Our beach. Yeah... just...wow. :-)
This is what passes for low tide.
High tide, sunset at about 6 pm.
Another day, another sunset.
Char and I went exploring and walked as far as we could in both directions, before getting turned back by rocks and high tide and just plain HOT. So, so freaking hot. I really can't stress that enough. The temps were in the high 90's to low 100's every day, and the humidity was about as high as I've ever experienced. The only way it could have been more humid was if it actually rained. Thunderstorms popped up every afternoon, heat lightning flickered every night. I love watching lightning, and the lightning out over the ocean was colored like sunsets...orange and purple. The monkey troops, Howler monkeys, would hoot after every flicker and boom. I spent hours up on that balcony, late at night, all alone, just worshipping that lightning lit ocean. BUT, at no time did the heat ever break. I think one morning it got down to maybe eighty. Maybe.
The Casa had a little pool, a lovely little granite-colored thing. It was always about 90 degrees in that pool. Too hot to be refreshing during the day, but at night we had some pretty nice pool parties down there. One night, Greg provided poolside service and the adults had a grand time floating about sipping mimosas and sangria... I kept wondering whose life I'd hijacked. :-)
From my balcony...the pool.
There was a very nice villa-style resort just up the road from the Casa, where the rest of the family was staying, so we'd walk over there often for breakfast or lunch to hang out with relatives. The Hotel Cala Luna (no, we never found out what that means. Luna = moon...I know that much) had a little restaurant with a totally AWESOME chef. You don't want to drink the water, but the food in Costa Rica is really quite good. Fruit is SO fresh (pineapples, mango, watermelon and especially papaya are everywhere and just the thing on a hot day), and almost every night Greg and I had the most amazing tuna steak I've ever ever eaten...it was SO fresh they'd just sear it a bit on each side and drizzle a soy/ginger marinade on it, and it. Was. Perfect. The tuna is caught fresh daily, right there in Tamarindo. I was in heaven. A hot sticky jungle heaven.
Tamarindo is a sketchy little town full of backpackers and bordellos and funky little beach huts with no walls. Surfers everywhere. Some nice hotels that are beginning to look a bit more resort-like, but in general a wild place. The locals consider it a very busy cosmopolitan area indeed, and seem to eye the one road that actually has a line painted down it with some trepidation. There's a freshwater inlet, famous for having crocodiles along the shores. This situation is only complicated by locals who will take you on a "croc tour", where you can go out into the inlet on a skiff and watch the boat's pilot feed chickens to ravenous crocs that practically swamp the boat (I said "no thanks" to Bonnie's kind offer of a "croc tour"..."Aww, it'll be like being on the African Queen!" she said. "Yes, only with chickens and big hungry crocodiles!" I answered. I don't think it's smart to teach huge carnivorous things that can EAT you to equate people with food.).
Safety in the water is your own watch out in Costa Rica. At no time did I ever see a single life guard. Local wisdom percolated down to tourists through taxi drivers and any other helpful person who might recieve a cash tip at some point, and who would therefor share information in the hope that the kind touristo might live to tip another day. Our poolboy told us which beaches to avoid because of notorious rip tides. Also don't swim in the inlets (because of crocodiles). Also don't worry about sharks...all the big ones are off shore where the islands are (because that's where the seals are).
One day, while Charlotte and her young cousins went zip-lining through the rain forest canopy, Greg and I got the in-house driver to take us to a beach. I said I wanted white sands and a surf I could swim in. Darvin took us to Playa Conchal. I LOVE THIS BEACH WITH MY WHOLE HEART. It was beautiful and wild and totally natural. A snow white beach nestled between two arms of volcanic mountains and jungle. Hardly anyone was using the place. We reached it by a little known back road (of course, VERY much like a dirtbike trail only more hills and bumps) that was only navigable during low tide. Playa Conchal (shell beach) was an unpolished jewel, and we spent a long afternoon there in the warm aqua blue ocean, playing in the surf like children. I'll never forget the perfect beauty of that place.
Playa Conchal.
Argh! Blurry, but the colors...see?
The wedding itself went off without a hitch. My bridesmaid dress, as reported, was simply horrendous. But I didn't let that bother me too much. Marya looked lovely. The service was in the mansion and was very new-age and funky, with unity candles and a female minister from Tamarindo with a killer accent. All in all, very very nice. Afterwards it was down to the beach for photo ops (I think David really wanted the service on the beach...but 60 friends and relatives is an unwieldy bunch to herd down to a rocky beach with a huge wedding party).
The reception was at a typically Tamarindo-esque place called "The Firefly". Disco dancing was the order of the night. There were very dangerous drinks (a real margarita is a VERY alcoholic concoction in Central America and not a thing to trifle with) so I sipped and switched to water early on, and thus avoided embarrassing myself during the drunken wedding-women dance (you know...there's one at every wedding) performed to an enthusiastic Costa Rican version of "It's Raining Men!" I am a smart monkey. My dignity remains intact.
Me on the left...not doing the Macarena. Still wearing a bad dress though.
The day after the wedding, Bonnie and Gerry had chartered a huge catamaran for an all-day family cruise. We arrived in three busloads on a wild little beach not too far from Playa Conchal, where we were met by some CUTE boys who loaded us into a tippy little skiff and motored us out to where the Marlin Del Rey was moored. Now, I'm used to tippy boats because I'm an experienced canoe enthusiast...but some of Greg's relatives are rather large and not given to doing adventurous and/or dangerous stuff...and I was pretty surprised to see that all 35 of us arrived on the boat safely and in a (relatively) dry state. We cruised out into the Pacific passing some of the most beautiful coastline I have ever seen. There were volcanic islands with sheer black cliffs topped with thick swards of emerald green jungle that no foot had ever trod upon...completely wild and untouched.
We tooled around in this gorgeous huge catamaran until we reached a secluded cove sheltered by tall cliffs and unreachable by land because of the thick jungle. The really cute guys cast anchor there and dropped a neat little stairway/gangplank into the water, and bade us go snorkeling! So, many of us did.
Jan and Dale in the foreground...they were really fun to hang out with. :-) Thirty five people is about the maximum for this boat.
Now, I'm a geek of the first water, and I LOVE wildlife so much that I watch Animal Planet with a guilty sense of compulsive pleasure that borders on the obscene. I have guide books (birds, shells, critters of all kinds) that I study and memorize for fun. I even have a special copy of Roger Tory Peterson's Guide to the birds of North and South America that I keep just so I can make little checkmarks next to ever bird I've actually seen in its natural habitat. What I'm saying is I really know my critters...and I saw fish and birds in that Costa Rican cove that I have NO IDEA what they are. It was so cool. I did know quite a few, though, so pretty soon everyone in the water was saying "What's this?? Get the ARTIST!", and I was pretty busy. The coral was incredibly beautiful, and underwater you could hear a sound like rice crispies crackling...that was the sound of thousands of coral polyps snapping open and shut as they fed. I'd only read about it, and getting to hear that sound was truly a wonderful thing. I could have floated there with my face in the water all day. I saw many fish that I recognized...giant blue and yellow wrasses, queen angels, many many puffer fish, schools of domino damsels that nibbled on my toes...it was marvelous fun!
Cove where we anchored...
Cliffs alongside cove...yes those are cactus growing there! They were everywhere amongst the tropical trees. Weird.
After a while, the cute guys (they had incredible tans...) called us back onto the deck and provided us with a feast of fresh fruit, tuna sashimi, crackers, and the BEST guacamole I've ever had...EVER. Hands down. I kept myself from going back for seconds because if I allowed myself to succumb I'd never have been able to stop. I'd just have positioned myself over the guac, snarling and snapping at anyone who came too close. It was that good.
Charlotte in the white hat, hanging with cousins on the netting above the water aboard the catamaran "Marlin Del Rey".
We headed back out into the Pacific, riding the big ocean swells and loitering to watch the sunset. The Marlin had an awesome sound system, and the boys played some classic Bob Marley as we watched the sun drop into the sea. It just happened to be the most lovely sunset anyone had seen there all week, absolutely lurid. Back on land, afternoon thunderstorms covered the hills and provided us with a double show, because the clouds to the east reflected the sunset in the west back at itself while being bracketed by a complete rainbow arch.
First, the sun did this...
And back on land it did this...
...and then the sun did this.
I'm telling you, some of us were in tears...it was that beautiful. *raises hand* Guilty! Then back to shore in the dark (the equatorial sun rises and sets FAST) for a repeat of the tippy skiff ride. We waved goodbye to the cute boys of Marlin Del Rey, who went back to their boat...they actually live on it! I could live that kind of lifestyle with no regrets. No wonder they looked so happy. :-)
My last evening in Costa Rica was the wildest one. Huge thunderstorms moved in from offshore...it was a tropical storm that bloomed up in a matter of hours and shook the mansion all night. The pounding surf was finally drowned out by the loudest thunder I've ever heard in my life. The nightly lightning show that I'd grown used to was intensified to a level that was actually almost frightening. I stood on my balcony half the night, watching multiple lightning strikes stabbing the water so frequently that it looked like strobe lights going off. Sheet lightning flared and even the howlers grew silent. The jungle thrashed as the wind tore through it...it seemed like the end of the world. Yet, the morning we left was just as tranquil and brilliantly sunny (and HOT) as it had been every day we'd spent there.
Bye, Tamarindo.
It was good to get back home, but I have to say I really miss the place. Costa Rica is wild and untamed and lovely and dangerous...and it has a way of staying with you even after you've left it behind. It's almost hard to believe places like that actually exist, and it's entirely likely that I'll have to go back there and see it again, just to convince myself that it's still there.
Anyway we survived the bugs and the customs agents and found our driver. Here's the funny part: the roads in Costa Rica are SO bad that I was more frightened by the one and a half hour drive to Tamarindo than I'd been all day during my flight! The roads are narrow, often just dirt, and very often completely washed out. Pot holes as big as cows, COWS as big as cows, wash outs, trees, brown people on bicycles...just ANYTHING could and did materialize in the headlights. I quit looking out the front window and tried not to panic.
So, after getting bounced around (I'm SO not exaggerating, we caught some serious hang time on a few of those bumps) we reached our destination. Sorta. We got dropped at the wrong address initially, but everything got sorted out and we ended up at the Casa De Las Tortugas. After my ride which had been peppered with night time bare bulb glimpses of A Day In The Life Of Third World Costa Rica (goats, chickens, dogs walking in and out of huts with no doors or windows...people getting around on horseback, not for fun but out of neccessity...stuff like that) , I really didn't know what to expect.
The Casa was the most beautiful, enormous, luxurious house I've ever been in...and I used to summer in Newport RI so that's saying a lot. My MIL Bonnie rented it for two weeks through the wedding planner's agent, and the place was simply awesome. Seems tourism came to Costa Rica only about twenty years ago, and oceanfront property on this one wild stretch of beach in Tamarindo got snapped up by a developer with a flair for creating multi-million dollar homes. Casa De Las Tortugas (house of the turtles...because sea turtles lay their eggs on that piece of beach that was part of the property) was estimated at about 12 million just this year. We were staying on Millionaire Row! Very cool. Bonnie said "Go pick a room" and Greg trotted off. He came back talking about the ocean view. This I had to see for myself, so I got lost in the southern wing of the house before finding this HUGE second story room that had a twenty foot ceiling, gigantic fan, really good air conditioner, and a private balcony overlooking the jungle with the beach just beyond. I came downstairs to say "...No freaking way." to Bonnie, who laughed and assured me that the master bedroom was even neater than ours, so we were more than welcome to our perch over the ocean. Char was on the opposite side of the mansion in her own room (with her own balcony).
Casa de las Tortugas, view from the beachCharlotte's balcony....view from the central veranda.Bonnie and Gerry's porch.Pool, beach path down to the ocean.Funny thing about American Money in Costa Rica...everybody wants it. So, to protect the rich Americanos there were TWO armed security guards patrolling the property. The front gate was a big iron deal operated by remote control and there was a scary looking guy in a uniform out there, and the beach was patrolled by another even scarier dude with a gigantic mag light that he kept flashing up into the treetops (I suspect, to provoke the bands of monkeys that swung through there at all hours of the night). It freaked me out the first night, but I eventually got sort of used to it. It's a funny thing, how having security guards actually makes you feel MORE insecure.
Monkey troop in our jungle!They're everywhere, like squirrels.The beach was just as lovely as I'd hoped, and twice as wild as I'd ever have guessed. There was NO swimming in the surf. It was massive. There were rocks too, not soft worn granite like I was used to on RI's rocky shoreline, but sharp black volcanic basalt. The sand was either white as snow or black as ink (volcanic sand beaches are SO soft though, just lovely to drag your feet on). Char and I gave ourselves beach pedicures daily.
Our beach. Yeah... just...wow. :-)This is what passes for low tide.High tide, sunset at about 6 pm.Another day, another sunset.Char and I went exploring and walked as far as we could in both directions, before getting turned back by rocks and high tide and just plain HOT. So, so freaking hot. I really can't stress that enough. The temps were in the high 90's to low 100's every day, and the humidity was about as high as I've ever experienced. The only way it could have been more humid was if it actually rained. Thunderstorms popped up every afternoon, heat lightning flickered every night. I love watching lightning, and the lightning out over the ocean was colored like sunsets...orange and purple. The monkey troops, Howler monkeys, would hoot after every flicker and boom. I spent hours up on that balcony, late at night, all alone, just worshipping that lightning lit ocean. BUT, at no time did the heat ever break. I think one morning it got down to maybe eighty. Maybe.
The Casa had a little pool, a lovely little granite-colored thing. It was always about 90 degrees in that pool. Too hot to be refreshing during the day, but at night we had some pretty nice pool parties down there. One night, Greg provided poolside service and the adults had a grand time floating about sipping mimosas and sangria... I kept wondering whose life I'd hijacked. :-)
From my balcony...the pool.There was a very nice villa-style resort just up the road from the Casa, where the rest of the family was staying, so we'd walk over there often for breakfast or lunch to hang out with relatives. The Hotel Cala Luna (no, we never found out what that means. Luna = moon...I know that much) had a little restaurant with a totally AWESOME chef. You don't want to drink the water, but the food in Costa Rica is really quite good. Fruit is SO fresh (pineapples, mango, watermelon and especially papaya are everywhere and just the thing on a hot day), and almost every night Greg and I had the most amazing tuna steak I've ever ever eaten...it was SO fresh they'd just sear it a bit on each side and drizzle a soy/ginger marinade on it, and it. Was. Perfect. The tuna is caught fresh daily, right there in Tamarindo. I was in heaven. A hot sticky jungle heaven.
Tamarindo is a sketchy little town full of backpackers and bordellos and funky little beach huts with no walls. Surfers everywhere. Some nice hotels that are beginning to look a bit more resort-like, but in general a wild place. The locals consider it a very busy cosmopolitan area indeed, and seem to eye the one road that actually has a line painted down it with some trepidation. There's a freshwater inlet, famous for having crocodiles along the shores. This situation is only complicated by locals who will take you on a "croc tour", where you can go out into the inlet on a skiff and watch the boat's pilot feed chickens to ravenous crocs that practically swamp the boat (I said "no thanks" to Bonnie's kind offer of a "croc tour"..."Aww, it'll be like being on the African Queen!" she said. "Yes, only with chickens and big hungry crocodiles!" I answered. I don't think it's smart to teach huge carnivorous things that can EAT you to equate people with food.).
Safety in the water is your own watch out in Costa Rica. At no time did I ever see a single life guard. Local wisdom percolated down to tourists through taxi drivers and any other helpful person who might recieve a cash tip at some point, and who would therefor share information in the hope that the kind touristo might live to tip another day. Our poolboy told us which beaches to avoid because of notorious rip tides. Also don't swim in the inlets (because of crocodiles). Also don't worry about sharks...all the big ones are off shore where the islands are (because that's where the seals are).
One day, while Charlotte and her young cousins went zip-lining through the rain forest canopy, Greg and I got the in-house driver to take us to a beach. I said I wanted white sands and a surf I could swim in. Darvin took us to Playa Conchal. I LOVE THIS BEACH WITH MY WHOLE HEART. It was beautiful and wild and totally natural. A snow white beach nestled between two arms of volcanic mountains and jungle. Hardly anyone was using the place. We reached it by a little known back road (of course, VERY much like a dirtbike trail only more hills and bumps) that was only navigable during low tide. Playa Conchal (shell beach) was an unpolished jewel, and we spent a long afternoon there in the warm aqua blue ocean, playing in the surf like children. I'll never forget the perfect beauty of that place.
Playa Conchal.Argh! Blurry, but the colors...see?The wedding itself went off without a hitch. My bridesmaid dress, as reported, was simply horrendous. But I didn't let that bother me too much. Marya looked lovely. The service was in the mansion and was very new-age and funky, with unity candles and a female minister from Tamarindo with a killer accent. All in all, very very nice. Afterwards it was down to the beach for photo ops (I think David really wanted the service on the beach...but 60 friends and relatives is an unwieldy bunch to herd down to a rocky beach with a huge wedding party).
The reception was at a typically Tamarindo-esque place called "The Firefly". Disco dancing was the order of the night. There were very dangerous drinks (a real margarita is a VERY alcoholic concoction in Central America and not a thing to trifle with) so I sipped and switched to water early on, and thus avoided embarrassing myself during the drunken wedding-women dance (you know...there's one at every wedding) performed to an enthusiastic Costa Rican version of "It's Raining Men!" I am a smart monkey. My dignity remains intact.
Me on the left...not doing the Macarena. Still wearing a bad dress though.The day after the wedding, Bonnie and Gerry had chartered a huge catamaran for an all-day family cruise. We arrived in three busloads on a wild little beach not too far from Playa Conchal, where we were met by some CUTE boys who loaded us into a tippy little skiff and motored us out to where the Marlin Del Rey was moored. Now, I'm used to tippy boats because I'm an experienced canoe enthusiast...but some of Greg's relatives are rather large and not given to doing adventurous and/or dangerous stuff...and I was pretty surprised to see that all 35 of us arrived on the boat safely and in a (relatively) dry state. We cruised out into the Pacific passing some of the most beautiful coastline I have ever seen. There were volcanic islands with sheer black cliffs topped with thick swards of emerald green jungle that no foot had ever trod upon...completely wild and untouched.
We tooled around in this gorgeous huge catamaran until we reached a secluded cove sheltered by tall cliffs and unreachable by land because of the thick jungle. The really cute guys cast anchor there and dropped a neat little stairway/gangplank into the water, and bade us go snorkeling! So, many of us did.
Jan and Dale in the foreground...they were really fun to hang out with. :-) Thirty five people is about the maximum for this boat.Now, I'm a geek of the first water, and I LOVE wildlife so much that I watch Animal Planet with a guilty sense of compulsive pleasure that borders on the obscene. I have guide books (birds, shells, critters of all kinds) that I study and memorize for fun. I even have a special copy of Roger Tory Peterson's Guide to the birds of North and South America that I keep just so I can make little checkmarks next to ever bird I've actually seen in its natural habitat. What I'm saying is I really know my critters...and I saw fish and birds in that Costa Rican cove that I have NO IDEA what they are. It was so cool. I did know quite a few, though, so pretty soon everyone in the water was saying "What's this?? Get the ARTIST!", and I was pretty busy. The coral was incredibly beautiful, and underwater you could hear a sound like rice crispies crackling...that was the sound of thousands of coral polyps snapping open and shut as they fed. I'd only read about it, and getting to hear that sound was truly a wonderful thing. I could have floated there with my face in the water all day. I saw many fish that I recognized...giant blue and yellow wrasses, queen angels, many many puffer fish, schools of domino damsels that nibbled on my toes...it was marvelous fun!
Cove where we anchored...Cliffs alongside cove...yes those are cactus growing there! They were everywhere amongst the tropical trees. Weird.After a while, the cute guys (they had incredible tans...) called us back onto the deck and provided us with a feast of fresh fruit, tuna sashimi, crackers, and the BEST guacamole I've ever had...EVER. Hands down. I kept myself from going back for seconds because if I allowed myself to succumb I'd never have been able to stop. I'd just have positioned myself over the guac, snarling and snapping at anyone who came too close. It was that good.
Charlotte in the white hat, hanging with cousins on the netting above the water aboard the catamaran "Marlin Del Rey".We headed back out into the Pacific, riding the big ocean swells and loitering to watch the sunset. The Marlin had an awesome sound system, and the boys played some classic Bob Marley as we watched the sun drop into the sea. It just happened to be the most lovely sunset anyone had seen there all week, absolutely lurid. Back on land, afternoon thunderstorms covered the hills and provided us with a double show, because the clouds to the east reflected the sunset in the west back at itself while being bracketed by a complete rainbow arch.
First, the sun did this...And back on land it did this......and then the sun did this. I'm telling you, some of us were in tears...it was that beautiful. *raises hand* Guilty! Then back to shore in the dark (the equatorial sun rises and sets FAST) for a repeat of the tippy skiff ride. We waved goodbye to the cute boys of Marlin Del Rey, who went back to their boat...they actually live on it! I could live that kind of lifestyle with no regrets. No wonder they looked so happy. :-)
My last evening in Costa Rica was the wildest one. Huge thunderstorms moved in from offshore...it was a tropical storm that bloomed up in a matter of hours and shook the mansion all night. The pounding surf was finally drowned out by the loudest thunder I've ever heard in my life. The nightly lightning show that I'd grown used to was intensified to a level that was actually almost frightening. I stood on my balcony half the night, watching multiple lightning strikes stabbing the water so frequently that it looked like strobe lights going off. Sheet lightning flared and even the howlers grew silent. The jungle thrashed as the wind tore through it...it seemed like the end of the world. Yet, the morning we left was just as tranquil and brilliantly sunny (and HOT) as it had been every day we'd spent there.
Bye, Tamarindo.It was good to get back home, but I have to say I really miss the place. Costa Rica is wild and untamed and lovely and dangerous...and it has a way of staying with you even after you've left it behind. It's almost hard to believe places like that actually exist, and it's entirely likely that I'll have to go back there and see it again, just to convince myself that it's still there.
Oh! And "Pura Vida" is something just EVERYONE says in Costa Rica. It means "The pure life".
