Tuesday 1st – 7th December, Playa Grande & Tamarindo, Costa Rica

After a morning of checking out San Jose (one of the most uninspiring cities we have visited in the whole trip) and dropping off our passports to get visas at the Brazilian Consulate, we boarded the bus for a 5 hour ride to Playa Grande on the Pacific Coast. 5 hours turned into 7 hours after the police arrested someone on our bus and we traffic was gridlocked coming out of the city. But the rural scenery though the mountains, very reminiscent of Byron Bay hinterland, was spectacular and the chicken and rice at the lunch stop more than made up for the delays.
We arrived well after dark at Playa Grande and checked into the pretty unfriendly “Las Tortugas” hotel. A short walk down the street (with torches as this place is seriously quiet and not developed) we came across “Rip Jack Inn” which, after having met the friendly staff and sampled the drinks and food at the bar, the next morning was to became our home for the week.
Of all the places we could have gone in Costa Rica why did we choose Playa Grande? The combination of beautiful beaches which have an awesome and reliable surf break during the day and turn into homes for nesting Leatherback Turtles at night seemed like a pretty good combination. The Rip Jack Inn also provided yoga classes most mornings which meant I could provide entertainment for anyone watching with what can be accurately described as “extreme inflexibility”.
The rest of our days were usually spent between surfing, walking along the beach and exploring the nearby bays and checking out the two other bar / restaurants that were within 50m of where we staying. We had a couple of adventurous days .... one morning we took a canopy tour which involves driving up into the jungle hills and then riding a series of 12 flying foxes down through the valleys over or between the treetops with views out to the ocean. Another day we thought we’d take an easy bike ride into the neighbouring town of Tamarindo (known as TamaGringo because of the number of tourists and overdevelopment which is starting to tarnish the local atmosphere) to mail home some souvenirs we’d collected. Very basic bikes, even more basic roads, a crocodile infested river crossing and very hot and humid day made for quite a work-out. The extra 10km hilly round trip on a one gear bike to the post office was just a bonus!
We also met two great couples from the U.S., Phil and Denise and Steve and Collette, whom we shared yoga sessions, surfing, drinks and dinner with often later in the week. Phil let me tag along on one of his surf lessons with Chelsea which turned into the school of hard knocks, as the surf turned ugly that afternoon. By the end of the week it was tough to leave as we’d got to know Gregory, Andy, Anny and Maggie from the Rip Jack Inn and Ian and Corrine (Aussie expat) from the local surf shop and the place was starting to feel like a home away from home.
On our last night we checked into a small hotel in Tamarindo as we had a 7.30am flight the next morning to San Jose. We found a small Colombian restaurant where we shared a couple of shots with the locals. The tasty but tiny portions we’d had for dinner meant we felt compelled to kick on to Walter’s Mexican Restaurant for a top up before calling it a night.