Road Trip to Playa Hermosa, Jacó, Costa Rica - Day 4

Holiday is over - time to head home. We had our last vacation breakfast, sitting in the open air restaurant right beside the beach - watching the waves and the surfers. This time I ordered granola with yogurt and this came with coffee, orange juice and a large plate of fresh fruit.

Final hotel and meal costs are as follows.

Room: $59.29 USD per night x 3 nights = $177.87 USD

             Taxes.                                          = $  29.13 

             Total:                                           =  $207.00 USD

Full breakfasts are included in these rates. We had a superior ocean view room on the ground floor. Two double beds, AC, small refrigerator, wifi, safe, small sitting area outside. The hotel is two stories high. We prefer the ground floor because there is no elevator to the second floor.

We ate dinner twice in the restaurant for a total of $86.65 USD, including drinks. Lots of different selections and the portions are large.

Staff at the front desk, on the grounds and in the restaurant were all really nice and obliging. We highly recommend Terrazo del Pacifico Resort.

Travelling in Costa Rica in the off season is the way to go. Hotels and restaurants are not crowded. I had the pool to myself. Room rates are drastically reduced. Everything is so green because this is the rainy season. That doesn’t mean it rains all day every day. Sunny mornings, cloud in the afternoons and then maybe some cooling rain - or, better yet, a spectacular lightning storm over the ocean. Also, we travel during the week (Tuesday to Friday) because the weekend traffic can be very heavy. This is when the office workers are headed to the beaches.

A few random photos and a video I made.

Hotel at dusk:

Silly stuff:

Olocuita Island, part of the Manuel Antonio National Park:

Marina Pez Vela, Quepos. Some really ritzy yachts moored here.

One of Costa Rica’s Guardacostas (Coast Guard) patrol boats in the front. They have much larger boats also.

Does anyone know what this was used for? It was across from the marina.

A video of the beach in front of our hotel. Surfers up and out early in the morning.

https://youtu.be/H8aB9GOGaHo

Road Trip to Playa Hermosa, Jacó, Costa Rica - Day 3

After another great breakfast at our hotel (coffee, orange juice, fresh fruit and today I had huevos rancheros) we drove north to Jacó to Jose’s Crocodile River Tour. We were signed up for the 10:00am tour which we were told is the best time for lighting for taking photos and seeing the various birds and animal life. There were only five of us - a couple from Holland, a nice fellow from Florida and Lance and myself.

All the staff wear t-shirts with Jose’s Crocodile River Tour written on them. We asked one of them if he was Jose - he said yes, he was Jos A. Another person said he was Jos B. Get it? All the staff were really nice.

It was a short walk down to the little pier where the boat was tied up. The boats are special river boats with lots of seats and a cover to protect from the sun. It was nice to get out on the water and into a cooling breeze. Our guide was so funny - so many jokes - he knew where we all were from and that we lived in Grecia and were Canadians. Icy cold bottled water was handed out about halfway through the trip, which is 1.5 hours long.

Both our guide and the boat pilot had eagle eyes and could spot the smallest lizard and the most elusive camouflaged bird. I saw bird species I have never seen before ... great egret, little blue heron, tricolored heron, snowy egret, white ibis, roseate spoonbill and boat-billed heron. Have you ever heard of the basilisk lizard? It’s also called the Jesus Christ lizard. Why? Because when it is scared, it runs across the water on its hind legs to safety and everyone says “Jesus Christ, did you see that?” That’s what our guide told us, several times. Or more likely, it refers to Jesus being able to walk on water. I’m not being sacreligous here - this is what the lizard is called. Anyway, we saw a few of them and they ran on water.

Some bird photos.

Now to the crocodiles. Our guides knew where the crocs hang out, and they knew the individual crocs, how old they were, how much they weighed approximately and whether they were male or female. They knew the territory the males patrolled and they had given them names based on their individual appearances. Same with the females. The crocs responded to whistles and would slowly glide up towards our boat.

Giving a croc a piece of chicken:

Road Trip to Playa Hermosa, Jacó, Costa Rica - Day 2

We highly recommend the hotel we are staying in - Terraza del Pacifico Hotel Resort - right on Playa Hermosa, just south of Jacó. Our off season rate is excellent, the beach is almost deserted, restaurant not crowded and today I had the pool all to myself. Two pairs of scarlet macaws flew by. It seems, for today at least, we are the only ones here other then a group of surfers. It could be much busier on the weekend when people who work during the week take off for the weekend. Off season (also called green season) is a good time for hotels to catch up on repairs and this hotel is doing some sprucing up, painting of buildings, some dead tree removal, and so on. But none of it affects our stay. Expats know this is a good time to travel throughout Costa Rica.

Breakfast is included and it’s not some skimpy buffet. Brought to our table unasked was coffee, a selection of fresh fruit and orange juice. Then we were handed menus with a large number of items to choose from. The most expensive choice was $9.00 USD but we received no bill at the end of our meal.

My choice, a ham and cheese omelette. I stole some gallo pinto and a piece of queso fresco from Lance. 

Then we decided to go for a drive and headed south to Quepos and Manuel Antonio  This is a very nice drive on a good highway with tantalizing views of the Pacific Ocean popping up now and again. One thing that amazed me were the kilometres and kilometres and hectares and hectares of palm tree plantations. This so intrigued me that I did some research and found out from the Tico Times that these palm trees are used for making palm oil.

We turned around at the Manuel Antonio Park and headed back to our hotel. This is as far south as we have been in Costa Rica. Manuel Antonio is a place we think we would like to stay at for a few days. 

The surfers I mentioned earlier were out catching waves early this morning and I took quite a bit of video footage of them which I’ll post soon. They are amazing - like human seals. So comfortable in the water and strong swimmers.

Dinner last night was very good - large portions. Here’s what I ordered - shrimp and a white fish in a tomato sauce, stacked vegetables and two really good potatoes with cheese.

And, oh yes, drinks! A green tea martini for me and a concoction for Lance - the name of which escapes us now!

Road Trip to Playa Hermosa, Jacó, Costa Rica - Day 1

We are on a four day trip to Playa Hermosa, Jacó. We’re staying at the Terraza del Pacifico Hotel Resort situated right on the Pacific Ocean. Very impressed with this hotel. Check in was a breeze with a very nice bilingual attendant. The lobby is large and airy. Our room has two double beds and we’re on the ground floor - the hotel is two stories high. All the rooms appear to look onto the pool and have views of the ocean. A very pleasant two hour drive from our house.

The first thing I did after checking in was to have a swim in the pool. The beach is black sand, not suitable for swimming because of rip tides but great for surfing.

The restaurant is open air, facing the ocean. We’ll have dinner there later. This is the low season so the hotel is not crowded at all and the room rates are excellent. It is hot and humid here though, compared to where we live in Grecia. However, we expected this and our room has air conditioning.

Here are some photos: