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!

Playa Esterillos Este

On Sunday, June 24, we were fortunate to have our Maryland friends, Lee and Tom, ask us if we wanted to accompany them to Playa Esterillos Este, south of Jaco and Playa Hermosa. Esterillos is divided up by rivers into three sections - Esterillos Oeste, Esterillos Centro and Estrillos Este.

We were visiting our Canuck friends, Diane and John, who had rented a beach front cabina at Estrillos Este for a week. They were staying at Encantada Ocean Cottages and their cottage had a king size bed, two single beds, bath of course, and a small kitchen area. The ocean was just steps away. This is a great place to stay.

I made a video of the beach, which you can see here: Estrillos Este. It's not the best video but you can see how uncrowded the beach is. The waves were quite strong and can be dangerous for swimming but  one can walk for what looks like miles along the beach.

For lunch, we went to the Backyard Hotel, a surfer bar in Playa Hermosa. The food was good, although a bit more pricier than in Atenas. I ordered appetizer fish tacos and it was full meal sized - four fish tacos and I took two of them home for the next day. Playa Hermosa, 10 km south of Jaco, is where sea turtles lay eggs from July to December and it is well known for its great surfing waves.

We also drove through Jaco to check it out - it seems like a vibrant place albeit for surfers and tourists.

To finish off a great day, we stopped at Villa Caletas to watch the sun set over the Pacific Ocean. What a wonderful place this is. We had drinks in the amphitheatre and admired the view. This is one hotel I would like to stay at one day.

I love going to the beaches but they are more hotter and humid then what we experience living here in Atenas so we both agree we could not live there full time but for holidays - great!

Almonds fresh picked from the beach almond trees. I'm just not sure when they actually ripen and can be eaten.

Playa Hermosa

The beach at Playa Esterillos Este, the tide was out.

Imperial Beer!

Watching the sun set over the Pacific Ocean from Villa Caletas