Know How

Costa Rica has been good so far. One week down and we are still on the beaches. A little more expensive but not crazy. Some minor transportation issues but nothing we can't handle. The only frustration has been trying to find local kitchens to feed us for a reasonable price, and we somewhat succeeded at that today. So, I guess we have it all figured out now. Which means I can now present you with our ...

Northern Beaches of Costa Rica Travel Guide:

When in the popular weekend getaway town of Playa del Coco on a Sunday, try the cafeteria style eatery next to the bank. You can see all of the dishes laid out under a buffet window and the servings are large enough that you will be taking home leftovers. Store the food in the fridge back at your hostal and pack a bag for the 4km walk down south to Playa Ocotal. A nicer beach than Coco with black & tan sand that is soft and good for playing. To the right is a rock outcropping where there is good snorkeling, but only if you are strange and don't want to see any fish. Otherwise, it is poor with only somewhat clear water and very little plant life. Laying down is a popular activity as well as the always fun running and screaming from crashing waves that the locals enjoy. 

                                            Playa Ocotal with it's amazing sand 

Be sure to time your walk back in order to have shelter before the daily 5pm thunderstorm. The trees on the side of the road make good cover if it starts to rain before you can reach the large grocery store back in town. After you get inside, the rain will really start to come down and will be deafening on the tin roof. Take your time buying food for dinner as these storms normally last over an hour. If it is still pouring, wait in the entryway with everyone else or just throw a small plastic bag on your backpack and make a run for it. To cross the streets that have now become rivers, I suggest holding your Birkenstocks in your hand and going barefoot even though your girlfriend offers to carry you on her back. The onlooking locals will respect you more.  

Dinner that night will consist of a cucumber, tomato, onion, avocado, lime salad and yellow rice mixed with leftover BBQ pork. While eating in the hostal kitchen, the shirtless, jean short wearing expat who sports an eye patch will tell you stories of how dangerous it is down here and you must resist asking the obvious question, "Why are you living in a dirty hostal in a dangerous town amongst people you apparently don't like when you collect $4,000 a month in retirement?". Just wait it out and find the right moment to slide back to your room and hope he doesn't find you. 

Monday, after another muggy night trying to sleep, eat the remaining leftovers and then you are free to explore the town and it's many touristy shops. They have some some decent stuff but it is too early in your trip to be weighed down by such things. If the rain comes a little early, a great way to kill time is in the small casino just a block away. Two floors of slot machines and 4 servers at your beckon call since the place is completely empty. The man who gives you free non-alcoholic drinks has "dealer" on the back of his shirt so he might be willing to deal you some hands of blackjack if you can stomach the $5 min wager. The best bets are the nickel slots which help kill time and provide nice small victories. All payouts are done manually by a lady who waits for the cash-out music and has you sign a handwritten receipt before giving you your $13. A little annoying, but the joy comes on your girlfriend's first spin on the new machine downstairs. Two diamonds with a 5x multiplier in the middle and she's got herself a nice 420 credit win, or $21. Let the good times roll longer before she collects $35 from the $10 deposit. Go celebrate at Sizzler if they ever open one up in Playa del Coco. Otherwise, feast on a hamburger and chicken strips from the food truck up the road to emphasize that you are an American doing American things in a foreign country. 

                        This could be you

On Tuesday, it is time to pack-up and check out the beaches further south. While standing under the bus stop sign, taxi drivers will offer you rides and tell you that the bus you want isn't running. When random people walking by tell you the same thing, you can start to believe them. The one passer by who speaks English will explain that buses from Liberia can't get past the airport until after 2pm for some unknown reason. A bus will then come down the road with "Filadelfia" on the front and you will be told that connections can be made from there and it will be even quicker than your original plan. Be happy for these little detours that work in your favor, because that won't always be the case. 

Upon arrival into Filadelfia, wait about 30 minutes and a bus to Nicoya will swing by and take you further south. Arriving in Nicoya, it gets a little trickier. Multiple bus stations means you need to walk quickly for 5 blocks in order to catch the 2pm bus to Playa Sámara. With some effort, you can make it just as the bus is backing out, but you will have to stand in the backdoor with your pack, trying not to knock other people over. Not as fun as it sounds but eventually you will get a seat and enjoy the view as the jungle gets thicker. 

Sámara is a fairly small town that used to be much smaller. Word has gotten out about the lovely beach and now many expats live here. They have opened lots of little cafes and sandwich shops. For lodgings, head down the road that parallels the beach and stay at Casa Valeria. A locally owned spot and right on the water, they have a few wooden cabin type accommodations surrounding a sandy courtyard with a shower and hammocks. The best value is the $30/night room by itself above the office. You can see the water through the palm trees while sitting in bed and the crashing surf and breeze will help you sleep at night. For food the first night, Lo Que Hay is worth a visit for their amazing tacos. They may be a bit expensive and gringo orientated, but you will consider them some of the best you have ever had. 

Wednesday you will get to see the beach at low tide, which is quite different. The water is 40 meters further away and the steep rough sandy bank becomes a flat smooth sand field. A thin layer of water is constantly returning to the sea from the shore and walking is a breeze. The reef connects with the rocky headland to the right and snorkeling is possible. The water is still not very clear and the reef is very damaged, but there are a few fish to be seen. You will just have to put up with the French guy who runs at you with mask in hand asking to join you. He won't be too much of a bother and will leave after a short swim. 

                                                Low tide at Playa Sámara

The rest of your day will be as follows; lunch at an American owned sandwich shop because you can't find anything else, ice cream from the super market, daytime drinking from the $4 jug of sangria, reasonably priced sushi for dinner, and an early bedtime. 

Thursday is the day to walk down the left side of the beach to the other rocky headland. Your goal will be the island that you hope will be accessable during low tide. It won't be, but the walk is good and the tide pools will show you some interesting things, like a scared black & blue fish waiting for the tide to come back in. 

                                           The island that is just out of reach

                                                     Cool looking fish

For lunch that day, you will continue to be frustrated at the lack of local kitchens and will settle for a small cafe that serves paninis. That frustration will lead you to buy avocados and tortillas from the big grocery store where the kid at the register angrily gives you 1,000 colones in 50 cent pieces because you lie to him and say you don't have a bill smaller than 10,000 to pay the 990 bill. It is an awkward moment and now you have 5 lbs worth of coins to try and spend. It will all work out in the end when later that night you brave the thunderstorm to buy 3 steak and chicken kabobs from the guy on the street, take them back home, and make yourself some sweet tacos with the avocado and tortillas. You have made your own cheap eats despite the fact the hotel's kitchen is closed for repairs. The ridiculously loud thunder and bright lightening storm view from your window will be amazing dinner entertainment. Sleep proudly. 

                                               How to buy dinner in the rain

                                                             This could be yours

Friday is a day to do whatever your heart desires. A good recomendation is to head back to the snorkeling grounds to the right and try to go out further. The water gets deeper and the reef gets bigger and a little healthier. One decent spot will show you the best fish you have seen in months but the visibility just ain't what it is in the Caribbean. The highlight of the day will be getting to try the local lunch spot you finally discovered using the Internet. Cevichero Colochos has amazing reviews and is well hidden down a dirt trail behind a super market. Owned by a local family that used to sell their ceviche on the street, they done rose up and bought a shop and now are the best place to get local food. The ceviche pescado is great and the typical casado plates are big and fairly priced. For those who are flush with cash, they even do a traditional paella with lobster tails that can feed a family. The only downside is that you came upon this place on your last full day in town. After playing in the waves while the sun goes down, enjoy another 3 kabob homemade taco dinner and finish that jug of sangria, because you will need it to make juice in later. 

                        Casado Bistek

Thus concludes your time on the northern beaches on Costa Rica. You will most certainly be satisfied with your 7 days near the water but will now look forward to the central highlands. Saturday, buses will take you straight inland to the popular Quaker settlement of Monteverde, where the tourists draws are cloud forests and cheese. Enjoy!

The Good Times Are Killing Me

If we could compile a list of things we've learned over the past six days, it would be this:

1. Flexibility and the absence of time constraints is priceless. Our initial plan of 2 nights in San Juan del Sur morphed into 5 nights, because.... why not?

2. We are old and fragile humans. For those 5 days in SJDS, we did very little, except care for our owies.

3. Remember to familiarize yourself with a country's immigration laws, or it may take you an hour and a few extra bucks to leave Nicaragua.

Allow me to elaborate.

Our day of travel to SJDS on Monday was a typical Central America travel day. The bus that picked us up in front of our hostal in Ometepe was 45 minutes late, but delivered us 1.5 hours later to the ferry at Myogalpa. We waited at the bus stop with an older lady from France, traveling on her own for 8 months, and enjoyed being the experts on travel through Honduras and Mexico as she asked for advice. At the ferry, we ran into another solo female traveler who we had bumped in to the previous day on the trail to the waterfalls. The four of us boarded the ferry heading to San Jorge, threw our bags on the top deck and climbed down to take our seats at water level. The 30 minute ride was rockier than we expected, every few minutes swaying 30 degrees to the left, then returning upright before swaying 30 degrees to the right. You could look around and pinpoint the travelers who had casually flung their unsecured bags on the top deck, as we were all wide eyed and nervously watching for our backpacks to dive off the side of the boat. Luckily, the four of us with all baggage made it off the ferry in one piece. We ignored the lying taxi drivers that told us it cost 15 cordobas to take the bus back to Rivas and happily paid the bus driver the 7 cordobas we owed. The bus driver and his helper seemed adamant in informing us our next bus, from Rivas to SJDS was "over there", hand signals indicating OVER, like keep walking. We thanked them, got off, and immediately saw a bus for SJDS leaving in 10 minutes. Although it wasn't "over there", we figured we just got lucky and found one quicker. Wrong. What should have been a 45 minute ride turned in to a 2 hour ride. After about a half hour on dirt roads with small scattered villages and no sign of ocean, we realized we got on the local bus that takes the long route with multiple stops. We had nowhere to be and the scenery was beautiful, so we didn't mind.

                                                          A similar ferry to ours

As soon as we departed the bus in SJDS, a gringo man stopped us and told us he had an apartment available to rent, if we were interested. The place was $25/night but if we stayed 3 nights, he'd give us a deal at $20/night. We opted to check it out, and with a promise that we'd have the whole place to ourselves, we quickly shook on it and paid the man. The apartment was 2 bedrooms with a bathroom curtained off in each bedroom, a full kitchen with a combined living space that had a cable TV, plus a small patio out front. The kitchen sink was being repaired, so Oscar (the gringo helper) offered to give us a tour of the town while the repairs were completed. I was a bit skeptical of leaving all of our belongings in the apartment with the workers, and equally concerned we'd come back to find other occupants in the second bedroom. 

        Although weird, the set-up was functional

Oscar led us on a quick tour, pointing out the restaurant where all items are $3.95, the Pali grocery store, the market (where he said he doesn't eat after seeing the lack of sanitation in the kitchen), and the Eskimo ice cream shop that we shouldn't go further than at night. Despite being one of the most dangerous towns in Nicaragua for petty pick pocketing, etc, SJDS is a stunning town. High, dramatic cliffs surround a perfect shaped cove with a flat beach, ideal for kids playing soccer, an afternoon beach volleyball game, or a happy hour drink under one of the many palapa restaurants. The most elaborate and massive houses we've seen were also decorating the cliffs and hills of SJDS. As beautiful as it is, there really isn't much to do there. Hence, the following few days were a blur of minimal activity for us.

Monday afternoon, once we returned to our little home and found our belongings untouched and no roommates, we went in search of our first real meal of the day. One of the two meals we ended up eating at the market that Oscar advised against (we like a challenge), Micah had his favorite dish- jalapeño sauce slathered on a piece of meat, and I ate delicious breaded chicken. We made our way to the Pali grocery store and purchased the makings for a few meals, anxious to take advantage of our kitchen. That evening, we caught up on internet stuff. This included Micah googling "poisonous plants in Nicaragua" and I webmd'ed "abscess". Since our waterfall hike on Ometepe, Micah had noticed a rash on his underarms, elbows, and scattered around his legs. Our best guess is that he came into contact with a poisonous plant of sorts during the hike; how I avoided it is a mystery. What I got instead was another abscess, although I'd take a hundred of this type over the previous one on my leg. A small but firm lump in my armpit with little pain and no signs of infection, we started monitoring it Monday night and looked up where the Centro de Salud (government health center) was in SJDS, just in case.

Tuesday we did our laundry in the outdoor sinks. The set up of the sinks in developing countries is rather genius. There was a lower sink to the left, ideal for soaking clothes in. Then, at the large "double" sink, the shorter sink in the middle has a concrete washboard and the full sink on the right is where the clothes are rinsed. This efficient system combined with the constant sun to dry your clothes really makes a person rethink the expensive and energy sucking machines we use back home! We found a cute spot for lunch where we split another jalapeño beef, which was quite possibly the best to date, before picking up a few forgotten items at a small local store, produce at the market, and the classic Nicaragua shirts we've been waiting to purchase till we leave the country. I attempted to make my mom's delicious fettucini alfredo recipe for dinner, which I've been craving ever since she announced she was making it just days after we left, but without half and half, Italian sausage, or mushrooms being found in any of the stores we checked out, it ended up being a creamy chorizo pasta that we still managed to clean our plates of.

                                                        Laundry time

                                           Definitely not fettucini alfredo

Wednesday morning, we decided it would be best to continue our research on Nicaraguan health centers. The abscess wasn't growing much, but was slightly more red and I wanted to decrease the odds of earning another scar. We waited for almost 10 minutes in the ER before we found out that we should walk in and tell the nurse why we're here. I did, lifted my arm, pointed and said "tengo absceso" and he pointed down the hall to the regular offices. We sat down in the large waiting area with about 15 other people, another 20 in the adjacent waiting room. The doors were labeled with different specialities but we weren't sure what any of them said besides pediatrics and OBGYN so we steered clear of those doors. After another 10 minutes of sitting, I got up the courage to ask another patient if we were suppose to register ourselves to see a doctor. She pointed to a room and we hesitantly walked that way, still unsure what exactly we were doing. Once we told the nurse my name, age, and nationality, we returned to our seats. A few minutes passed before a male doctor called my name. We spent about 5 minutes with him; he asked how long I'd had it (3 days), if it hurt (not really), he poked it (still didn't hurt and sorry I haven't shaved, didn't think I was suppose to), and said it was likely an infected hair follicle from my razor. He prescribed antibiotics and Ibuprofen if needed for pain. We filled the prescription at the pharmacy down the hallway, again receiving all services and Rx for free. I almost skipped out of the hospital, thankful both that he didn't seem too concerned about it and that he didn't want to slice it open.

                     Yay, more antibiotics!

We also went to a different farmacia that day to pick up some Calamine lotion for Micah. His rashes weren't necessarily better or worse, but did itch. We also both noticed his legs were swollen, likely part of the allergic reaction. Between both of us feeling under the weather, and our fabulous lodgings, we found Oscar on the street and told him we'd like to stay at least one more night. Micah made his famous stir fry ramen noodles dish for dinner, and we tucked our broken bodies into bed.

                                              Kitchen, dining and living room

Thursday was uneventful; in fact, I'm not sure we left the house until evening. We made our way down to the beach, watched a doubles sand volleyball game and enjoyed the sun setting behind the clouds. For lack of many food options, we made mac n cheese with vegetables and hot dogs, and it was glorious.

                                                     Sand volleyball

  Christ of Mercy Statue, one of the tallest in the world, is visible on the highest point of the cliff

When Friday morning rolled around, we knew we needed to pick up our game. Midday we set out for some street food and, after eyeing the 25 meter tall Christ of Mercy Statue that overlooks the town from the cliffs, we began our hike up to it. We made it only a short way before a sign informed us that we would be required to pay $2 per person to enter the area around the statue. We continued the steep climb but made frequent stops for pictures of the view, since we were unsure how far we could continue. Turns out, we were able to walk right up to within throwing distance of the statue. That was good enough for us, so we admired the view from there, and then turned around and headed back down. Despite not wearing our swimsuits, we stopped for a swim in the ocean to cool off before returning to our home. 

                      Ordering a hamburger and quesadilla for lunch, $4.00

            Looking north from the top of the cliff, a beautiful and peaceful view

                                                    San Juan del Sur bay

This morning, Saturday, we ate the last of the food in our fridge, pulled the last of our clothes off the clothesline and said a farewell thank you to the home that served us well the past 5 days. By 11am we were on the first of 4 buses heading towards Costa Rica. We disembarked the first bus at the Interamericana highway and 5 minutes later jumped on a bus heading to Peñas Blancas, the border town. We again avoided all the taxi drivers trying to grab our packs, men trying to sell us the immigration form that in two minutes we'd be handed for free, and finally made our way to the Nicaragua immigration office. We paid the $1 municipality fee and then stood in line to get our exit stamp. Once we were finally to the front with our forms filled out, the officer flipped through pages of my passport and asked to see Micah's at the same time. Without a look of concern or annoyance and no words spoken, he took our passports and went behind a door marked authorized personnel only. Since he didn't seem flustered, we wondered if there was a problem. If you recall, when we entered Nicaragua in June, the officer was a bit incompetent and couldn't figure out previous dates of travel along with neglecting to give us the correct paperwork. I've wondered if this would present an issue when we tried to leave. That, and oh yeah, remember the immigration law that you can't stay here longer than 90 days? Micah and I nearly smacked ourselves on the forehead for realizing we forgot this. It's an unusual policy that lumps Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua into one "area" known as CA-4. Almost treating all 4 as one country, the CA-4 regional policy states that if you stay in the "area" for more than 90 days, you will be charged a fee at $2/day. We hoped our recollection on the hefty fee was wrong, but once the officer returned, he informed us that we owed 1,100 cordobas per person, or roughly $80 total. He seemed apologetic as he showed us on the calculator what 17 extra days were going to cost. We had to go across the street and make photocopies of our passports and then return in line to hand him the photocopies and the money. We realized this was our fault and our ignorance, so were willing to pay, although we weren't expecting this additional cost. As the officer was scribbling our information on the photocopied papers, he nonchalantly side nodded to Micah, indicating Micah to walk to the side of his booth, away from the other officer and those waiting in line. He whispered a few words, of which "solo uno" stood out, and we said ok. We paid him $40 instead of $80, thanked him and told him to have a nice day. Our assumption is that he feels this policy is unfair to those traveling between the four countries who are blessed with an abundance of time, and meant to target those possibly living and working in a country as an immigrant (i.e. my sister :)).

An hour later, we finally walked away from Nicaragua and onto Costa Rican soil. We breezed through immigrations, loaded up our passport with a few more stamps, and caught the next bus to Liberia. After a quick transfer, we were on our final bus for a 45 minute ride to Playa del Coco. Knowing that this is a popular destination for local Ticos and that we arrived on a Saturday, we were turned away from multiple full hostals before finding our current habitation. We are in a large, warm room with a private bathroom, but no sink, above a small shopping center and apparently, very close to some discotheques. On the pricier side of what we're use to, $30/night reminds us that we're now in Costa Rica.

                   Country #8, Costa Rica

We spent the last few hours searching for a place to eat that was under $15 and catching the sunset down at the beach. We plan to spend the majority of the next few days at this long beach with unusually beautiful views of tall rocky islands out in the ocean. Walking a few kms south of here, rumor has it that there is a beach ideal for snorkeling. Since its been a couple of months since we've snorkeled, we are both content letting the water and the sun take up most of our time for a few days.

                                                Welcome to Costa Rica