Arrive in Costa Rica and visit the Pacific Coast

After storing our trailer and truck we took a short flight from Orlando to Miami and then on to San Jose, Costa Rica to meet up with Mark and Amber.  We have to thank Mark and Amber immensely for sharing their tropical vacation with us and for all of the fabulous organizing they did.  Lucky for us Ambers boss Craig owns a small house in Playa Hermosa that he offered for us to use for a few days.  Also lucky for us Amber had been in touch with Mary (who lives in Costa Rica and is a co-owner of the house), Mary organized a driver to pick us up at the airport and take us all to Playa Hermosa.  As Alexis and I were leaving the airport not really knowing how we were going to meet up with Mark and Amber or the driver we spotted our names on a sign just as we spotted Amber, problem solved.   The drive to the coast took a couple of hours, it could have been a little quicker but our driver suggested stopping for some cervezas for the ride, you should always listen to locals when they give advice.  We met Mary at the house where she gave us a tour and warned us not to leave anything out.  The house is just 1/2 block from the beach and we went for a swim then settled in.  We took a cab into the neighboring town of Jaco to meet Mary for dinner at Graffiti Restro Cafe, had a great dinner (even Amber who may have left her cards on the table when we left) and decided that we probably all had had enough for our first half day in the country. 

        

As mentioned Mary advised that we should not leave anything outside of  the house, I thought "who would want my old swim shorts?", well it turns out that someone did (see advice that I ignored in sentence 5 above).  We all decided to take it easy the second day and sleep in.  Luckily for us Amber chose the room without A/C so we had a great, cool, night sleep.  We swan some more at the beach, where the currents where a bit strong, and generally relaxed.  Had another great dinner at a small place on the beach where the servings of tuna and mashed potatoes were huge.  The next day Mark and Amber left early for for surf lessons in Jaco with Tex (from California) who we had met the previous night at dinner.  Alexis and I headed to Jaco a bit later to meet up with them and procure a new set of swim shorts for myself.  My backup pair of shorts held up with a rope were not really hacking it.  After Amber got her surf lesson and Mark mainly got ignored we found a traditional Soda (restaurant) for lunch and had our first casados (rice, beans, salad, and meat of your choice).  The owner of the Soda had spent 10 years in Austria and had a bunch of old school snowboarding pictures of himself on the walls.  As we left our waitress told us not to swim for at least 30 minutes but we decided to risk it and went for another swim.  Again we should have listened, not because of the meal and cramping but because of the noon day sun.  After we all realized that we were all a bit red, ok more like lobster red, we headed back to our house to drown our pain in rum.

 

After a bit too much pain medication we all woke a bit groggy, Alexis took her coffee down to the beach to watch the sun rise.  One of the numerous dogs came by where she was and peed on her coffee while another drooled on her flip flops (hee hee).  I hung out in the hammock while Mark rented a surf board and Amber and Alexis headed into Jaco for some shopping.  Went for a nice walk and spotted one of the pairs of Scarlet Macaws that had bee flying around the area. 

 

The following day we all headed into Jaco to get some cash and find a ride to our next stop San Gerrado de Rivas.  While Mark was asking about transportation at a hotel we met Victor who said that he had a taxi/driving service called Tico Taxi and would take us door to door for a reasonable price.  We all decided that it would be worth it to take a private car rather that the bus as the route was a bit complicated.  We made arrangements for Victor to pick us up the next day at Playa Hermosa.  Mark had a problem with an ATM not giving him cash but removing it from his account (he has subsequently talked with his back who assured him that the problem will maybe be resolved).  We spent the rest of the day swimming (Alexis and I) and surfing (Mark and Amber) until Amber decided not to watch the board (Mark's words) and got hit in the mouth.  Mark's sage advise went over pretty well, but a little pain medication did improve the patients outlook.  Had a good dinner Vista Hermosa (best restaurant we found in Hermosa) and some drinks at the appropriable named Dos Gringos.  We woke up excited to be off to the mountains.  Had a quick swim and waited for Victor......