Costa Rica - March 2019

Album Cover - Curi Cancha Cloud Forest

Keith and John both turn 50 in 2019 so we used that as another excuse to travel together.  We were lucky enough to add Kim and Jonathon to the trip and headed to Costa Rica.  While Shawna and Keith had been to Costa Rica 20 years ago for a spring break trip while at Fuqua (pre-blogging), the others had not yet been.

Deep Sea Fishing - Tamarindo

Accommodation:
Courtyard Marriott Hobby Airport: Located in Houston near the Hobby airport, we stayed one night on our way to Costa Rica. Clean and free on points.

Chez Christine/Graham:  We stayed with Christine and Graham the Friday night before we flew out to Costa Rica.

Camino Verde, Monteverde: Great, affordable place on the edge of town with a large common area for breakfast and a nice porch to sit on with views of the forest in the distance.  We each had a room here - rooms were medium in size and were cute and clean.  Breakfast was included.

Camino Verde B&B

Tamarindo Diria Beach Resort: We rented a three bedroom condo through VRBO.  The resort has beachfront property but the owned units are across the street with a large pool that has a swim up bar.  The rental was very large, had a nice living room and kitchen so we could make breakfast and keep our beer cold, and also had a washer/dryer in the condo.  We each had our own bedroom and bathroom.

Pool at Tamarindo Diria Beach Resort

Activities:
We were able to get the trip free on points on Southwest via Houston.  We maximized our time by flying to Houston on the Thursday night and getting a hotel by the airport.  We both worked at the hotel on the Friday before Ubering over to Christine and Graham's for dinner and overnight.  We started off with wine on the patio before going inside for a delicious dinner of Shepherds Pie and a cheese plate for desert.  We plowed through 5 bottles of wine which in retrospect was not the best of ideas!

This is what 5 bottles of wine looks like - Keith, Shawna, Graham and Christine

Saturday morning, we Ubered to Hobby to meet John, JoAnna, Kim, and Jonathan as they were flying in that morning from Raleigh so we could all get the same flight to Liberia airport.  After we were all settled on the plane to take off, we were told by the pilot that the jet bridge canopy had damaged the plane and they'd have to find a new plane to take us to Costa Rica!  Fortunately, it was only a 2-hour delay before were on the next plane, and Southwest proactively gave all of us a $100 voucher as an apology.

We arrived at 4pm and took a couple of hours to get through customs and get the rental car.  All the luggage fit, with JoAnna sitting in the very back row surrounded by all the bags.  The drive was going to be ~2.5 hours so we opted for an immediate dinner at a restaurant next to the car rental agency.  It was then off to Monteverde on the same terrible unpaved road as we remembered from 20 years ago - this time with some rain sprinkled in as we drove up the mountain!  

Curi Cancha Cloud Forest

Monteverde
We wanted to make this trip a bit more than just a "be-lazy-on-the-beach" trip so Monteverde was to be our "cultural" experience.

• Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve: This was the first stop, with Monteverde Experts as our tour company. Carlos was our guide who told us a lot about the forest and helped us find the crested guan and black guan, three wattled bellbird, a few other birds, a millipede, a male quetzal and several hummingbirds. We looked at our old pictures from our first time in Costa Rica and spent some time trying to recreate a photo across the suspended bridge.

Monteverde Cloud Forest

Monteverde Cloud Forest - Quetzal

• Waterfall Canyoning: Keith, Jonathan, and JoAnna did this adventure.  They picked us up at the hotel and drove us the 20 minutes to their office.  We harnessed up, rented some used shoes to not make our own wet, and walked to the start of the waterfalls.  We rappelled 6 falls, the highest of which was 130 feet. 

Waterfall Repelling

• Serpent Garden: John, Kim, and Shawna walked to see this, but once they saw it was $16 each they decided to bail.  
• Orchid Garden: Instead, John, Kim and Shawna went to this garden while the others were repelling.  They have over 400 species in this garden with over 100 growing at any time and over 80% are very tiny flowers. Shawna's favorite was the monkey face orchid. Afterward, we went back to hotel and had beer on the porch and then were joined by the rest of the gang who shared their repelling stories over more beer!

Monkey Face Orchid - Orchid Garden

• Selvarura Park: Started the day on the hanging bridges tour which was very cool.  We saw black guan, a female and male quetzal, and a tarantula. In the afternoon, John, JoAnna, and Keith did the 12-section zipline while the rest did the butterfly tour and hummingbirds. Shawna had tried to get photos of us doing the last zipline but unfortunately, the clouds rolled in just as we went and so she could not get a good shot.

Selvatura Park - Hanging Bridges Tour

Selvatura Park - Ziplining

Selvatura Park - Butterfly Garden

• Night Walk: Led by Johnny Loves Nature, Johnny himself led this two tour in one of the local forests. We saw two vipers (one in a tree and another coiled around a branch waiting to strike), three sloths (one of which was carrying a baby), a frog, a kinkajou, scorpions, howler monkeys and an agouti.  It was interesting to see the difference of the activity of the wildlife at night. 

Night Walk - Sloth aka Fur Ball

Night Walk - Viper Ready to Strike

• Curi Cancha Reserve:  Just when you thought we would have had enough of cloud forests, we took another tour with Camino Verde Tours, this time in a smaller, less visited part of the forest.  The grounds were beautiful and were very different from the others we had been to.  We saw a slate throated redstart, pia pias (which are brown jays - they call them this because of their sound), black and white warblers, a coati, two mottled owls, a ton of hummingbirds, an agouti, sunbitterns, and white faced monkeys who were quite playful. 

Curi Cancha - Mottled Owls

Curi Cancha - White Faced Monkeys

Curi Cancha - Ficus Tree (House)

Tamarindo

On Tuesday mid-day, we packed up the car again to drive to Tamarindo.  It was about a 3 hour drive with a stop for lunch along the way - thankfully the roads were better.  We checked into the condo, caught up on emails, and grabbed some groceries.  Shawna made guacamole to go with our beer while watching the first half of the Duke game at the condo and then we caught the second half of the game at Sharky's, which is a local sports bar. This part of the trip was a bit more relaxing with some activities.

• Rincon Volcano Tour: Keith and Shawna bailed on this as we had slept terribly the night before.  So the rest of the gang did the all-day tour including hiking around the volcano, walking to a waterfall where they dipped into the water, painted themselves in mud and relaxed in the hot springs.  

Rincon Volcano Tour

• While the others did the volcano tour, we slept until 10am, walked along the beach with crazy winds, ate lunch on the beach, drank a few mojitos, and napped a bit more in the afternoon!  What a lazy day!

Tamarindo Beach

• Fishing Trip: We had booked a sailing trip but it turned out to be overbooked and we were worried that it would be too crowded.  So we bailed on that tour and while at lunch, we chatted with the owner of Sweet Costa Rica who happened to be walking by to sell his tours.  We ended up booking a private deep sea fishing trip through him.  We were picked up in the morning to avoid the heavy winds and drove over to the Flamingo Marina where we got on our boat.  We had a nice ride with the boys each taking their turn fishing - they caught bonito fish which they threw back and Keith also caught a ray.   

Deep Sea Fishing

Bonito Fish

• Pool: Most of the days we spent time in the water at the resort pool with a swim-up bar.  A few beers were had, along with pina coladas and chocolate monkeys (Kim's favorite).

• Basketball games: We were able to catch a couple of Duke games including the Duke/UNC game as well as a UVA game.  Unfortunately Duke lost to UNC but UVA won.

We had to pack up early Sunday morning so we could leave the house by 8:30.  There was no problem getting to the airport, with us flying home via Houston and the rest of the gang flying home via Baltimore.  We had dinner at Hobby Airport but the flight home was delayed by four hours - so we were not home and in bed until 3am.  As usual with this crew, we had a fantastic time with lots of laughs!

Sunset at the Roof - Tamarindo

Restaurants:
La Choza de Laurel (at Liberia Airport): An oddly great meal for what was effectively a tourist restaurant next door to the rental car location.  We shared mixed meat with vegetables and volcano rice.  All had beers except Keith (who might have snuck a few sips of Shawna's).  

Monteverde

Camino Verde: The hotel included breakfast every morning with the same four options.  Most mornings we split the rice and beans with eggs and fruit plate - it was tasty!

Taco Taco Taqueria: This place was close to our hotel.  We ate on the deck outside and split the carnitas and fish tacos which were delicious! 

Monteverde Beer Garden:  An unusual concept - it is a combo middle eastern restaurant and beer garden, with monkeys hanging out during the day (we were there in the evening).  We just had a few beers here.

Tico y Rico: A pretty good restaurant in town servicing local food.  We shared the black bean soup which was like a broth (not what we had expected) and churrasco steak with yuca and plantations (which was tasty).

Tree House: We stopped here for lunch - more of a touristy restaurant.  We split the tomato soup and a pizza.

Tree House

El Bonanza:  A 'soda' (which is what they call a small restaurant serving local food) next to our hotel.  Our guide from the night tour had suggested it.  The owner described the top dishes to us in Spanish and surprisingly we made out most of it and ordered in Spanish.  We shared the tenderloin with mushrooms which was very good.

Tamarindo

Mi Finca (on road to Tamarindo): We stopped here for lunch - fairly large place that looked like it would attract tourist buses - thankfully it was pretty empty when we arrived.  We shared the chicken fajitas which was tasty.

Sharky’s: The major sports bar in town with a ton of TVs.  They were able to get every ACC game we wanted to watch.  We had many pitchers of beer along with the buffalo cauliflower which was fantastic and a few other appetizers.

El Chiringuito: A very cute place located on the beach on one end of town - Keith and Shawna had lunch here while the rest of the gang was doing the volcano tour.  We shared the lamb kabobs with couscous and had a few mojitos - everything was delicious!

El Chiringuito

Soda El Buen Comer: A small restaurant at edge of town serving local food. We shared the garlic shrimp. Food was OK. 

Volcano Brewery: We had a beer here but none of us really like the beer so we did not return.

Cafe Tico: We went here for breakfast - a cute, small restaurant with outdoor seating.  We shared beans and rice with eggs for breakfast - tasty.

Nogui: We had lunch here and shared the ahi poke (which was good) and fish tacos (which was bland). Kim and Shawna (with a little help from Keith) split two pitchers of sangria - needless to say we were 'happy' the rest of the afternoon!

The Roof: A restaurant / bar with a great patio to watch the sunset.  One night ,Jonathan brought in a couple of pizzas from here to eat in the condo and another night, we had a few beers here to watch the sunset before dinner.

Antichi Sapori Sicilian: We were all a bit tired of local food so decided on Italian.  This is a very small restaurant with mostly outdoor seating.  We shared tomato mozzarella, bruschetta and pasta with meat balls. Food was pretty good.

Shrimp Hole: Another small place with outdoor tables.  We went here for lunch and shared the poke and shrimp tacos which were very good.

Wave: Unsatisfied with our Italian meal from the night before and dreaming of the pasta from Aruba, we went here mainly to have pasta made in a Parmesan wheel - each couple shared one dish (as we had had quite a few appetizers already at Sharky's) - pasty was tasty!

The Groovy Box: Ice cream place - we shared the caramel which was pretty good.

Houston
Pappadeaux Hobby Airport: On our way home, we ate here for dinner since we had quite a long layover.  We each had a salad in an attempt to get back on a healthy diet!

Monteverde Cloud Forest