Another 10+ hours travel day although it was fairly uneventful. We passed through one of the largest Palm oil plantations in the Americas, literally tens of thousands of palm trees lined the road in neat lines on both sides for well over an hour.
In Nosara we were told that our bus would be passing the end of our road at 5.45am. We left at 5.05 just to make sure are were just approaching the corner at about 5.20 when we saw the bus. Trying to run on the crumbling dirt road with our heavy bags Adam took a tumble and gashed his leg, but we did catch the s. Little did we know this was just the start of a nightmare journey. Without going into too much detail we took 3 buses over 8 hours and not one of the buses left from anywhere near where the previous had stopped, combined with the fact the no one could provide us with any useful information as to the whereabouts of our next bus other than a vague wave of the hand in the rough direction. Anyway we eventually arrived in the extremely Americanised (or should we say Americanized) beach town of Tamarindo.
The whole town has been developed for the American market, apart from the dirt roads you could be in Florida. They have even painted the taxis to look like New York taxis. There is good reason why most Costa Ricans refer to it as "Tamagringo".
All over town are construction sites building new hotels and condos, as well as protest signs by the local population against over development.
You have to watch out fro some of the locals - they are vultures!
However despite the Disneyland fell of the town a short walk will still take you to some amazing natural beaches.
Walking for half an hour up the beach away from town we came to a natural barrier - a river estuary with no bridge. With a bag containing our cameras, clothes, money and towel what were we going to do?
The solution! Bag balanced on head Adam waded carefully through. There was only one very brief point in the middle when the water went over his head, but the bag stayed dry. (In case there are any pedants out there who are wondering how the picture was taken if the camera was in the bag, this was the rerun at Liz´s request).
Our efforts were rewarded with a quiet stretch of beach to ourselves where we could enjoy the sea in peace.
Taking in the beauty of Costa Rica.
Hundreds of these crabs live in holes on the beach. They are very shy and hide in their holes as soon as you get close to them, but for some reason when their holes are underwater they come out and nip your feet.
Finding a good position to photograph the sunset.
A couple of the results
Once again all the land near on this side of the country is absolutely parched, there has been no rain for three months.
As a result the cactii were thriving.
This vulture was watching Liz while Adam was off exploring. It was probably waiting for her to keel over in the intense heat.
We climbed around the headland to another of Nosara´s beaches, Playa (beach in Spanish) Pelada.
We probabaly don´t need to write anything for this one.
As usual Adam was quick to strip off and jump in the (shallow) water.
We spotted this crab running under a log. When we took the log away he did his best to scare us off.
We ate ice cream whilst watching the sunset.
A bit of a holiday catalogue pose.
Once we arrived after a bumpy, dusty but thankfully rather short journey we had most of the day to start exploring the stunning coast line of Nosara. This is called Guiones Beach.
On the rocks again.
We spent many hours just walking peacefully on the beach.
Most of the other tourists in the area were American surfers, we sat on the beach and watched them several times during our stay. However the only people we ever saw standing up on their boards were the Costa Rican locals such as this one.
There is no escape on the beach from the unrelenting sun, beautiful though it is.
We stayed at this hotel in Nicoya mainly because of the name! Unfortunately it didn´t turn out to be ANYTHING like Stables Cottage: It was clean, there was hot water, no ants, the sheets were spotless and it was really quiet due to the fact that it wasn´t right next to a busy main road.
We heard there was a beautiful waterfall in Montezuma so we decided to climb upstream to have a look.
After climbing over rocks for half an hour we reached the waterfall which was indeed beautiful.
There was a cool swimming hole at the bottom of the falls so Adam went for a swim (small pink blob at bottom right of waterfall). Unfortunately it was quite deep and he is a bit of a coward when it comes to going out of his depth.
It was fun going under the falling water, especially with some good solid rock to hang onto.
Liz waited until we got back to the hotel for the safer swimming option.
An afternoon stroll along the beach and of course Adam found some rocks to play on. He was also carrying a large stick around with him (not pictured).
At the beginning of our trip we were staying in some reasonable hotels but due to tenants not paying for the flat we have had to resort to staying in a makeshift hut on the beach made of driftwood and old palm tree leaves.
There are literally hundreds of these small crabs living in holes in the sand.
When your budget doesn´t allow eating out more than once a week, you don´t have a kitchen and you´re vegetarian food can get a bit monotonous. As a result you may be tempted to try some strange combinations- such as banana with hot chilli sauce. This is actually suprisingly delicious ( take note Alex and Olie).