Day 3 already and what an adventure so far. We’ve done a lot in 48 hours here. This morning was a bit more lazy. We both slept pretty well. The bed was comfy and the room cool. Breakfast at Camino Verde was really good. Lots of choices. But we both opted for #3….Eggs (scrambled), Pancakes, Bacon and a fruit plate. We also had unlimited orange juice. Very good it was.
After eating we jumped in the car to head north to a beach I had researched on for good snorkeling. Playa Conchal is its name. The hotel I chose is called Conchal Hotel and the reviews were pretty good. Anyway, the drive was to take 3 hours to go about 90 miles. The drive started pretty good, on good roads. However, the drive deteriorated as we wound through the mountains and eventually down to the valley. It took about a1.5 hours to get off the mountain driving sometimes on pot hole laced, very narrow, very windy, in the clouds, roads. I am so glad I chose not to do ANY driving here at night, especially in the Monteverde area. But, the views while driving, were absolutely amazing coming down from Santa Elena in Monteverde. Just so green and lush. And I’m always amazed at the homes of made basic materials all through out the hills…so remote. I wonder how they survive on so little and so far away. But they do and they are happy. They wave happily as we drive by.
Once we were off the mountain and on to some better, straighter roads, I decided to get some gasoline. We pulled into a station on as we turned off highway 1 on to highway 18 and a fellow immediately came over to pump our gas. After getting it started, he pulled out a hose and hosed my windshield off followed by a soap spray. He then scrubbed the window and squeegee’d it off. It never looked so good. It was nice to have someone pump your gas. I remember when they use to do that at places in the USA.
The remaining drive was on better roads for the middle part. But toward the end, we did take some back roads until we got to another main road that took us to our hotel. We arrived around 12:45 PM…a little early. Now, these ‘hotels’ are roadside type places. And sometimes it is hard to see the name and it is easy to pass by them. This one, we caught the name but initially wondered what we had purchased. You feel like you are in the middle of nowhere. And the funny thing…I had yet to see the darn beach! Anyway, the beach could be seen about 100 yards down the road and the ‘hotel’ is kind of like a little paradise with rooms that surround a pool with lush plants and trees all around. On the 2nd floor is a restaurant and bar that happens be closed today. The owner who checked us in gave us the low down on the area we were in and how to get to Playa Conchal. Playa Brasilito was what we could see down the road. To get to Playa Conchal…well it was a 15 or more walk from our hotel. You enter at Playa Brasilito and then turn south for most of the walk to get to Playa Conchal…which was a much prettier beach than Brasilito. You can’t get easily to Conchal due to a Westin Resort that occupies the frontage to most of Playa Conchal. Anyway….not like Pismo Beach with the beach out our back door…that’s for sure.
Once we were in our room, we changed into beach clothes and headed out on our walk to Playa Conchal. I had all my snorkel gear as I had read on a few blogs that this beach had some really good snorkeling. Well…what a let down that was. Indeed the beach is a beautiful one that starts out with a beach of crunched up sea shells and ends in nice white sand. But the snorkeling around the coral rocks…horrible. Never tried to snorkel in a place with such poor visibility. I tried it for a bit but I could barely see my hand in front of my face due to the sand being swirled up by the surf. So…my snorkeling is all but over here I suppose. We did spend an hour or two there swimming in the surf and laying on the beach under a very nice tree. But we had to keep an eye on storm that seemed to be moving in as at one point we had to cross a river inlet that was flowing into the ocean. And the hotel owner warned us that this would swell if a rainstorm kicked up and could be difficult to cross. So…we opted to get out of there.
On the way back we stopped at a ‘Soda’…which is a food place\stand to get a ‘snack’. We shared a very chewy fish and chip plate. The fish was fried and a bit chewy…which was odd. Who knows what type of crazy fish it was. Nonetheless…it hit the spot to get us to dinner later. We ended up back at our room around 4 PM’ish and decided to just swim in the pool and hand out there for awhile. It was quite relaxing and felt good.
Around 6 PM, we took our hotel owners advice and walked maybe 75 yards down the road to an Indian food restaurant. Holy smokes…that food was amazing! It was called Masala’s if I remember right. Man, we hummed as we ate a beef curry dish along with butter chicken, lemon rice with garlic naan. We were both licking our fingers it was so darn good. It was worth the flight to Costa Rica to eat such good Indian food.
Well, it is time to retire. Tomorrow is going to be a lazy beach hopping day. We will probably drive up the coast and check out some beaches along the way. Looking forward to report on tomorrow’s blog how that turned out.
Some pictures:
This picture shows what much of the road look like coming off of Monteverde. You can’t go too fast with such pot holes looming everywhere. It was another crazy drive.
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