Playas del Coco, Playas del Tamarindo

Ahhh..the sweet sticky smell of rainforest and diesel. I made it into San Jose with out a hitch. Went straight to a hotel, got a quick meal, and got ripped off at least three times before I got to bed. (When I said.."any hotel" I didn't mean one in the middle of the red-light district.) But, no need to write about San Jose.

On the morning of the 26th I got a bus too Playas del Coco, and met up with Keriken (per my previous post). On the 28th we went diving. It was decent, though pretty cold, and the vis wasn't great. We saw quite a few stingrays though, some up to 6 feet across, and eels, and seahorses, and a turtle. All in all I was happy with it. The following day we walked in the blistering heat 3 kilometers to a nice black sand beach..had a few drinks, did some snorkeling..Erik taught me his new free diving breath holding techniques (It works!!). We hitchhiked back as it was too damn hot to walk. Got a ride in a nice dirty flat bed truck. I can't remember what else we did (this is what happens when you forget your journal and don't keep up with your blog). That's okay, cause the fun really began when we left Coco.

On 1 March we hopped a bus to Playas del Tamarindo. We asked several people the best way to cover the 40 miles and thought we had it all figured out. Turns out our trip took 4 hours! It was basically like being on a city bus, which stopped any place anyone wanted to, and took a lot of detours, for 40 miles! Oh yeah, and most of it was dirt road. It was ridiculous, but we made the mistake of assuming a bus ride would be easy. Not smart. Of course, the ride did cost a dollar.

Tamarindo is pretty nice..though Gringodized (There's a B. King, P. Hut, and Subway). There are more bars and restaurants right on the beach here, which is the best way to enjoy a beach in my book. We are also splurging on a hotel with AC and a pool (50 a night for three people). We're gonna spend some time here surfing and diving before we head inland. I'm diving a spot in the morning where there may be manta rays and whale sharks. We'll see.

Can you spot the howler monkeys in the picture? Not really, I know..but they're there.

-R