Pura Vida!

We survived the hotel room from hell. Albeit barely. After spending the night trying to sleep without actually making bodily contact with the bedding (I spread a towel over mine), we booked it out of there first thing in the morning. The one nice thing about the hotel was that it was directly across the street from Tamarindo Beach. It was like salty bath water. Aaaaaah. We spent the morning/afternoon beach hopping, as there were a number of them within a few kilometers of each other. We ate lunch at a homey, authentic little place that was set right on the oceawhere they brought a bowl filled with ice water and flower petals for us to wash our hands in. On our way out, some little boys were playing with something and called me over ("Oye, gringa", they said) to come see. It was a couple of crabs they'd found that were fighting and they thought it was the coolest thing ever and wanted to show me; we talked about it at length. I LOVE little moments like that.

Then we headed about an hour more north along the coast and ended up at our ultimate destination; the Papagayo Allegro Resort. When we had been back at the swanky hotel by the volcano, we met up with a couple from Atlanta who was at the tail end of the their trip and happy to share advice/recommendations for us. Among other things, they told us about the Papagayo hotel and even gave us a lead on a special price they were running, which included everything from the room to meals to booze. We decided to live it up and booked it for our last two nights in Costa Rica. After an “interesting” time finding it in the pouring rain (I TOLD you I’m probably the only person that could actually get lost even with a GPS), we pulled up to a beautiful resort tucked into the side of a mountain overlooking the ocean. There were black sand beaches, white sand beaches, a fabulous pool and free food and drinks. Not a bad way to cap things off, I must admit. If you just picture us sitting by the beach/pool, book in one hand, fruity drink in the other (Dirty Monkey is my new favorite), that pretty much sums up our whole time there.

Oh! And there were monkeys swinging from trees, both the white-faced and the howler varieties. Not like in cages or there for the tourists benefit but like we'd just be walking down to the beach and there they would be, playing in the trees or taking naps. It was so funny to see them sleeping up there, their long legs and tails hanging down from the limbs they were precariously balanced on and swinging back and forth. I got some great video of it..... but erased it by mistake. Doh! For some reason I'm totally fascinated by them and could just sit and watch them for hours (just ask Niki, who is still deeply wounded by the fact that she almost floated out to sea in a kayak, never to be seen again, while I was obliviously watching the monkeys). One of the most amazing things I saw them do involved a mother and her baby. They were swinging around, doing their thing (ever seen a baby monkey hang by its tail and try to reach a leaf to eat? Sooo funny. That was almost worth letting Niki float away to Nicaragua!) when the mama jumped over a pretty big space from one tree to another. The baby wanted to follow but there was no way he could make it so he just stopped and sat on his branch, looking forlornly at his mom in the other tree. When she turned around and saw his plight, she amazingly somehow held on to her current tree with her back legs then reached waaaaaaay over to the other tree where the baby was; she was able to get a hold of the very tip of the branch and slowly started pulling it towards her, inch by inch, until it made a bridge the baby could walk across to get to her. He immediately jumped on her back and off they went. That sort of instinct is SO amazing to witness.

I have to say that I had always been very opposed to the idea of an “all-inclusive” resort. When I travel, I want to see what the country is REALLY like and to get to be in and among the local people. Honestly, if I want to hang out with a bunch of loud, pale Americans, I’ll just stay in America (it would be a lot cheaper, too). And the truth is that if this is all we had done on our trip, I for sure would have felt like I hadn't gotten any real sense of the country, that I could have done the very same thing in the US. But because I/we did so many other things, saw so many other places, met so many other people and drove over, under, and through so many different parts of the country, I was happy to spend these last two days here, simply relaxing (as if the rest of our trip was SO stressful in comparison).

Tomorrow is our last full day and we have big plans. I'm so excited! Once again I end with saying that I shall write more later, presuming we survive the experience... (how's that for a cliffhanger?)