Costa Rica 2022
Dec 4
It's a long long drive to Puerto Viejo, we have to drive Southeast and the down the Caribbean coast. We stopped at the church in San Ramon again, because we knew they had bathrooms we could use, and it gave us a chance to load up on some road snacks.
When we finally got there, the traffic through the little beach town of Puerto Viejo was crazy, it's a narrow street, and one double parked vehicle stops traffic in both directions. Imagine if there was 2 or 3, and a giant truck trying to get past them. Eventually we got through to the other side of the town and drove the 6 km to Playa Chiquita. It took a little while before we finally found our Zen Villa place hidden behind a wall and some secret doors.
The Zen House, Playa Chiquita
All the access info had been sent to us in advance, and we were able to enter the private grounds of the complex. When we got to the front door of our house, It took a bit of back and forth via text with our host before we could finally get a correct code to get in to our VRBO paradise. While we are waiting a monkey is up a tree watching us.
The Zen house is a luxury Balinese three-bedroom home situated in the gated privacy of lush tropical gardens. The home is right in the heart of playa Chiquita. We could tell from the outside, but as soon as we opened the door... this place was amazing!
The main area is an open concept living dining kitchen area with a glass wall that opens to a large deck area with a private infinity pool and many quiet sitting areas.
On one side of the house is two guest rooms on either side of a huge bathroom, on the other side is a Master bedroom with a huge bathroom, soaker tub, outdoor shower and a walk-in closet.
After spending some quality time with all creatures great and small, we started getting hungry, and I think Nathan really wanted to get away from this giant moth.
We walked all the way through a small gate and across the street (at least a 3 minute walk), and had dinner at Pura Gula Restaurante.
Throughout our time in Costa Rica we have been hearing/seeing the phrase 'Pura Vida' (pronounces poo-rah vee-dah). Simply translated, it means “simple life” or “pure life”, but here in Costa Rica, it is more than just a saying—it is a way of life. Costa Ricans use this term to say hello, to say goodbye, to say everything’s great, to say everything’s cool.
Since we knew the Pura Vida phrase so well, we had to look up what Pura Gula means, we all burst out laughing when we discover it means Pure Gluttony. For the rest of our time in Playa Chiquita we just called it the Glutton restaurant.
Although Nathan didn't enjoy the Blue Cheese in his pasta, and Norine's mouth nearly melted from the chili peppers on her fish, we couldn't wait to come back here again.
We walked around a bit down dark trails towards the beach, then thought better of it and headed back to our place for some Crazy 8’s.
Dec 5
We woke up and explored more of this amazing place now that it was light out.
WARNING! Photos of large spiders ahead
Critters of the area
We found a little place nearby for a Costa Rican breakfast, Restaurante caribeño kischna Playa Chiquita, apparently a Caribbean breakfast is the same as a traditional Costa Rican breakfast. Rice and Beans, eggs and patacones. Still very good.
Two Toucans are nesting outside our place.
Vultures circling overhead, uh-oh
Today was a beach day, we walked down the path behind our place to Playa Chiquita, more of a locals beach with not many people.
Playa Chiquita
After a fun afternoon in the surf, we washed the salt water off in our infinity pool.
This toucan seems to be hanging around our place, and he is calling out on our way to dinner
For dinner we crossed the street again, this time to Punto y Pasta for some great meals.
Our two favourite restaurants in Playa Chiquita
Another great night for poolside Crazy 8's... tonight's final hand would last 2.5 hours.
Dec 6
Today was the girls turn to get the adventure, apparently Caribbean horses are too small for us bigger guys, so Norine and Annika went horseback riding while I hung out at the pool, and Nathan nursed a hangover most of the morning.
Wandering around the pool are these cute little agouti (A-GOO-tee), apparently they are a large rodent species.
Just sitting around the pool was entertaining this morning, watching agouti, little critters and an Iguana in the tree.
Horseback Riding
Annika: "When we discovered there were horse riding tours only 7
minutes down the road from where we were staying, the only thing left to do was book a
time! The guys couldn't come, so We secured a 9 am ride for just the gals later that
week. The morning came and Norine and I woke up bright eyed and bushy tailed ready for
our adventure. We began the walk to the facility which we had located the day before. It
took us not even 20 minutes to walk there which was amazing.
Just before exiting the highway onto the dirt road where the stable was, I could
smell the aroma of a certain herb that one usually doesn’t smell before 9 am. I
thought for sure I was imagining things, but Norine could also detect it. As we
approached the barn, the aroma became much more apparent, and when we were approached by
a long-haired man holding a left-handed cigarette, "you guys are early!" it was obvious
our senses were not fooling us! He impolitely did not offer any, however he was very
welcoming and had a calming presence, for obvious reasons. He was to be our guide for
the morning. There was another man there who was also enjoying a left-handed cigarette,
except he was tacking up our caballos and giving them their morning feed.
When it was time to mount up, our guide removed his shoes and asked us if we wanted
to do the same. We kept ours on, hopped on our steeds, and began riding toward the
beach, with our guide on foot in the lead. I rode a small bay gelding, and Norine rode a
bigger buckskin gelding. The first part of the ride was in a forested area, which was
full of medicinal and edible plants that our guide was very knowledgeable about. He
picked flower buds and leaves for us to try and educated us on their healing properties.
Just before we exited the forest onto the beach, we came across a colony of Tiger
ants that he explained were also edible. Both Norine and I were very skeptical and
neither of us entertained the idea of eating a live ant, especially because when he
beheaded one and offered it to me, it’s legs were still moving in his hand! He
removed the thorax from the ant carcass and told me the butt tasted citrusy. Turns out,
he was right!
We rode onto the beach after that and decided we would let our caballos go for a run.
We started side by side which then turned into a race. It was fun for a bit, however
stopping them was not an easy feat so we decided to take it easy for the rest of the
ride. The horses were very used to going in and out of water which made it very easy to
avoid the poisonous trees along the shoreline. There were many times they walked
belly-deep into the water without hesitation.
Our 1.5 hour ride turned into a 2.5 hour ride due to a misunderstanding, which was
just fine with us! It was a spectacular morning, and to top it off we saw 4 sloths in
the trees along the beach. It was amazing to be on a horse, look left and see the
Caribbean sea, and then look right and see a wild sloth napping in a tree. One of the
sloths we saw was in a fallen tree not very high off the ground, and it was having a
very deep rest, so we were able to get within a few feet of it and take some great
pictures.
When we returned back to the stable, the gentleman made a pot of herbal tea over the
fire and we stayed for a cup and a visit. It was at this point where Norine was finally
offered a left-handed cigarette, but she politely declined as we were high enough on
life 
"
There would have been more pictures of the horses, but the stoner guide shot a 17 minute video of the inside of his hand and killed the camera battery half way through the ride.
As Nathan and I are waiting at the pool, 1.5 hours became 2.5 hours, something must be up, so we walked down to the horse place looking for them. Turns out when you smoke pot before a ride, you forget that it's only supposed to be 1.5 hours. It could have been an honest absent-minded mistake, or it could have been a ploy to get the 1.5 hour tourists to pay for a 2.5 hour tour, either way, they only took enough money to give them a tip, and they weren't getting any more.
After we finally found the girls walking back from the stables, we jumped into the car for a town day of lunch, shopping and exploring.
Puerto Viejo de Talamanca
Our first stop was the Tamara Caribbean restaurant, a Jamaican restaurant that fit right into the style and colours of this beach town. Good food, and good drinks, a great way to start our afternoon in Puerto Viejo de Talamanca.
After wandering the town shops and beach areas for some time, we really needed a rest stop for some drinks. This little bar across from the beach was just what we needed, cheap cold drinks and a bathroom. While we are there, the two Dutch women that were in front of Nathan and I at the zipline stopped at the same place. 300 km away and we end up at the same small bar, small world.
Feeling refreshed and rested, it was time to head back to our place.
As we are walking back to the car, I get a message about checkout processes for our place, we had all lost track of days and thought we had one more day to spend in the area. Tomorrow would be our last day of adventure and driving.
Nathan: "After grabbing some sweets from a beach front shop we stopped and gathered around Uncle on his phone with an unpleased look on his face. None of us realized that it was our last night on the Caribbean Coast. Time had flown by, the weeks we were there felt like hours, and time was running out."
After some quality pool time we ended up back at Punto y Pasta as our glutton place was closed.
Our last night of poolside Crazy 8’s, we had a ton of laughs reminiscing about our Pura Vida days, and who was going to play the next pick-up-two card, or even worse... the bitch card.
Dec 7
Maybe it was because it was our last night, maybe whatever was scurrying around on our roof, and maybe the howler monkeys roaring at 5am, but we all didn’t sleep well. We woke up early to pack up and load the car, luckily we were able to leave our car at the Zen Villa secured parking and were picked up by taxi to be taken into Manzanillo (no not that Manzanillo, the Costa Rica Manzanillo).
Dolphin Boat Tour
Nathan: "We had one more spectacular day to enjoy before heading
back to San Jose, and a spectacular day we had. The previous night returning to our zen
villa, the packing commenced, as did the consumption of everything we didn't want to or
couldn't pack. This included five out of a six pack of Cuba Libres, to myself. In
hindsight, a terrible lapse of judgement on my part, seeing as we were waking up early
to do our final tour of Costa Rica; a dolphin tour.
The next morning rolled around in a flash and before we knew it we were loading stuff
to the car and saying our goodbyes to the paradise we had been staying at. We were
getting a shuttle to a dolphin tour, so we left the car in its parking area, and waited
for our ride to arrive. Standing in the beautiful Costa Rican sun, listening to the
mopeds go zipping by, my stomach did a flip. I don't usually get that hungover, even if
I slightly over do it. However, this morning was an exception to the fact.
Our driver pulls over in a little Toyota and we load up and take off to Manzanillo. We arrive and greet our captain and guide, wade out in the water to the boat, then load the other people taking the tour, excitement building the whole time, and take off. We go out to deeper water and the waves started to get bigger, which just excited me. I started to get the feeling of being on a Rollercoaster"
When we spot the Seagulls and seabirds circling an area, we know there is schools of fish there, which means dolphins will be nearby.
Nathan: "We rounded past a huge island with iguanas and pelicans
sunbathing, when one of the tour guides starts pointing out at birds in the distance, he
was saying that the dolphins chase the fish and the birds then eat the fish as they swim
and jump away from the dolphins, where there's birds there's usually dolphins.
We start to head toward the birds and the roller coaster feeling intensifies, even
though the water is getting smoother. Once we get to the general area of where the birds
were, we stopped to look, and THAT'S when it hit me like a freight train. I was getting
very sea sick, for the first time in my life. Trying to breath through it and not make a
scene, of course that's when the dolphins pop out in front of us.
In between trying not to hurl I was trying to get pictures of the majestic creatures,
which I did get a few.
So far our "tour" has been just a boat ride as the crew hasn't had much to say to us in English. There is two types of dolphins that we would see, small and large (pequeña y gigante delfines). The first group of dolphins we see are the Guiana dolphins, also known as the Costero. They are a smaller dolphin native to the Caribbean side of Costa Rica and extending from Nicaragua to Brazil. When I hear our captain pointing and exclaiming "Gigante", I knew we were heading towards the larger Bottlenose dolphins.
We saw a lot of dolphins, and Nathan learned his lesson about drinking before a boat ride on ocean waters.
Punta Mona Beach
After watching a large group of Dolphins we spent some time at Punta Mona beach and an abandoned/quarantined farm village. Punta Mona was an 85 acre off the grid, family owned environmental education center, botanical collection, permaculture farm and eco-lodge, dedicated to sustainable ways of living. Some might even call it a hippie commune. When Covid hit, the farm was quarantined and shut down and the community disbanded. Now it is looked after by a single caretaker and a dog named Sola (which means alone).
The beach at Punta Mona was not the nicest beach and it was quite rocky for swimming, it still looks nice though.
Nathan: After what felt like hours of fighting with the nausea, the
captain finally asked if we wanted to go to shore to check out a natural farm on Punta
Mona. As soon as I heard the word 'land' my eyes lit up and yelled YES. We proceeded to
anchor and toured this amazing place that used to be a research farm, but is now kind of
abandoned and growing wild.
Walking around, you saw everything from mangoes to papayas, even this crazy berry
that turned everything you ate sweet after. I asked if there was star fruit growing and
without blinking, the guide takes me back to a huge tree with what had to have been
hundreds of star fruit. After picking several he hands me a handful or two and we take
them back to share. After eating an assortment of fresh picked delicious fruit we spent
the rest of the time looking for sea shells in the water and soaking up our last little
bit of heaven.
Not too long after, we got back on the boat and headed to where we first departed from. By that time I was feeling much better, aside from the sea barfs, the tour was absolutely amazing"
We were allowed to explore the farm areas and see what the hippies had created, and then were provided with a wide mix of fruits to enjoy. One fruit that was quite fascinating was the Miracle Fruit, a plant known for its berry that, when eaten changes the flavour of other foods. This effect is due to miraculin, when the fleshy part of the fruit is eaten, this molecule binds to the tongue's taste buds, causing sour foods (such as lemons and limes) to taste sweet. It sounds crazy, but it totally worked.
After an afternoon of collecting shells, Annika and Nathan had to leave them behind as this is a protected park area.
Boat tour complete, we are put back in a taxi and taken back to our already loaded car. It was time to start heading back to San Jose and the Costa Rica airport, but we had time to make some stops along the way. Our first planned stop was the Jaguar Rescue center that was a few minutes away, unfortunately at 1:00pm they were already not accepting any more visitors.
Le Cameleon
Instead of an animal rescue center, we made an amazing stop at Le Cameleon resort on Playa Cocles. We had planned to just have lunch there, then they gave us a table right on the edge of the beach, and encouraged us to use their beach, beach chairs, and even the pool. We weren't interested in their pool, but the beach was amazing smooth sand with no rocks and nice waves.
As we are sitting, trying to enjoy our lunch, we should be appreciating the views, but there is this really old guy standing on the beach in a speedo. It's like he's posing, standing at the waters edge facing the beach, hoping the people on the beach are appreciating the view he provides. There are many jokes made at our table about itsy-bitsy-teeny-weeny-old-man-in-bikini, banana hammock, and thongs should be outlawed. He never did go in the water, and eventually wandered away for a while so we could finish our lunch.
Speaking of posing, we are all laughing at these two Instagram girls that start by taking pictures of their food, and then evolve into a full blown iPhone photo shoot at their table... hair is flipping, lips are duck-lipped, over the shoulder smoulders, Blue-Steel Zoolander looks. We're pretty sure they noticed when Nathan started mocking them, posing and asking us to re-position for better angles.
An excellent lunch overlooking the Caribbean ocean, some funny moments and free use of a beautiful sandy beach. We spent a good chunk of time playing in the surf before showering off, getting changed and starting our long trek back to San Jose.
It was a long long drive
Norine: "Our last full day in the country, we had checked out of our beautiful accommodation, then stopped for lunch and a swim at a beautiful outdoor restaurant close by. After the lovely last swim in the warm Caribbean, We started back to San Jose, for our flight home the next day. With Nathan and Annika dozing in the back seat, Dave and I rolled up on a road block....and usually, we are just waved through. This was the time for an exception I guess. Our officer , looking very stern, popped his head in the drivers window, and speaking very quickly "en espanol" started asking Dave questions. With a slightly panicked look on his face, Dave just turns and looks at me, the officer had asked first where we were heading , and I answered that we were on our way to the airport to fly home tomorrow....then he asked where we were coming from, Puerta Viejo, as we're on vacation I answered. Huge smile breaks out across his face "Vacaciones Si!" He says, and waves us on our way! Phew! All worked out well!"
As it was getting later in the day, the driving route we took didn't have a lot of places to stop for a rest or bathroom break. Finally we had to just stop at a really sketchy roadside bar to pee. Guys were standing outside smoking a J, and the inside looked like a scene from a Quentin Tarentino movie. Standing in the bathroom, it felt like the whole building was moving. At least we could drive on in comfort.
Winding narrow roads in the dark, while avoiding potholes and slow moving vehicles filled the remaining hours of the drive. The temperature had dropped considerably when we found a good pizza joint on the roadside coming in to San Jose, can’t remember where it was or what it was called, but it was good.
San Jose, Costa Rica
Before checking in to our hotel, we bought some gas to fill the tank so we wouldn’t have to search for gas in the morning, and gave our leftover beer to the appreciative gas attendants. Finally we arrived at Hotel Berlor Airport Inn for our last night of sleep in Costa Rica.
Dec 8
A day of flying
We had our fresh fruit along with a rice and bean breakfast at the hotel, and then loaded the car for the short drive to the Avis car rental. Easy drop off, short shuttle, and fairly smooth check-in at the airport. We had lots of time to have a snack and some mimosas at the Imperial bar before our flight left.
Last chance to get a few souvenirs, and I bought a couple paintings from a guy actually painting them in the airport… a parrot and a sloth will make for some nice memories.
Things got interesting... err, stressful, when we landed in Montreal for our connecting flight to Vancouver. We should have had about an hour to make the next flight, no problem, right? Our plane lands and we are told by the captain that there is a last minute change to the gate, so we have to wait for the ground crew to get that ready. We wait and wait, then finally move again. It takes forever for them to open the doors.
Because Montreal is our first port of entry in to Canada, we have to get our luggage (takes forever), then go through customs and immigration. As we are walking up the long airport walkways there is a sign saying customs will take 20-45 minutes, this could be a problem. Luckily it only took 7 minutes to get through, so we rush and re-check the 2 bags with the AC desk, then hurry down the endless paths towards our gate, but wait… you have to go through security again, and the lineups associated with that.
We finally are on the other side, we should have five minutes before they close our gate, and my bag gets pulled for inspection. “Did the TSA agent not tell you to remove your CPAP machine before putting it through?” Ummm, no, and I have never had to do that before. “We’re going to have to run it through the x-ray again” I have 3 minutes before the gate closes. I see him walk it to the machine, and there is such a backlog of trays that people haven’t picked up yet, it can’t proceed to where I can get it and run. I start telling the other 3, “just go on without me”, they have dogs in a kennel, the possible mother of our next pup… “sacrifice me, leave me behind”
Finally moments before I start going postal and throwing other peoples shit off the
collection area, enough gets taken that I can grab my machine and run to the gate. As I
come up, the three of them are explaining to the gate agent that they can’t close
the gate,
"my husband/uncle is being delayed by security".
We do the walk of shame past the already boarded passengers to find all the luggage bins are full, so our carry-on luggage got walked back from row 41 to 1st class. And that’s the story of how we didn’t miss our connection to Vancouver.
After 12 days of tropical weather we arrive back to rainy and cold Vancouver, after a long wait we collect our luggage and souvenirs and return to normal life. It was an amazing adventure experiencing a new destination with Nathan & Annika, we had a ton of laughs and saw a ton of new things. This ‘experiences not things’ idea is something I could get used to.
