We made it back from Austin on Wednesday, no worse for the wear. We got out just ahead of a line of severe storms that was blowing through Texas that was causing Dallas and Houston to preemptively cancel flights starting right after ours. We left our trusty Honda CR-V in the San Jose airport’s parking garage while we were in Austin because the parking fee for 3 days was exactly on par with what it would have cost us to get a driver there and back.
Prior to heading back to Austin, Jill and I went through all of our stuff and culled everything we won’t need for our final two weeks in Costa Rica. We took that back in a suitcase and returned to Costa Rica with no checked bags. It was a bit of an odd feeling getting on a plane in Austin wearing shorts and flip flops with no baggage.
We ended up getting to our house in Atenas at 9PM on Wednesday night and piled into bed knowing that our friend Javier was picking us up at 8:30AM Thursday morning to take us back to the airport to meet the Moshers and climb on a puddle jumper with them to Santa Teresa Beach.
We were up with the sun on Thursday and packed a bag full of swimsuits, shorts, t-shirts, and sunscreen. I met Javier at the bottom of our hill so that I could open the gate for him and he followed me up the hill to our house where Jill was waiting with our suitcases. We always enjoy our rides with Javier. Every time we see him he asks us how our Spanish is coming and gives us feedback.
I think I mentioned in a previous post that Semana Santa (Holy Week) is a big deal in Costa Rica. We’d been told by Profesoras Ana and Maria that Costa Rica basically shuts down Thursday and Friday of Semana Santa and everyone heads for the beach. Fortunately for us they were all heading out of town while we were headed into the airport. Even by Costa Rican standards, the roads were crazy on the way to the airport. Everyone was bumper to bumper leaving town on Ruta 1, the main highway through San Jose.
Because we were headed to one of the more remote areas of Costa Rica and a couple of the members of our party don’t do well on long car trips on winding roads, we ended up chartering a small plane from CarmenAir to get us from San Jose to the remote landing strip in Tambor, about a 45 minute drive from our final destination. Once Javier dropped us at the domestic terminal, Jill and I dropped our bags at the CarmenAir desk so that we could go help the Moshers transit the 200 yards between the international and domestic terminals. CarmenAir is a lean operation. The nice young man who took our bags and collected our payment for the flights turned out to also be our co-pilot.
We then strolled over to the international terminal and had a little snack at the airport cafe while waiting for the Moshers to arrive. Their flight was a little early and they breezed through immigration and customs and popped out of the arrivals hall door looking exactly like three people who’d taken a red-eye from California. We had hugs all around and set off for CarmenAir.
Having already met our co-pilot we gave him the Mosher’s bags. He then escorted us through the security checkpoint where the ramp agent checked all of our passports against the charter manifest. They had a cooler waiting by our airplane, a well-loved Britten Normal Islander, and Jill, Rich, and Mia all opted for an ice-cold Imperial beer. We went through our safety briefing which included the co-pilot saying “There are life vests in the pouch in front of you and if we have to evacuate the aircraft please wait for the propellers to stop spinning” (that’s literally what he said).
A universal truth of island hopping aircraft seems to be that they are piloted by young men in classic RayBans. This was no exception. Both our pilots were probably in their mid-20s and had the requisite RayBans. The fact that they fit the stereotype gave me confidence that we were in good hands.
The distance between San Jose and Tambor is about 150 kilometers as the crow flies. The flight is 30 minutes and the drive would be 6 hours plus a ferry ride on the best of days. Once we were airborne we saw just how stacked up the roads to the coast really were (due to Semana Santa). Flying was hands-down the right call. We had a birds-eye view of the highway to the coast and it was backed up the whole way.
We flew right over Atenas on our way to Tambor. It was super loud in the airplane so we really couldn’t communicate with each other, but I pointed out the window and yelled “Atenas!” and I think everyone got the message.
We had light chop as we cleared the mountains and then smooth sailing all the way into the Tambor landing strip. There are no physical structures other than the runway and a covered waiting area at Tambor. And there are definitely no runway lights.
A family was waiting in the shade to board our airplane for the return trip to San Jose. There was a lady with a clipboard manning the exit gate from the runway. She let everyone in our party through and then stopped me and said I had to pay her a $12 “impuesta” (basically a landing tax) for the 5 people in our party. I found it interesting that she let everyone else through and then stopped me. Not sure what would have happened if I didn’t have any cash.
Our driver, Diego, was waiting for us outside the gate with the ubiquitous diesel minivan. He had the air conditioning cranked up and we were soon rolling toward Santa Teresa Beach. It was about a 50 minute drive. We’d heard the roads were bad in this part of Costa Rica, but we’d also heard that about other places where the roads, in actuality, were quite nice. We were lulled into a false sense of security because there was brand new blacktop for the first 5 kilometers or so. Then we were finally treated to the washed-out rutted roads that we’d heard so much about. It took us about 45 minutes to go 17 km. Credit goes to Diego though. He got us through with a minimum of jolting. I’ve since driven that same stretch of road and I didn’t do nearly as good a job as he did of not thoroughly rattling my passengers.
Since we arrived a little early for check-in time for the house we rented, Diego dropped us off at Florblanca, a resort 100 meters down the beach from our house. Florblanca is a yoga resort and caters to the mind-body crowd. They also have a very nice bar 🙂 The food is good, too. We lingered over a nice lunch and everyone but Meg had an adult beverage or two. By then it was time for check-in and went out front of Florablanca at our pre-ordained pickup time and were shuttled to our house, where we were met by Carmen our concierge for the week.
There’s an interesting bit of the Costa Rican economy in the remote touristic areas where young gringos, typically Canadians, have managed to insinuate themselves into customer-facing concierge positions. I’m not exactly sure how it evolved, but their role is to be the native-english-speaker interface for the typically-english-speaking tourists who rent the houses. The system seems to work pretty well. It gives these young people a viable way to make a living and stay in Costa Rica. And there doesn’t seem to be any friction with the locals because the concierge-role is constantly directing tourist dollars back into the local economy. By way of example, Carmen set us up with a fantastic day of boating yesterday, on-site massages for the girls the day before that, surfing lessons for Meg and Rich, horseback riding on the beach this morning for Meg and Jill. Best of all, Carmen has lined up a delightful mother-daughter team of chefs, Geovana and Yendry, to prepare several meals for us at the house which allows us to have a full day of activities and not have dinner prep looming at the end of a day in the sun. Carmen is delightful. She manages several properties and she makes the rounds each morning to check on us and see if we need her to line anything up.
Carmen gave us a tour of the house and got us connected to the wifi. The house is remote enough that we don’t have cell service here, but all of our phones are set up for wifi calling and texting. Otherwise Meg would have burst into flames by now 😉 The last thing Carmen did before she left was ask us if she could have some groceries delivered (since our rental car wasn’t here yet) so Mia and Jill gave her a list of essentials.
Having flown all night, the Moshers all settled in for a nap.
The groceries were delivered a couple of hours later by a guy who was clearly a surfer doing any odd job he can find to make ends meet. That was mostly unremarkable with one exception. We asked Carmen for a 12-pack of beer and that got interpreted by the surfer as 12 six packs (3 cases) of beer. I find it funny that 3 cases of beer didn’t strike him as odd. More so given that he delivered it on a motorcycle. Fortunately we were able to return the excess beer and get a refund.
Late Thursday afternoon, the guy showed up with the rental car. We ended up with a Toyota HiLux 4-wheel-drive diesel truck with a standard transmission. I hadn’t had a car with a standard transmission since the 20th century, but fortunately muscle memory is a wonderful thing. The driveway of this house is steep enough that I have to engage 4WD to get up it (because there’s not enough weight over the rear wheels). And the steepness makes it impossible to see over the hood of the vehicle to check for cross traffic when it spits you out onto the main road that runs through the town of Santa Teresa. I’ve developed a ritual where I engage 4wd, work my way to the point where my front wheels crest the hill and then stop, because I’m blind to cross traffic. At that point I man the emergency brake so I don’t roll back down the hill when I am re-engaging the clutch to pull out onto the street. After 3 days of that, I’d like to think my neural pathways are burned-in but I’ve learned not to get cocky in Costa Rica.
The house is great. We are 30 meters from the ocean. There’s a 3 meter tidal swing so we get to see tidepools when the tide is out. My favorite part is that we have a resident tiger heron. The first day we were here we got to watch him eat crabs. He would sit motionless within striking distance of their holes and when they would peek out he would snatch them right out of the holes, crack their shells with his beak and then swallow them whole. We also have a troop of howler monkeys in the area and they put in an appearance that first evening.
We stayed in the first night and met Yendry and Geovana for the first time as they cooked us a delicious dinner of pan-seared mahi mahi, rice, and vegetables, finished off with chocolate cake and ice cream. At that point I knew we were in good hands 🙂
We all piled into bed pretty early on Thursday, except Meg. She was up late sitting on the swing under the palapa doing whatever it is that 16-year-old girls do on their phones.
When we checked in, Carmen told us where to acquire baguettes and croissants. I was itching to familiarize myself with the truck before I had the added responsibility of passengers so I left the house at 6:45AM to try and find the bakery. That’s when I learned that 2WD wouldn’t cut it for getting up the driveway. I found the bakery with no trouble and laid in a couple of baguettes and a half dozen croissants. Driving in Santa Teresa is as intense as anyplace else I’ve driven in Costa Rica. There are potholes that will swallow your car, surfers and perros (dogs) walking carefree down the middle of the road, aggressive motorcyclists, and the ever-present buses. But, I made it back in one piece and the baked goods were delicious.
Friday was pretty low-key. Mia and Rich went to Florblanca next-door for a yoga class with Stefano and came back raving about it. They said he’s the real-world version of the yoga teacher in the moving Couples Retreat. Jill and I went for a walk along the beach at low tide.
In the afternoon there was nothing on the docket but a surfing lesson for Meg and Rich. That allowed our California visitors to get rested up from their overnight flight. We spent the rest of the day lounging in the pool and being generally lazy.
When it came time for the surf lesson a guy pulled up to our house on an ATV. He was sitting on two surf boards to secure them for the ride over. He is from New Zealand and showed up in Costa Rica about twelve years ago and never left. We hear that a lot. He told us his name, but his accent was strong enough that none of us could understand what it was.
Side-note: The creativity of surfers transporting surfboards never ceases to amaze me. We saw it for the first time in Jaco and they do it here too. I’ve seen three people with three surf boards on one scooter. I’ve also seen a taxi pull up with the passenger holding the surfboard against the roof. Fascinating.
It was a beautiful afternoon so Mia, Jill, and I all trooped along to watch Rich and Meg. We piled into the HiLux with the surfboards in the bed and followed him to the beach. The lesson took place about a mile down the road at Hermosa Beach which is fantastically beautiful and apparently revered by surfers. There were really big waves about 200 yards off shore and also beginner waves closer in. Meg and Rich both acquitted themselves well and seemed to have a good time.
Knowing in advance that surf lessons make you hungry (and knowing Rich), we had secured reservations at Koji, Santa Teresa’s premiere sushi place. Koji did not disappoint.
Carmen asked if we would like to have a bonfire by the beach one night and we thought that was a great idea. The bonfire was set up when we got back from Koji on Friday night and I went down to start it, but then everyone decided they wanted to go to bed. I thought I’d succeeded in snuffing it out before it got going and I went to bed. It turns out that I did not succeed in snuffing it out so the howler monkeys were treated to a roaring bonfire and I woke up to a perfect circle of ashes.
On Saturday, Yendry and Geovana made us a traditional Costa Rican breakfast of gallo pinto (rice and beans) and huevos (eggs) with the most unbelievably good homemade corn tortillas and sweet plantains.
After breakfast, Jill and Mia headed over to yoga class with Stefano and Rich and I headed into town to see if we could get some $USD out of the ATM (in tourist areas the service providers prefer to be paid in cash and preferably in $USD) and to see if we could score and scopolamine patches (to prevent seasickness) at the pharmacy for our scheduled boat outing. Rich and I struck out on both fronts. Semanta Santa had emptied the one ATM in town that carries $USD and the pharmacy did not have scopolamine patches.
After yoga, Jill and Mia stopped at the bar at Florblanca for sustenance. Rich, Meg, and I ended up walking over to join them for lunch.
Mia, Jill, and Meg had massages at the house on Saturday afternoon, with Jill and Meg going first and then Mia. Once Meg and Jill were through, Jill, Rich, Meg and I went into town on a search for souvenirs. Meg is already a pro at the souvenir ritual. Rich is still finding his sea legs on that front.
When we parked there was a ruckus going on at one of the touristy surf shops. Two burly guys were manhandling a couple of teenagers into a little shed reminiscent of a phone booth. They proceeded to lock them in. It became apparent that it was the security guard performing a citizen’s arrest on some shop lifters. The entire town came out to watch. The police showed up within about 15 minutes and slapped the cuffs on the alleged offenders, but then they took them off and rounded up a couple of different people. The police seemed to initially take the word of the security guard then maybe the ladrones (thieves) ratted out some of their friends who were the latter group that got attention from la policia. We did not stick around for the conclusion, but it was looking more and more like no one was going to end up in police custody. Santa Teresa is a small enough town that we suspect the parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles of the offenders knew about it within minutes of it happening. Jill has a theory that the shame of the public spectacle will result in family justice being meted out, even if nothing official comes of it.
Meg ended up scoring three t-shirts and a stop at the gelateria, which meant I got a scoop of coffee ice cream 🙂
Saturday’s dinner location was Rocamar, a beachside restaurant that only does dinner service on Saturdays. Carmen directed us there. The most remarkable thing about our dinner at Rocamar was that the “live” entertainment was a surfer who we were pretty sure didn’t know how to play the guitar. It was truly awful. As Rich observed, it was like listening to someone try and fail to tune a guitar for 2 hours.
Carmen set us up for a boat excursion on Sunday morning. We drove the 25 km to the Tambor pier. The road would alternate being paved and being dirt about every kilometer or so. It was a rattling ride that took about an hour.
The good news is that we had a great day on the water. Michel, originally from Italy, was our captain and the mates were Tomas and David, both Argentines. They took us to Tortuga Island, which is a giant preserve, where we frolicked on secluded beaches, snorkeled, and Meg, Jill, and Rich all did discovery dives with SCUBA gear. Plus they fed us quite well. Jill and I both got complimented by captain and crew on our Spanish (that kind of validation makes the struggle to learn a new language worth it).
We were on the water from about 8:30AM until about 2PM. The only casualties were that Mia and Jill both got a little sunburned. While we were on the water, Captain Michel told us about the town of Montezuma, where he lives. Tomas and David also live there. Mostly Michel raved about the gelato in Montezuma. Because Montezuma wasn’t too far out of our way we stopped there on our way back to headquarters. Michel wasn’t wrong about the gelato and the town of Montezuma is a super cute little town of 450 people right on the water. Meg also did some souvenir shopping with the street vendors and came away with a few bracelets.
After all of the driving I did yesterday plus being in the sun, I was pretty wiped out. I think we all were. Fortunately we had the good sense to schedule Yendry and Geovana to cook us dinner last night. Rich and I hopped in the pool when we got home and stayed there for a couple of hours while Jill and Mia worked on a puzzle.
Dinner last night was ceviche de puplo (octopus ceviche), arroz con camarones (rice with shrimp), and for postres (dessert) arroz con leche (rice pudding). All delicious.
This morning Jill and Meg went on a horseback ride the took them along the beach and through the jungle. They saw capuchin monkeys and howler monkeys. Meg seemed to have a good time. Jill was a good aunt and a good sport for going with her, but says that’s the last horseback ride of her life. Jose, who was leading the ride, did not speak any english so Jill did get to spend the entire ride chatting with him in Spanish.
I woke up with a sore throat on Saturday morning. I’m hoping it’s just allergies and not something I picked up at one of the airports last week. I have some cough drops that I got at the farmacia (pharmacy) yesterday that make my whole mouth and throat numb. Hopefully I’m turning the corner.
That brings us up to date on the first half of our adventure in Playa Santa Teresa.
Adventure is out there!
Jill and Todd in Costa Rica 