Costa Rica - Day 8

There was an obvious quiet around the resort after the LogicMonitor people began leaving on Monday morning. We said goodbye to the people we saw at breakfast and were pleasantly surprised that we had our pick of the loungers at the adult only pool. 

We had encountered people leaving their rooms at 6:30 am earlier in the weekend just to save a lounger for the day. Gotta love those seat-saving people! We spent the morning at the pool, and then decided to check out the beach house during the day. It too was pretty quiet.

The resort is getting ready for a big construction project to upgrade the beach house and area beginning in July.

We ordered drinks and then fish tacos for lunch. Yum. The water in the lagoon was definitely cooler than pool, but quite refreshing. We wore our water shoes because the workers warned us that sea urchins were plentiful in the area. 

 For the evening, Chris and I made reservations at the tapas restaurant again. We had wanted to try Rio Bhongo for dinner, but another work group had arrived and they were having their welcome reception in the pool area and the restaurant was closed. We sat on the outside deck of the restaurant. It was still pretty hot but the view was lovely.

Misha Home for the Weekend

When I asked Misha if she would mind coming home for the weekend to spend some time with Kristen, she slipped and said she would be happy to “watch” Kristen for us. I replied, “Um, Misha. She’s 18. You don’t need to ‘watch’ her. Just come spend some time with her.” 

Kristen also had her two friends stay over on Saturday evening—Paige and Sophia. Sophia is an exchange student from Sweden and agreed to go to church with Paige and Kristen on Sunday morning. 

While Kristen worked all day Saturday, Misha did some work on her car while at home, probably did lots of laundry, and ate some good food with Kristen.

Costa Rica - Day 7

Chris and I were up extra early. Chris had booked a hike at Sensoria: Land of Senses and Magical Rainforest. We had breakfast at 6:30 am and were on our way in the rental car by 7:20. It would take us just over to hours to reach the rain forest in time for our 9:30 am tour. 

Since it was Sunday morning, we listened to a Come, Follow Me podcast and a session of General Conference. 

We arrived right on time for our hike to waterfalls and through the rain forest with Joaquin our guide. 

He was a wealth of knowledge about the rain forest and area and kept his eyes open for things we might want to see (or avoid). I know my mom wouldn’t appreciate the pics of the snakes we saw along the way, one itty bitty white pit viper as well as a much larger pit viper. Rest easy, they are usually calm. Yikes. 

We hiked to the first waterfall, took pictures, and then continued on to 3 or 4 more falls and pools. At the end of the hike, we enjoyed a 75° pool and ended up at last in the hottest of the pools at 85°. Since it was cooler in the mountains, the pools were a nice treat.

We climbed up to a viewing platform where we could see Rincon de la Vieja, a water volcano, that had recently erupted and was still steaming. It has magma below the surface of water.

Chris got a shot of the volcano as we were flying out of Costa Rica.

After returning to the main house at Sensoria, we changed out of our wet clothes and were then served lunch before starting on our way back to Andaz. As Chris and I were walking to the car, I spotted a huge snake. Huge. I turned and called, “Joaquin. There’s a snake.” He, along with another tour group, came and crowded around the snake. The guides tried to keep people back, but you can’t fix stupid people. And they were prime specimens. The boa constrictor tried to get away from the group. I was just happy to be on our way. Ugh, I hate snakes. 

We arrived back at Andaz around 5 pm with just enough time to get ready for the evening reception and dinner at the beach house on property. We had to take a 20 minute shuttle to reach the beach house. 

That’s lots of shuttling when you have so many people, but the beach was set up with tables and lights and lots of food, lots of available drinks, and people enjoying the last night together before all but Chris and I left Monday morning.

Costa Rica - Day 6

This was a day for excursions with the President's Club experience. (Incidentally, the President of LogicMonitor—Christine—got Covid and couldn't attend!)

We had the option to choose between a few adventures: a zip line experience, a rum tour, golf, and a spa day. We chose the zip line or canopy tour. 

After breakfast, we met down at the Sombrero Oscuro Beach for a 1/2 hour water taxi transfer to Diamanté Adventure park. 

The group was split into two and half of us toured the animal sanctuary while the other half zip lined. 

We got to see more monkeys, jaguars, butterflies (they really loved Chris), toucans, and sloths. 

When it was our turn to zip line, we all got suited up and began the first of five runs. Having done this before, I wasn’t nervous at all. The Superman run was especially exciting. As I was waiting my turn though, a bee must of landed on my leg and crawled under my pant leg. Not sure how I didn’t feel it sooner, but I didn’t realize it was there until it stung me. Yeouch. I pulled a huge stinger out of my leg. 

Lunch was served after we were all finished and then we had a bumpy ride back to the resort. 

We were hot and sweaty once arriving. A quick shower and then a couple of hours in the pool were perfect. 

We took a shuttle to the neighboring Four Seasons Resort with two other couples for a dinner at Pesce, an Italian restaurant—John and Fran from Portland and Laura and Stuart from Maryland. The shuttles between the resorts were free. The food was delicious. The night was still hot! 

And at 3 am, 4 am, 5 am and beyond, we were serenaded by howler monkeys. They make the worst sound possible from these tiny little bodies. We learned that if the monkeys are in the trees outside your hotel room when the sun goes down, you are in for a noisy night.

Costa Rica - Day 5

Chris and I woke to find the cutest little monkeys outside our window. Little did we know those monkeys were howler monkeys. We’d come to find that out at 3 am! 

After our continental breakfast at Rio Bhongo, Chris and I explored the resort a little before the coworkers had a one-hour meeting from 9 to 10 am. Apparently having the “work” meeting meant the event could be a tax write off. After the meeting, the rest of the day was a day just for relaxing and enjoying the resort. 

Family Pool

Sun beds at Adult Only Pool

All guests received hats

Fitness Center

We headed to the adult only pool. Too bad we hadn’t left a bag or something on one of the sun chairs or beds when we first toured the resort after breakfast. The place was packed and all available chairs were taken once we returned. We found a place to put our stuff and enjoyed the lovely pool. 

Many of Chris’ coworkers were hanging out at the pool. Schmoozing. Too many talked work, so we tried to find some to chat about life. Some just couldn’t not talk work. We ate lunch back at Rio Bhongo and then back to the pool. It was a great day. 

Dinner in the evening at Ostra was with Chris’ East Sales team. We sat with half the team at one table. Must say, we met one of the guys who was just creepy. He couldn’t string an entire sentence together. It was a wonder why he was even at Club with his lack of words. Chris asked about his tattoo and Anders simply said, “You tell me.” What? Tell you what? He was weird.

Costa Rica - Day 4

Our last day at the rental. 

We enjoyed an early morning swim and then Chris had booked massages for us. The two ladies came to the rental and set up their massage tables on the deck in the shade. It was De. Light. Ful. I could have used a little more pressure to work out the kinks in my neck that traveling with a backpack always bring, but we both had a relaxing morning. 

We had to check out at 11:30, so we quickly showered and packed all of our stuff up. We didn’t have to be at the Andaz Resort until 6 in the evening for the welcome reception. 

We had heard that Tamarindo was a cool place to visit and so we set off for there. From our vacation rental, Tamarindo was probably 30 minutes. But following the roads, it took us almost two hours to drive there. 

We stopped first at Reina’s Chocolate Tasting Room. If you are ever in Costa Rica, I would not say that it was the worth the stop. We tasted a variety of chocolate, hot cocoa, and bought a few chocolate bars. It was a lot of time spent talking. I’m glad we hadn’t signed up for the chocolate tour which took at least two hours. 

We continued on to Tamarindo and found when we arrived that it was packed with lots of tourists. Because of the location of the beach and the wind, the waves make Tamarindo perfect for surfing. 

Chris found a small out of the way beach—Playa Langosta—that we drove to. It was not crowded at all but it was also high tide and the waves were crazy. We were just standing at the edge of the water when two big waves came in. Good thing Chris was holding my hand or I would have tumbled over. As it was, the waves pulled my right leg behind me and I could feel a big muscle pull. Yeouch. That hurt. 

We watched as two little kids played around in the water as their moms sat nearby hoping to give massages on the beach. I might have taken them up on it if I hadn’t just had one! 

After a little time at the beach, we drove back into town and walked through a few of the shops. There wasn’t anything that we needed or wanted, but it was just fun to walk around and check things out. 

 

It was hot. And humid. 

We needed to arrive at the Papagayo Peninsula for an evening reception for LogicMonitor with all of the other attendees for Club at 6 pm. We had a couple of hours of drive time through the Guanacaste region of Costa Rica, back through Liberia and past the airport toward the coast. 

The Guanacaste is a tree that grows a fruit that is ear-shaped. Not really edible for humans. Guanacaste translates to ear. The Guanacaste region is so dry, much more desert-like and hot. The rainy season begins in May and many locals were waiting for the rains to start. The temps in Costa Rica were hotter than normal. 

As we neared the Papagayo Peninsula and the resorts, the landscape made a dramatic change from dry to lush and green. 

We had to enter the property through the main gate where we were checked to the resident list. One more gate and we were finally at the resort where we dropped off luggage, the car and then checked in the main outdoor lobby. That is, after I had to search for my passport. It wasn’t in my backpack. Whew, finally found it in my luggage. Needed that for check-in. 

Andaz was posh. After check in, we were driven in a golf cart with our luggage to our room in building 7. Very lovely. I think we were still shedding sand from our foray into Playa Langosta as we took a quick shower before meeting many of Chris’ coworkers. 

The group was about 100 people in size, many coworkers and their plus 1’s. After the reception ended at 8, we enjoyed a quick meal at the tapas restaurant. It was pretty busy with many of his coworkers also needing to eat. We sat on the patio at the last available table and ordered small dishes from around Central and South America.

Tennis Regionals

Kristen had a regionals tournament to end up the tennis season. She and her partner, Ava, lost their first match and then had to stick around for the rest of the day. 

Since the team they had played won their second match, Kristen and Ava played the losers of that match. Ava didn’t want to have play again and kind of pooped out on Kristen. Kristen was disappointed that she wouldn’t try harder. They lost that match as well. And with that, high school tennis is done.

Costa Rica - Day 3

We had a relaxing morning where we just hung out in the pool and enjoyed the scenery. 

Chris had booked a sunset cruise for the afternoon from Playas del Coco. We stopped for lunch there at small cafe across the street from the beach—Soda Teresita. A soda is what the small cafes are called. We enjoyed grilled snapper and salad, fries for Chris. 

Due to the shallowness of the bay, we took a tender (boat transport) to the catamaran we would be sailing on for the afternoon—the New Marlin. 

The boat offered an open bar, lunch later in the afternoon, and a stop for snorkeling. As we were motoring to our snorkel spot, the captain spotted dolphins and circled around them for about a half an hour. They were fun to see. 

I had read that the water on the Pacific side of Costa Rica was a lot colder than the water on the Caribbean side. I was pleasantly surprised that it was still relatively warm and didn’t take my breath away to step into the water when we snorkeled. The water was nowhere near as clear as the water in Tahiti, but we saw lots of puffer fish, sea urchins, and volcanic coral. As we swam around, you could tell that there was a hot spring inlet because all of a sudden the water was a lot warmer.

The lunch consisted of bbq chicken, rice, beans, and pico de gallo (that was excellent), taco chips, fruit and chocolate chip cookies. And all that you could drink. 

We arrived back close to Playas del Coco as the sun was setting. 

Since we had such a late lunch around 4 pm, we opted not to stop for a sit down dinner and just ate snacks back at the rental.

Costa Rica - Day 2

We were up early in Texas for a quick trip back to the airport with Candace. 

After going through security, we had a little time to spare before boarding our flight so we stopped for a bite to eat in the United Lounge. The flight to Liberia International Airport in Libera, Costa Rica took just over three hours. Chris was so tired that he slept most of the flight. 

I think my small luggage was one of the first on the baggage carousel, but the workers pulled all of the luggage off the carousel. The carousel wasn’t a continuous loop, so the luggage would have just gone back through the flaps and onto the ground outside the airport. I didn’t see my bag behind a bigger bag and thought maybe my bag had not arrived. Fortunately, upon closer inspection, I found it. 

While I was looking, Chris let the Hertz people know that he had arrived. They gave him a “Hertz” sticker so the shuttle driver would recognize us as we came through customs. We had to put our luggage through a scanner one more time at Customs. 

The car rental lots were probably 5 to 10 minutes away from the airport. Perhaps Hertz isn’t so popular there because we were the only ones on the shuttle. We were also "surprised" with an extra $150 government insurance fee added on to our bill. It was mandatory. And that was the lowest amount if you denied additional coverage. 

We found a nearby Walmart to pick up a few breakfast and snack groceries. 

Note * We could have gotten groceries closer to our Airbnb and probably for similar pricing. We just didn’t know. We drove for maybe an hour until we reached the small town of Playa Hermosa. Playa means beach. We had a vacation rental at the Hermosa Heights and met the property manager at the security gate. 

Our rental car, a Chery, was gutless (it is a Chinese brand). The community was built into the side of the hill, and the car could hardly make it up the hill in 1st gear. 

We got situated in the vacation rental. It was lovely. Big enough for our whole family with 4 queen size beds. Although I would say the beds were not the best feature. In fact, I wondered if they forgot the mattress and just had us sleeping on the box springs! It’s what it looked like! 

The outdoor space was the real draw. We had a private pool to ourselves and the sight lines to the neighbors on all sides were obscured. We just enjoyed the pool, relaxing on the deck, and the amazing sunsets. 

Fernando, the property manager, recommended that we go for Taco Tuesday at El Velero Hotel. We found it easily enough with Google Maps and enjoyed dinner on the beach. 

Because Costa Rica is so close to the equator, the sun goes down each night at 6 pm and it starts to get light at 5am. There is no daylight saving time in Costa Rica, so in the summer months, there is no time change from mountain time in Colorado. 

In the winter, Colorado would be one hour behind. Sure makes it nice to not have to worry about jet lag! At least from this trip. Chris had just returned from London two days before we left and was still working through it. 

For Taco Tuesday, we had one of each kind of taco: fish, chicken, and ground beef. They were delicious. We walked along the beach for a little bit after dinner but had to use the flashlight on our phones to light our way.