Hola Costa Rica!

After 7 hours of travel time, I arrived in Liberia, Costa Rica! I had a delayed layover in Houston, apparently a crazy guy went into one of the terminals earlier that afternoon with a gun? Incase you’re as out of the loop as I was…

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/05/03/us/texas-houston-airport-terminal/index.html

After arriving in Liberia, I was greeted by my Beach Travellers tour guide Anna, along with 3 other girls who were on the same flight. We were welcomed by really nice warm weather, a balmy 34 degrees! After an hour long car ride we finally arrived at our hotel in Tamarindo, the “Zullymar Hotel,” where I met the rest of the group, 11 girls and 1 guy, all from different provices across Canada. The hotel was really nice, located right along the main strip and right across the road from the beach.

There also was a really nice pool with overhanging palm trees and air conditioned rooms that each had a different wood carving of some type of character on the doors.

Friday morning began with an early 9am surf lesson,which involved alot of unsuccessful attempts to actually stand up on the surfboard. On the plus side surfing here is great since the water is so warm although it is super salty (yum).

After surfing, our other tour guide Mitch ordered lunch for us from this lady that normally sells food out of the trunk of her car (sounds sketchy but isn’t). Since he had her phone number he was able to pre order lunch for us and she delivered it to the hotel! It was sooooo good! Beans, rice, chicken and plantains. He also let us try this delicious sauce he had to put on our rice, its called Lizano Salsa and its definitely an added bit of yumminess to their already scrumptous rice dishes! In the afternoon we were able to head back out surfing, relax by the pool or explore the town some more.

We had a big group dinner that evening at a restaurant called Chillers and I tried the Shrimp Mahi Mahi (a ray-finned fish) mmm mmm! That night we went to a bar called “The Black Sheep,” they had free drinks for ladies from 9pm-11pm where we met some fun people from New Zealand. From there we went to a bar called “Monkey Bar” which looks like a cave inside where the bartender kept giving out free shots. Apparently they like giving away free alcohol here?

Today started off with dealing with some super sore muscles from surfing (note to self: gain some upper body strength) and sunburns! We left Tamarindo for a 4 hour drive to Monteverde and we had a very bumpy, crazy winding mountain pass to go through to get to here but we made it! The hostel we are staying at here is called “Cabinas Vista Al Golfo,” there is a nice small kitchen and lots of hammocks to lounge in!

Tonight we ate at a little place up the road called “Soda La Amistad.” A woman named Candy owns it and cooks up a delicious home made Costa Rican meal. I had a Casado called “Pescade a la Cerveza” (fish fillet in beer), the best fish fillet I`ve ever had.