Our third stop on our travels through Panama and Costa Rica brought us to the Nicoya Peninsula. We got on the road early leaving from Matapalo on the Osa Peninsula and began our long drive north along the western coast of Costa Rica. We passed many beautiful beaches and much amazing scenery, unfortunately, we could not stay, we were trying to make it to Puntarenas, where we were hoping to catch the ferry over to the Nicoya Peninsula. We were making good time and had made it up to where the road splits off for San Jose in about 6 hours. A few miles after passing this turnoff, we were going along our merry way, when we sped past a radar trap. The police pulled us over and a long conversation ensued between my cousin and the cop, mainly in Spanish. After about 20 minutes of back and forth talking/yelling and a lot of hand gestures and sighs, my cousin pulled out a $20 bill, gave it to the cop, and we were on our way again. I guess they do things differently here in CR! About an hour later, we arrived in Puntarenas and took the ferry over to Paquera. From there, we drove to Tambor and checked in at our hotel; the Tambor Tropical. The Tambor Tropical is a really interesting hotel. The rooms are huge and are octagon in shape. They are all made (inside and out) with various varnished hardwoods. The grounds are stunning and the food here was incredible! Our room literally opened up onto a beautiful pool.
Tambor Tropical. Our room was the ground floor room that has the door open.
We were pretty tired from our long drive, so after putting our bags in the room, we headed out for a walk around the grounds of Tambor Tropical. The hotel was situated on the Gulf of Nicoya. There were horses grazing in a pasture right on the gulf, and they had several kayaks there that you could take out for a cruise. It was a beautiful place to watch a sunset over the Pacific Ocean. After that, we headed to the pool and ordered our free welcome drinks, had dinner outside under the stars and relaxed and called it a night.
Tambor Tropical. Our room was the ground floor room that has the door open.
Kayaks for the hotel guests.
The next day, we were up early and had a wonderful breakfast at the hotel. We were headed out today to hike to the waterfalls south of Montezuma (as far I as I know, they did not have names, but we found several of them with beautiful warm deep pools of water, but it wasn't easy to get there!). The hike was pretty intense, with some trails going almost straight down, so you had to hang on to tree roots and scuttle down on your butt. We did make it though, and it was worth it. There were quite a few other people enjoying these pools and falls as well. After the hike, we walked back into Montezuma (where we had left our car) and checked out the town. Montezuma is a very cool artsy European hippie type town. We shopped a bit, went down to the beach, and even ran into a couple who we had taken the plane back from Bocas del Toro with on the first part of our trip. They were interesting too. They were both from somewhere in the midwest, had met online just a month before and decided to do a month long road trip together in Costa Rica. Kind of cool. Oh, and the road to get down to Montezuma is quite treacherous...it was a very good thing that we had a 4-wheel drive!
Oxen drive!
Okay...things got pretty hairy now. Below is a pic looking up from the trail we had to scrabble down on our butts.
Hmmm....not sure it was worth it for this one..lol. Well, we took another swim and jumped off a few rocks, then started the walk back to town.
The beach near Montezuma.
The beach near Montezuma.
Look! We ran into this couple who were on that death-defying plane ride back from Bocas del Toro with us. Quite a coincidence considering there were only about 16 of us on that flight!
Typical Costa Rican home.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/53624362@N04/sets/72157625269133271/
When it started to get dark, we headed back to our hotel, got cleaned up and had another wonderful meal at our hotel. We went for a swim, stared at the stars and went to bed. The following day, we were headed for our final stop this trip, Arenal Volcano and Monteverde Cloud Forest, where we would spend our last 5 days before heading back to San Jose and then home.
I hope to someday come back to Costa Rica for at least a month or two and travel all over this amazing country.
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