Another boring day in paradise!

This truly is paradise as I sit in the beautiful open air lobby, sipping my Cafe Britt coffee (Costa Rican specialty) and looking out aover the lush green volcanic hillside. We are in the "green" season but have been fortunate regarding the weather, thus far.

I'm already learning that by the time I get back to the hotel (and computer access) I am way too tired to write anything halfway coherent so have decided it's best to wait until early the next morning before the rest of the crew arises and send my daily journal.

Breakfast by the pool was yummy, but we said goodby to one of the couples who had been with the group since Saturday. They are actually from Ft. Worth where I grew up and she had gone to my high school. Her sister was in my class and I had fun catching up on friends from the past. They have to be at Texas Tech for their last Parents' Weekend Saturday so are doing the rest of our trip on their own in a very abbreviated fashion.

I forgot to mention that Tana arrived about 8:30pm Monday night and was exhausted but glad to be here after having been in some form of transportation since 6am that morning. Her beautiful drive throught the central Costa Rican countryside was not what I had expected as sunset is at 5:30pm year round since we are so close to the equator. Most of her drive was in the dark over less than ideal roads -- a little like she and I had through the depths of the Torres del Paine Nat'l Park in Patagonia, Chile.

Yesterday was spent exploring the northern Pacific beaches of the Guanacaste region. Our first stop was in the town of Tamarindo where we got to see a very traditional style small hotel, Capitan Suizo. The name comes from their Swiss owners who built the hotel in the 1990's. I loved the beautiful tropical grounds and the pool which looked right out onto the beach. The hotel serves as a 'rescue sanctuary' for monkeys. It is illegal to have monkeys in cages in Costa Rica unless they are injured or in need of assistance. They had 3 small monkeys who had lost their mothers. Wish I could download my photo of the youngest. It must have only been days old and probably didn't weigh 2 lbs. Apparently, they have to be in constant contact at that age with some living being so the hotel hires 'nannies' to care for them and hold them all the time. This lady was carrying him around and we fell in love with the little guy. We were told his mother had fallen out of a tree and died. There was another one being cared for who was a litte older but still needed constant care.

From there we left our van and walked down the beach doing site inspections at several properties that Leigh Ann recommends for clients. All were lovely in different aspects so we can now better qualify the properties according to clients' needs and interests.

Just before lunch we stopped at a property on Playa Grande which has access to a major leatherback turtle nesting area from Nov.. to Mar. These giant turtles come ashore at low tide and maneuver across the sand to a spot where they dig a big hole with their back fins and deposit hundreds of eggs. The mother then covers the nest and returns to the sea. About 6 weeks later the fertizled eggs hatch and the baby turtles attempt to crawl back to the sea. Many perish or are eaten by preditors which is the reason Mother Nature provides so many eggs -- only about 10% survive infancy.

The Costa Rica gov't is very concerned about the turtles and will flag nests with the date the eggs are laid so they will know when the eggs are hatching and try to protect the baby turtles as they struggle to reach the sea. They can find these nests because the mother leaves tracks the size of tire treads on the beach as she comes ashore. The small hotel located by the beach access to this major nesting area may be forced to close as the gov't is trying to limit human access to this area. The lights also disorient the turtles as they attempt to nest.

Following a delicious and leisurely lunch(typical of Costa Rica) we saw several more properties and beaches. Our day culminated with a spectacular sunset at Playa Pan de Azucar (literally Sugar Beach). I had heard about the lovely, old hotel at this beach for years and was anxious to see it but had already been warned about the 'challenging access' to it. That was an understatement! About 30 min. from the hotel, the winding dirt road along the cliff up the hill to the property was filled with huge potholes and ditches. Francisco, our excellent driver for the week, mentioned as we went up down one particularly steep hill that he hoped we would be able to get back up it on our return! If it rained while were we at Sugar Beach, the hill would be too slippery to back up.

It was worth the journey (Michelin would give the beach and sunset view ***'s) We barely arrived before the sun started to set, but it was one of the most beautiful sunsets I've ever seen and the colors changed minute by minute. When darkness descended, we walked back up the steps to this quaint hotel and enjoyed a drink in the open-air restaurant overlooking the beach. This would be a fabulous property for anyone wanting peace and quite on a beautiful beach, but they need to be prepared not to run into town on a whim. The drive back was interesting to say the least, and we all breathed a sigh of relief when we had passed "the hill."

Today we depart the Guanacaste area and drive south down the Nicoyal Peninsula (still on the northern Pacific) to Playa Nosara where we will be spending the next 2 nights.

Love to hear from you -- just click on comments to send me a message.

Linda