Playa Langosta

Molasses Covered Honeymoon - Day Two

We climbed into the belly of the plane. Since we stopped to take photos of the plane, Olivia and I were the last to board. There were only six other passengers, but they had already spread themselves out as much as they could in the forward nine seats. That left only the back row available to us. As we strapped ourselves in with a fairly stout seat belt -- which could also be described as a harness -- I thought back to my experiences riding roller coasters. I remembered that the back row of the coaster is without fail the bumpiest place to sit. I silently cursed myself for being so slow and tried to steel myself for the oncoming tumble cycle in this festively painted washing machine with wings.

The captain climbed into the cockpit, but the first mate followed Olivia and I onto the plane through the rear doorway. I suppose it should be referred to as the “aft” entry. He inspected each of our seatbelts/harnesses to ensure that we were properly locked in, and then proceeded to welcome us aboard the plane; first in English, then again in Spanish, as he perspired freely in one of the remaining open seats.

He then scrambled out through the aft entry, hopped into the cockpit, put on his headgear, and fired up the engine. I know he put on headgear because the cockpit was not walled off from our view. I could see into the cockpit, and for the first time in my life, I could see directly out the forward windshield of a plane.

We taxied a very short distance to the edge of the primary landing strip, executed a wide u-turn, and after a momentary pause, blasted down the runway. I’m fairly certain I felt every loose pebble and crack in that pavement as we barreled toward the end of the runway. Lift off was a most welcome relief.

Relief quickly morphed into giddy excitement as I realized that I had a panoramic view of the city of San Jose through large windows on my left and right, as well as a view of the oncoming sky through the windshield of the cockpit. I didn’t notice it until we were ascending, but the windows on this plane were easily three times as large as the windows on the jets that we usually get herded into  in the U.S. Each window appears to be the size of a 32 inch television screen. And the fuselage is so thin, even though I’m sitting in the aisle seat, I can see well enough through Olivia’s window on my right and through the window on my left.

Below us, the city of San Jose is hardly a breath taking site in and of itself. There are only a handful of buildings over five stories tall, and they are scattered around the city haphazardly. (We were told later in our trip that building height restrictions are strictly enforced in deference to the ever present possibility of earthquakes.) But what is awe invoking is that the city sits in a valley between the end of the Rocky Mountains and the beginning of the Andes, and I can see them both in stunning proximity as they – and we – ascend into the sky.

Part II

We fly in a westerly fashion over the Gulf of Nicoyo. It is a jarringly smooth flight. Not even close to the nausea inducing roller coaster experience I had been expecting. In less than an hour we are at the Pacific Coast.

We make our descent to the Tamarindo Airport. It is exhilarating to be able to see the runway come at us through the cockpit windshield; the bulls-eye that the pilot is aiming for, and we are strapped onto the arrow. This particular bulls-eye appears to be no wider than an old country road. And like an old country road, it has no markings and is surrounded on either side by a cow pasture, complete with a plethora of cows who pay little to no attention to the roaring missile falling out of the sky.

The touchdown on the runway is also shockingly smooth. Olivia tells me that at the outset she was a bit frightened of this little plane, but it actually turned out to be the most pleasant experiences she has ever had on a flight. I concur with her as I hop off the plane and I watch a teenage boy walk over to our plane with a dolly and pull our backpacks out of the undercarriage of the plane .

After he asks us if he has procured the correct luggage, we follow the boy toward the main terminal; which appears to be a sort of open air pavilion roughly the size of a large barn. I come to the realization that there will be no long slog through a concourse, nor will there be a long fretful wait at a baggage claim, where you silently pray that your luggage did not get accidentally shipped to Taiwan. The boy pushes the dolly around the side of the pavilion to a small gravel parking lot where a half dozen taxi drivers are leaning on the wall. The boy asks us which hotel we are staying at, and then communicates our response to the group of taxi drivers.

The taxi drivers decided as a collective which of them would drive us to our hotel. I couldn’t figure out their method of selection, but whatever the method was, it was very quick. A driver was selected for us in a fraction of a second. Our driver led the boy to his taxi van, the boy followed with the dolly, and we followed the boy.

The boy loaded the backpacks into the van and mentioned to us in very broken English that luggage handlers at Tamarindo Airport work for tips. I nodded my head in response for a few seconds as I initially thought he was simply informing us of some interesting little factoid about his country. Then I realized that both he and Olivia were staring at me, and that he was actually telling me to pay him. I hand him a 2,000 Coloney bill ($4) and said, muchos gracias, and we climbed into the van.

We drove through downtown Tamarindo, which was almost entirely dirt roads, and continued southward another mile or two to our hotel -- the Villa Alegra Bed & Breakfast in Playa Longasta. The entire taxi ride took about 15 minutes and cost 10,000 Colones ($20).

Part III

We are met at the door by Barry, the owner/concierge of the hotel. He gives us the rundown of the operation and we are given a short tour. He tells us that he can make the arrangements for any activity or excursion that we would like to do, and he gives us a list of the most popular activities with associated costs and descriptions. We ask him to book us a surf lesson for the following day, and we tell him that we will decide on other activities later.

We hastily unpack, change into swimming attire, and walk the hundred yard path from the back door of the hotel to the Pacific Ocean. The beach is thin, but has soft brown sand and scattered black volcanic rock formations. We thought we found a spot on the beach that was more soft sand than jagged volcanic rock, but as we wade barefoot out into the water, we find that the jagged rock is hard to avoid. We are so excited to be in the Pacific Ocean, we continue wading out. We make our way into the deeper water and swim around in the pleasantly chilly salt water for a short time as the sun begins to sink into the horizon.

As we wade back to the shore and attempt to gently step around the rocks, a couple of strong waves come in and knock us down right on top of a few of them. I make it out of the water with only a couple of light scratches, but Olivia procures a contusion about the size of a racquet ball on her rear end.

We exit the beach and get ourselves a couple of Imperials from Barry’s beer fridge. Each beer costs $1.50 and Barry simply asks that we place a mark next to our room number for each beer we take. The total is then tallied at the end of our stay.

After watching the sunset on the water from our patio, we decide to walk to downtown Tamarindo for dinner. We both chose to wear flip flops since we were in a beach town. But when we set out on the dirt road, we found that the dirt had some sort of sticky substance all over it. The road also smelled heavily of syrup. We would later find out that the Costa Rican government has chosen to apply a sugar cane extract similar to molasses to all their dirt roads in the Guanacaste Region to keep cars from kicking up dust during the dry season. The policy seems to be quite effective, as I noticed very little dust in the air as we walked to dinner. However, the downside of this policy was that tiny pebbles were sticking to the bottom of my flip flops at a very undesirable frequency. But this was a small price to pay to be able to walk along a dirt road that smelled like molasses.

Olivia and I ate a delicious chicken, rice & beans dinner at a quiet restaurant on the edge of town called Dona Lee’s. We elected to skip the club scene and walked directly back to the hotel after dinner. We drank in the aroma of molasses, the salty Pacific breeze, and the sound of the thumping bass of techno music as we trudged back through downtown Tamarindo. When we finally reached our hotel, we were exhausted. We crashed right away. As I drifted to sleep, I thought how odd if seemed that the following day would be Christmas and we would be starting our day not with hot cocoa or building a snow man, but with papaya, pineapple, and a two-hour surf lesson.

Olivia On the Tarmac of Tobias Bolanos Airport

Molasses Covered Honeymoon - Day One

We arrived in San Jose on Sunday evening, December 23rd. We exchanged some American dollars for Costa Rican colones and very quickly made our way through the tiny Juan Santa Maria International Airport and found ourselves a taxi. Not fifteen minutes after we alighted from the plane, we were whisked away in a tomato colored sport sedan into the foothills of San Jose. 

 We arrived at the Real Intercontinental Hotel unscathed. Only a minor embarrassment when we attempted to tip the bell hop with colones. I handed him 700 colones in coins and he looked back at me awkwardly. I told him I had no idea how much money I had just given him. He said it was roughly the equivalent of $1.50. I quickly sifted through my stash of colones and found nothing smaller than a 10,000 coloney bill. I apologized for having no small bills to add to the 700 coloney tip, and the bell hop gave me a sort of half incredulous smile as he turned and vacated our room. 

 We quickly unpacked and spent the remainder of the evening drinking Imperials, the national Costa Rican beer. The next morning we slept in and lounged at the pool while we waited for our flight to the coast. We probably should have slept in longer because we allotted ourselves two hours to navigate through the Tobias Bolanos Airport, check our bags, and find our gate. Alas, the Tobias Bolanos Airport was only slightly larger than a convenience store. It took us all of about 10 minutes to check in to our flight. 

 While we waited for our flight, we ate a light lunch of rice & beans at the airport buffet-style cafeteria. When it came time to board our flight, Olivia and I and three other passengers followed the flight attendant out a side door to the tarmac. We watched the flight attendant stow our luggage in the belly of a cessna 208B grand caravan - a 12-seat single turbine engine plane that was easily the smallest plane either of us had ever elected to board. A plane that we both boarded somewhat reluctantly. 

 As we walked toward the plane, the captain walked up behind me and saw me snap a picture of Olivia in front of the plane. He said hello and offered to take a picture of both of us. After he handed my camera back to me, he said, "Vomonos! We go to Tamarindo!"