Roadtrip 1/28-1/30

After our successful exploration of the southern part of the Nicoya Peninsula Julie suggested we go on a road trip - just start driving up the coast, and see what we discover.  On my part I like driving, and don't like planning, so the idea sounded great.

We headed out in the general direction of Tamarindo.  Last time I was undertaking the same trip I was with Dima and Yulia (another one), and we had a detailed map of Costa Rica.  We thought we picked the shortest route, but we had to turn around a couple of times due to a bridge being washed away, and the road leading to nowhere. We also had to cross a couple of rivers, and climb/descend some rough roads.  Anticipating the same experience, but this time in a smaller, and less capable car I was rushing Julie to leave as early as possible.

The map we had this time was a free one from Hertz.  It was not anywhere as detailed, but in retrospect that might've helped us.  I'm guessing it did not show those roads that we should not have taken.  We reached Tamarindo by paved roads in about 3 hours, and started looking for a place to stay.  First we went to the same place I stayed at last time, and the cheapest room there was about $75.  Then we tried a bunch of hostels/hotels, and they were all either booked, very expensive, without hot water, or the combination of the above.  After about 1.5 hours of fruitless search we decided to head up the coast, and find something on one of the cheaper beaches.

We made a point of stopping at every single beach we passed - we wanted to see as many of them as possible, and we wanted to find a good place to stay.  

We saw them all, from those that were almost completely undeveloped:

To those that resembled Cancun's resorts:

Previously I thought Tamarindo was the most expensive beach, but that turned out to be wrong.  From our observations that honor goes to the Flamingo beach. It stood out among the other beaches with its expensive resorts, million dollar yachts, and insane views.

At one time we reached the end of the road on a lash hill of Flamingo beach, and had to drive backwards because there was no room to turn around.  At another time we realized we've gone on a road along the beach where our car should not have gone, so we turned around as well.  The search continued well into the evening.

Around 7pm we were exploring yet another road that ended next to some private housing community.  It was already completely dark, and the only lights on the road were those of our car.  We headed back to the last roadside restaurant we saw, had dinner, and found out about a cheap hotel nearby.  For $40 that "hotel" offered a room so discusting that we decided we'd rather spend the night in the car.  So we moved on.

It took us a while to get out of that little town because we kept getting lost, once ending up in front of a river crossing (without a bridge, of course.)  Around 10pm we got to a little parking next to the Ocotal beach, next to yet another private condo community.  We "chatted" with the guard, and he motioned us to follow him in our car inside the complex.  In the end he offered us an appartment for $75, which was still too expensive.  We turned around, and in about 3 minutes saw a sign "rooms for rent".  The owner offered a room with hot water for $40.  I took a look, and decided it was the winner.  The shower in our room turned out to not have hot water, but the owner was nice enough to let us use a shower in another room - the whole property had only us as guests anyway.

After discovering a couple of puppies, and considering our proximity to a nice beach we decided to stay another night.

Ocotal beach turned out to be pretty cool.  It's mostly covered in black sand, and the water is insanely clear.

So we spent some time on the beach with the puppies, drove some more to explore the beaches and towns around, chilled in the nearby very touristy Coco beach town (even got stuck in traffic because of some sort of festival), and the following day left for La Fortuna.

It was a true roadtrip experience, and we enjoyed the adventure.  Another bonus was that I got to see quite a few places in Costa Rica I have not seen before.

2012.01.28 Roadtrip