Playas Negras de Guanacaste

This is a vacation week for us. No hiking; no tours and no plans. This week is for relaxing and thinking about plans for our arrival in Tasmania in March.

We visited several pretty beaches today. Nearest to us is Playa Lagarto. It is only 2K from our villa compound but the road is rough and seems longer. Every time we drive this road, I am reminded of our time in Tanzania. As in the dry season on the Serengeti, the hills here are covered with sparse trees and golden grasses. You can almost see the heat rising up from the dry ground. As we drive along I imagine seeing a lion part the grasses and saunter out across the road.

The better road, the “highway” heading south is paved in some places and not in others. It is not a good bit better than the purely dirt ones. To explain a little, the road is hard-packed dirt and fairly well-maintained but at each cluster of a few houses making up a tiny community, the road is paved wit asphalt. Outside the community, the road is dirt and gravel once again.

We passed the tiny fishing village at Playa Lagarto. We glanced at the beach behind it. The beach and waves coming were inviting as most beaches are, but was very rocky. We drove on southward.

About 8 kilometers down the road is Playa Marbella also called Playa Frijolar. This beach too, has black sand, big rough rocks in the surf, and gorgeous waters. We drove on.

A sign read Playa Pitahaya. We turned onto the lane. In just a short way was the beach. Several couples and families had set up camp for the day. They found or made shade, and had chairs, children, games, and picnic food! Although there are many Canadians here, especially in our resort community, these people at the beach appeared to be locals, out to celebrate a family day. How real, how wonderful, and what a way to live life!! Cheers to families enjoying family!

Another day we braved the dirt road and coastal “highway” to make the one-hour drive to Tamarindo, the primary resort town on this side of the country. Tamarindo is the hot spot in the Guanacaste Province. It is the largest town on the west coast, and lies directly along the beach. Tamarindo caters to throngs of tourists especially this time of year, sunning, surfing, shopping, and hanging out. A main drag winds slowly through town with shop after shop, bar after bar, and restaurant after restaurant on either side of the street. This beach town literally creeps with cars and people. The Tamarindo Beach is wide in places and narrower in others. The surf crashes in hard maybe twenty meters from the beach and threatens a body to approach it and its underlying riptide. A few surfers were out there trying to tame a wave today.

We paid a Rasta man to watch our car as we parked on the street and walked across the street. We sat on the beach for a while, people-watching, and surf-watching until the wind began picking up sand and peppering us. Not wanting to leave our stuff, we packed it up in the beach bag and began walking the pretty beach. People approached us selling beaded bracelets, cute woven straw purses, and little colorfully painted bird whistles – the kind a kid would love and also that might drive a parent out of their mind. They also marketed coco locos and pinas – juice- or juice and alcohol-filled coconuts and pineapples. Others offered handmade string hammocks.

We had lunch on the beach – Stan had beautiful fresh mahi mahi fish tacos and I had the very best mixed seafood ceviche I’ve ever tasted!!! It was made with octopus, mahi, and shrimp – all nicely chilled and fresh from the ocean today.

Here’s a tidbit. Because most visitors to Costa Rica stay in hotels, villas, or condos which are fully equipped with all the modern luxuries one might like, few people know that many homes in Costa Rica do not come equipped with hot water. And in those that do, quite often a small on-demand hot water heater supplies it only to the shower. Dishes and clothes are washed in cold water. In hotter parts of the country, like the Pacific coastal area, homes simply do not have hot water at all. They don’t need it, they say. The cool water shower is refreshing. These homes usually do not have air conditioning either.

Our apartment in Puerto Rico had hot water showers only. We found the same in our villa in La Fortuna. Everywhere else we have enjoyed full utilities as expected. For the first few days here, our Playa Lagarto villa did not have hot water although it is supposed to. We reported the issue and it took four days for the replacement on-demand full-house water heater to be delivered and installed. While a cool shower sounds awful, I didn’t mind at all. To be sure, though, once hot water was restored, I found the warm shower much more pleasant, even therapeutic.

Just south of Liberia is the start of a long stretch of unblemished Pacific coast and lovely natural beaches. Only one main road, the “highway” just outside our resort, follows the coastline from Santa Cruz to Cabo Blanco, the end of the peninsula. This is a hard road to drive but the beaches along the way are wonderful. Most have black sandy beaches with rocky outposts that create great sprays of water as waves rush in and crash on the rocks. There are miles of relatively undiscovered beachfront property along the coast. We sense some adventurous souls have put their money and hopes on future development of this coast because the main dirt road is littered with faded signs promising a community of heavenly, decadent vacation homes coming soon. While cows graze on hillsides, signs reading “Lots for Sale” are posted here and there on parcels of farmland that sit on the ocean front or have an ocean view.

I see little evidence of a highly active real estate market right this moment however, but those we chat with who’ve invested in these lots or vacation homes tell us that in five years when the main beach road is paved, things are really going to happen. They envision bike rentals, hotels, bars, and beautiful resorts. Things may pop indeed. But they might not. We’ve heard stories that not long ago the president after riding this road and seeing the area’s potential appropriated some millions of dollars for the development of the road. By the time the funding reached the contractor, only a few hundred thousand were left. Hmmm. Gated entrances leading to a sprinkling of vacation villas indicate that developers are gambling for the big payoff when the roads are finally improved and crowds of people come to the coast clamoring to own a piece of paradise.

The following is not founded in any fact at all. It is just a thought, even hearsay, but . . . it is possible that the start-up resort developments we see here and there along this coast are being initiated by the narcos who put up big drug money to develop a new vacation resort community and a few years later, go broke. It‘s a strategy to launder money. For example, a drug lord might have $40 million in dirty money. He invests that $40 million in a resort concept and a few years goes broke, and sells out for $20 million but . . . in the final analysis; the twenty million the narco walks away with is now clean and legitimate.

We met a man at our pool who told us we could buy fresh seafood from a house at Playa Lagarto. He said we could find fresh lobster there. On our return drive from Playa Azul and the Ostional area yesterday we found it. Guess what’s for dinner tonight!!

Today and tomorrow are our last in Guanacaste. We plan no more driving and exploring. Instead we will spend these two days, reading, writing and sunning by the pool. On Tuesday we will make the long drive back to San Jose to spend the night and board a 7 am flight to Mexico City. Its elevation of 6,000 feet will lend new views, new experiences, cool temps and a whole new scene for us!!!