Playa Del Coco

While sitting in the bus station in Liberia, where we had planned on going in our separate directions, Kyle and I started looking at the bus scedhules to get to Arenal. At this point of the trip, we were getting a little tired, and the bus scedhule to Arenal has 4 transfers, and we've probably have to stay overnight somewhere because we already missed the earlier buses. We hummed and hayed around the idea of going up to Arenal (and figured we should have just done it after Tamarindo before going to Nicaragua), or just heading straight back to Jaco since we'd need time to sell Kyle's boards.

In the end, we decided to go along with Lara and Gareth to Playa del Coco, which is north of Tamarindo. Sure why not. We spend a night or two and then head to Jaco. We ended up catching another cab down to Playa del Coco...we were all just so tired. We got into town, and well it wasn't exactly what any of us had thought it would be...I guess we should have gone up to Arenal.

This is our place of overnight accomodation. We ran into a local guy on the street who said he knew of a place for us to stay. The house was owned by a lawyer who rented out rooms. The rooms in the house were okay, but more than we wanted to pay, so instead... ...we ended up in the shack out back.

The roof was full of holes (but I think it did have a tin roof over top...or we hoped because it looked like rain!)

And the walls didn't go up to the ceilings, so we hoped there was no mosquitos! And other bugs!

The rooms were quite small as well. We had to store one of our board bags in Lara and Gareth's room...

...whereas Kyle slept with the other!

And the locks on our room doors were nothing more than small luggage locks. When we all went out for dinner, we worried that our stuff may not be there when we returned. This was the shabby-ist place we stayed. And it wasn't exactly cheap either! Since Playa del Coco is so close to Tamarindo, it as well is quite touristy and therefore expensive!

This is the bathroom...no showering after dark here...who knwos who could be watching.

Playa del Coco is a diving town...although Lara said she didn't get that vibe. Gareth planned on doing a dive here but decided against it. This town is also big because it's the closest location to run surf trips to Ollie's Point and Witch's Rock (some trips do also run out of Tamarindo).

Anyways, here's the beach. The water was pretty yucky and polluted. I got about mid-calf before headed back in. But it's also a fishing town, so there's slot fo yucky stuff in the water.

This is a quick shot of the streetscape...and yes it rained. Didn't have much rain at all in Nicaragua, we come back to CR, and it rains on us the first night back.

But here, Kyle finally found his "Trits", an ice cream treat that he was told to look for becuase they were "soooo good"! It's like an ice cream sandwich, but with a different cookie, and well it wasn't all that great.

Here's a funky little interpretation of a Christmas tree. Christmas trees were going up in the houses in Nicaragua while we were there. Normal ones, not like this. And all the markets were full of Christmas ornaments and wrappings. It's weird to think of Christmas in +30 C tempertatures! But it is coming.

Well, Playa del Coco didn't hit anyone's fun buttons, sure Lara and I did a little shooping but we didn't even buy anything. So here we are waiting for the bus...heading back to Liberia to catch the bus to Jaco.