Guanacaste: Playa Hermosa!

Volcan Arenal from the road

Becky and I took a road trip in her new(old) car. We drove over the mountains and down into Guanacaste. Guanacaste is the "dry" region of Costa Rica. It is hot and dry during the dry season (now) and cooler and rainy during the wet season. The region is named for the Guanacaste tree, which is Costa Rica's national tree. Guanacaste is bordered on the east by the volcanic mountain range, to the north by Nicaragua, to the west by the Pacific and to the south by the Rio Tempisque and the Golfo de Nicoya. It reminded me a bit of Iowa - the landscape along the road is dominated by rolling plains, though there was some forest as well. The region is mainly cattle ranching, but they also grow sugar cane and cotton.

sugar cane field?

Becky and I took the Interamericana (also known as the Central American leg of the Pan-American Highway). We saw a huge variety of ecosystems, which was cool. We drove through cloud forest, rain forest, and flood plain. We also saw a lot more of San Jose than we had intended - it took over an hour for us to figure out how to get onto the Interamericana.

Interamericana in Guanacaste

I kinda liked driving around these funny side streets in small neighborhoods, but it did get frustrating after awhile. As noted in an earlier post, street signs are in short order here, and directional signs only appear once you are en route. While obviously nothing like US major highways, the Interamericana was still an impressive roadway - mostly given that there were few to no pot holes, and it was (for the most part) striped. This is a BIG DEAL in Costa Rica. Especially the lack of pot holes.

Rooster at the restaurant

 Aside from using the map in my guide book as our road map because the maps got left behind, we also used it to scout out a good place to stop for lunch. We ate at a hacienda-turned-restaurant-and-reserve that was right off the highway. Right next to our table was a small fish pond/fountain, and there were chickens and roosters running around. Anyway, the food was really good, and surprisingly cheap (I like!). We trundled back out onto the road, and continued on to Liberia, which is the capital of Guanacaste. We pretty much drove through the outer limits to get to a new highway that would take us to the coast. Becky had done some research on where we might stay, and the guide book also came in handy. We decided to stay at a really lovely hotel that was right on the beach, and when we arrived to make our reservations, they gave us refrescos naturales, which are kind of like fruit juice only thicker.

The beach from the tidal pools

Sea slug

 The beach was (probably still is) beautiful. It had grey sand, and the water was really clear, though a deep green color. The town we stayed in is called Playa Hermosa - Beautiful Beach - and is very small. There are a total of three paved roads - one is the freeway that borders the eastern edge, and then two very pot-holed access roads to the beach. The beach is probably about 2 km long, and its a small bay. There were tons of fishing boats and small tour boats moored out from the beach. The beach itself was really shallow, and hardly had waves at all (which I liked). Its bordered on both ends by tidal pools, which I had great fun exploring.

Sea urchins

We spent the night in Playa Hermosa, and left to go back to San Jose a little before noon. We had rain for a large portion of our drive, but it was, luckily, clear while we were driving in the mountains. We stopped in San Ramon, a small town outside of San Jose to look for food, but we didn't find any. What we did find was a green - that hospital green - evangelical church. Unfortunately, my camera battery died, and so I don't have any photos of it, but it was quite the sight to see.

One of the cool things we saw on our way back to San Jose was a group of pilgrims walking to Cartago. August 2nd is the Feast Day of Nuestra Virgin de los Angeles, and a large number of catholics make a pilgrimage to Cartago in honor of La Negrita. The pilgrims we saw were walking from Tilaran to Cartago, which is about 150 km, up and over a mountain range. It was pretty impressive.

Blurry pilgrim!

I'm hoping to go back out to the region, and maybe do some snorkeling out in some of the islands. Its a pretty touristy region, but if I go during the week, it would be less busy. . .