The Weekend

We returned last night from our weekend away from the center. Myself and a few friends went on a hiking adventure to a 300 m waterfall near the Tarcoles river. The sun was hot even at 8 am and we sweat all the way up and down but the views and swimming in the pools below the waterfall were totally worth it. The owner of the waterfall was a flakey woman from miami/ daughter of the CEO of the venezualan airline/ dancer/ who knows....? She told us all kinds of wild stories almost none of which made sense or held together. As we were hiking up the dirt road to the entrance to the waterfall she pulled up in a big 4x4, introduced herself, and told us just to be careful because she'd gotten pregnant in one of the pools. "I must be some kind of turtle or mermaid or something," she said and drove off. About three minutes later she was driving back the other way and we finally met her at the top of the hill. She introduced us to the waterfall, to her 'yoga studio' (a wooden platform overlooking the valley), and to her property which she claimed to be selling to the Chinese for $37 million. On the way back down she offered us a ride for $15 a person to the beach we were planning to camp on. When we finally agreed she said we'd have to wait until 5 o'clock (it was around 1). We decided to walk.

We made it to the beach on a public bus and after eating dinner in one of the 3 restaurants in town, we sat out on the sand, drinking Costa Rican rum and enjoying the stars. All of us were exhausted since we had hiked between 8-12 miles that day. We had decided to spend that night and the next day (Sunday) in a little beach town called Esterillos Oeste on the pacific side.

This beach was a lot quieter than tourist centers like Jaco but still, it was clear that the development was coming here next. Most lots had ‘for sale’ or ‘sold’ signs on them and we could see the beginnings of infrastructure creation in the form of entire communities with roads and cleared lots but no houses. The town was by no means unvisited. There were a number of other tourists and a good proportion were American but I’m sure that in the next ten years there will be massive hotels and resorts where the small houses and stores used to be.

We spent the rest of Saturday night exploring tidal pools with our headlamps and playing cards. The next day we woke up around 7, ate, and headed for the beach were we spent the rest of the day sleeping and reading in the shade of a tree. On the way back we were lucky enough to be offered a pretty cheap ride by a guy with a van who was going our way after the bus we wanted to catch was entirely full. The ride was a welcome surprise and ended up working out. Our planning for the weekend had been minimal but everything ended up working out.