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Published: January 5th 2007
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Amazing sunset
fortunately the americans couldn't wreck the sunsets!! Crossing the border into Costa Rica was a culture shock to say the least. The Latin American language, indigenous villagers, beautiful old colonial towns, small local ‘tiendas’ (shops), locally owned hospedajes (hotels) and intriguing cultural differences were instantly replaced by the North American language, sprawling rapidly growing towns and developments of condos only affordable to foreigners, billboards advertising further condos or land for sale, supermarkets stocking world tastes, shopping malls, and modern hotels.
Our initial reaction to Costa Rica was of disgust at the degree of ‘Americanisation’ that had already taken place and was slowly creeping further throughout the country, transforming once ‘local’ places into a foreign creation devoid of any true Costa Rican culture or traditions.
The Costa Rican currency also caused us some confusion (although the dollar is more and more widely accepted): I tried to withdraw $400 dollars from the bank at the border town only to discover on arrival at our first stop on route that I had mistakenly only requested $40 - which is not going to go far in an expensive country like Costa Rica! The Costa Rican currency uses notes in values of 1,000 to 10,000 colones and huge heavy coins reminiscent The Monkey's Head
One of the dive sites we visited off the coast of Playa Del Coco. of pirate’s gold. It is very disconcerting going to a cash point to withdraw, for example $400, and having to type in a number such as 200,000 - all those zeros were a little worrying as my account does not normally contain anywhere near that amount of zeros before the decimal point!
On arrival in Costa Rica we had decided to head straight to the Pacific coast for some more surfing and a different environment for scuba diving. The first beach we headed to was called Playa del Coco since we had read that the scuba diving off the coast there was amazing. Playa del Coco we quickly discovered was an up and coming North American tourist meca, well above our budget. The cheapest hotel in our guide book was up to a whopping $30 and it did not look like anywhere else would be much cheaper. We decided straight away that one night was all we could afford and rushed off to book a diving trip for the next morning so we could leave by lunch the next day.
After booking our trip we explored the shops and indulged ourselves at the supermarket; I got rather excited
to find cheap bottled (not cartons) red wine for one of the first times on our trip, so we bought a litre to celebrate, which obviously meant we also had to buy some posh cheese to accompany it! Later on in the evening we tried the local nightlife and a lonely American guy invited himself to join our conversation. It quickly became obvious that he was a bit drunk and that he was a very opinionated, politically orientated, guy who loved to hear himself speak, so we downed our beers, made polite excuses and escaped back to the safety of the wine in our room.
Diving the next morning was a bit of a different set up to what we had experienced when training. Now qualified paying divers we were treated like royalty; all our dive gear was set up and checked for us, chips, dips and juice we served between dives and there was even an onboard toilet - all of which was of novelty value to us.
The two dives were fantastic, although completely different to diving on the Caribbean; brightly coloured coral was replaced by volcanic rock formations and the millions of fish by larger
animals. We swam up close to both a Hawksbill Sea Turtle and a Green Turtle; some cool fishes that were hard to spot in the Caribbean were abundant here in the Pacific such as Puffer Fish, Scorpion Fish and large eels. We toyed with White Tipped Reef Sharks cornering them for closer inspection; Sting Rays floated like hovercrafts on the sea floor or glided silently overhead; and immense schools of fish blocked out the light surrounding us in glittering walls of colour. Needless to say it was amazing, unfortunately this time we had no camera hence the lack of photos and my lengthy description - sorry!
The next beach we headed to was the well-known traveler hangout called Playa Tamarindo. We ended up hanging out in Tamarindo for quite a few days due to the welcome laidback vibe at the ‘Hostal Botella de Leche’ that we ended up staying at. Having not watched TV for quite a while, like 4 months, we found it amazingly hard to tear ourselves away from the comfy bean bags and movie channels in the lounge! We did make it out of the hostel at times to enjoy some more surfing down at the
beautiful beach. I somehow managed to break off one of my board fins during our last surf session, but luckily our hostel did not charge me!
It was also Halloween whilst we were at the beach so we had a night out on the town as such. It was a fancy dress party, but most of the people there did not seem to understand what typical Halloween fancy dress means as there was a really odd assortment of costumes in the bar. The costume I found the 'scariest’ was probably the local guy who looked like an exact replica of the local election candidate carrying a placard supporting himself for the vote - he had supposedly upset a few locals with his choice of Halloween dress.
Having slightly improved our surfing skills and seen some of the most impressive 360 degree panoramic sunsets we decided we had done enough surf-bumming and went to move on to our next volunteer project further down the coast near Montezuma.
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Vlada
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Happy New year
Happy New year. As I can see you both are having good time and taking a lot of beautiful pictures. It so amazing when you have got a chance to enjoy every single day in your life. All the best to you. Vlada