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Published: February 16th 2023
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Jaco was not what we expected at all. For some reason we had anticipated something akin to Benidorm in Spain. Instead we found it much more closely aligned to Patong in Phuket, Thailand, but with vastly inflated prices! We didn't really like the place, to be honest, but we made the most of a bad job as we always do. From our luxury accommodation in Montezuma we were in a true backpackers' hostel and my feedback and criticism of their attitude (the guy on reception when we had a problem didn't speak English and got very grumpy when he found out we could do it all in Spanish!) and lack of hot water (despite the electrical contraption being in the room it is, apparently, not included in the price!) did not go down well.
Enough of the negatives though. Let's look at the positives. There is a long beach which some people seem to like. We've become rather too used to the golden sands where we live in Spain though. There is a wide variety of bars and restaurants to every taste, although finding value was difficult. We really enjoyed the salad bar with a relatively cheap taco at
Tacobar Jaco Walk. Had we found it before our last night, we would have gone there again just for the salad!
Uber is a great way to get about if you just can't walk any more. We took a cab out to the Jaco sign for sunset, and what a sunset it was. From there we walked a kilometre back towards town as darkness fell, reaching
PuddleFish Brewery just in time. Their craft ales were fabulous, but their food was beyond our budget. Instead we got another Uber back into town and ate at Monoverde. From the outside it looks like it's going to be a swanky expensive joint, but stick to the burger rather than the steak and it's brilliant! It certainly made a change from a cheap soda (like a canteen restaurant) with rice and beans again!!
We did manage to do an excellent excursion. Having spoken to a couple of agencies it seemed that we would be paying $20-30 each just for transport to Tarcoles for a crocodile and bird watching tour. Instead we took the local bus for a dollar each way and paid
Crocodile Man Tour a further $35 each for their services. On the bus we met Val
and Howard, two fellow Brits trying to save some cash. They were headed for the Crocodile Bridge a little further along the route. I hadn't seen any river trips advertised from there. It looked like it was just a chance to see the crocs lying by the river and buy some tacky souvenirs. They changed their minds and came with us on our trip instead. It was a great morning out and we saw so many different birds. Our guide knew them all and even had a cheat sheet for the most ignorant of tourists to be able to identify our feathered friends on. Getting up close and personal with magnificent frigate birds in the trees was incredible as we had only seen them flying above our heads and had no idea they did this! The highlight had to be Captain Hook. This giant crocodile, frighteningly big really, had lost a foot somewhere along the way which earned him his nickname. He was a magnificent beast and luckily for us was pretty docile and enjoying the sun. The return to Jaco meant a bit of a wait for a bus, but for independent and budget-conscious travellers, we highly recommend the
way we did it.
As we moved on to Quepos we were not sad to leave.
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D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
Nice birding
Not every town is worthy of falling in love with.