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Published: October 28th 2010
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Five and half hours west from San Jose on a bus (seven and half on the way back thanks to a crash) is the town of Nosara. If you like surfing, exotic animals and feeling almost totally isolated then head on over because I can't imagine there are many more suitable places in the world. The realisation of just how remote a place it is comes during the journey when you notice that the road you've been driving on for the last hour is essentially a dirt track of the type that if you knew someone who was going to walk on a road like that, you'd tell them to be careful because it's quite bumpy and there's lots of potholes. Further realisation comes when after seeing this, you carry on driving down the road for another hour before you see the sign for your hotel and get off the bus.
Actually, that's a slight misrepresentation of the truth. What actually happened was that we saw the sign for the hotel, panicked, thought about it for ten minutes or so, and then got off the bus. Leaving us stranded in what could more or less be the dictionary definition of
'the middle of nowhere'. Fortunately, in this part of the world, everyone's a taxi driver, so a car pulled up and asked where we were going. This gave us a perfect chance to demonstrate our ace haggling skills, and the conversation went like this.
Driver - Where are you going?
Us - The Gilded Iguana.
Driver - I'll take you for 15 dollars.
Us - 50 dollars?! No thanks.
Driver - Alright, 10 dollars.
Us - Erm, ok.
Victory to us. Although, in truth it was something of a scrappy 1-0 win after a last minute own goal, but it's a victory all the same.
It may sound a little dangerous for three outsiders to be getting into a strangers car in the middle of a forest, but in the small gap between him backing down to ten dollars and us accepting the ride, we all separately reasoned that no kidnapper could possibly be that bad at haggling so we were probably safe.
- "I've got your son in the car and it'll cost two million pounds if you want to see him again."
- "Two million? Don't think so, how about 20 quid."
- "Yeah ok, that'll do."
The hotel was lovely, although it's worth bearing in mind that anywhere that any of the three of us have visited in the last few months, we've stayed in cheap hostels, so while it may have felt like the Ritz to us, you may have higher standards. As far as I was concerned though, the rooms were big, they had plenty of sports channels on the tele in the bar and they were willing to ply me with up to four coffees in a two hour period, so I wont hear a word said against them.
The hotel was about a three minute walk from the beach, and what a beach it was. Beautiful sand, not many people around and, as in Puerto Viejo, massive waves. When we arrived on the beach, we saw a dead puffer fish and shortly after that (at the risk of making it sound like an elaborate animal cemetery) a dead giant turtle being eaten by vultures, which for me is not an everyday occurrence. In terms of a comparison, the sea was colder than the Caribbean (but still not cold) and somehow it felt less inviting and fun to be in. Possibly because the undercurrent was very strong and so it felt more dangerous. Possibly because the very gradual slope into the sea meant that you had to go out a lot further to get to the big waves - good for the average surfer but bad for the child in his mid-20s who wants to splash around. And possibly because when you see a Puffer Fish who swam so close to the shore that he managed to beach himself it makes you slightly less carefree about where you are swimming.
Despite that, the beach itself, and the forest surrounding it were more beautiful than anything I've seen in the time I've been here. This was literally a village built in a forest, and wherever you go you may not be able to see the building next to you, but you can see loads of trees. The one exception was when we took an ill-advised and mercifully short trip to the only club/bar in Nosara. Now, I'm not much of a bar person, give me a tea room with a cake and a book and I will have a far better time than I will in a club trying to make myself heard over Jay Z or "I'm Blue da ba de ba da ba" by Eiffel 65 (yep, they played it) so perhaps I'm biased but any place that has an empty dancefloor with about thirty men sitting around it, just waiting for a girl who is brave/drunk/easy enough to wander in that direction has a very real feeling of a meat market that I don't want to be present at. That said, a lot of people seemed to be having a great time, but then most of them looked like the kind of people who would have enjoyed Saturday night at The Grafton (one for the Scouser's there).
As for the wildlife - the ones that weren't dead on the beach - we saw howler monkeys, squirrels that were black and red with white tails, lizards of various sizes, plenty of vultures and huge grasshoppers. With no exaggeration at all, they were the size of rats. Big rats. And who knew grasshoppers could fly? I thought they just hopped everywhere but these guys had wings. When they flew in they looked like mini-Pterodactyls - which made us feel much better about screaming and running away when they started flying in our direction.
The tourism season starts next week and we were told that if you want to learn to surf then that's the time to come, but as far as I can see, if you want a quiet break to get away from the city to a place that looks pretty near to paradise, then go in October. The one down side was the weather. The mornings were beautiful and were as hot as you would get on a sunny afternoon in Spain or Greece, but from about 1oclock it just rained with a healthy smattering of thunder and lightning for good measure.
So, like on all the best breaks, we slept a lot, ate loads, swam, lay on the beach and as an added bonus we all learnt something. The girls learnt just how red human skin can go when you fall asleep on a beach at 10oclock in the morning, and I learnt that four cups of coffee and dive-bombing grasshoppers aren't necessarily conducive to a relaxing Sunday afternoon.
Pura Vida
Dave
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Randy
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if you think nosara is remote....
if you liked nosara you should head south and check out san miguel, that is truly another world! nosara is developed and is like a mini america....but we found this place and are dying to go back, it is just paradise at its best, as a close and affordable destination. stayed at cristal azul on the hill, best place we stayed in all of costa rica by far. no sinage so get in touch with the before you get there and they will spoil you rotten!