Nosara: Playa Pelada at Sunset

16 March 2009

The day passed pleasantly and mostly uneventfully. The only real frustration was dealing with the insurance aspect of our rental car. We ended up spending a lot and feeling a bit strong-armed by the interaction with the agency. Not a big deal, but an unpleasant way to spend part of this morning.

After a very nice breakfast at our hotel (Hotel Las Rosas de America) and picking up the rental car, we left Alejuela at 10:15 AM, about an hour later than planned. The drive to Nosara was not long in distance — about 260 km — but we didn’t arrive until about 4 PM because driving progress in Costa Rica is always slow. We were familiar with the first half, having traveled it a few times already. The last 130 km was new, as we ventured westward across the large Nicoya peninsula to the Pacific. The weather was hot (peak 38 deg C) and dry. The landscape was sparsely vegetated with interesting trees, many of which are leaf-free now because they are deciduous across the dry season. The first 50 km of this part of the drive was only sparsely populated, but after that there were more frequent houses and small towns. We stopped in a large town — Nicoya — to buy groceries. The last 30 km of the drive was on a dusty and bumpy dirt road, so progress was really slow as we neared our destination.

We have a wonderful 2-bedroom house here about a 10-min dusty drive from the nearest beach. The house is large — probably twice the size of our flat in Monteverde — has a swimming pool, is air conditioned, and is based on an interesting Balinese-inspired design. However, not only does it not have internet, it doesn’t even have a phone. The house is called “Monkey Business.” Sure enough, we saw a troop of howler monkeys in the dry forest immediately behind the house just after we arrived.

We only had time for short visit to the nearest of several attractive beaches. These photos were taken there in the late afternoon approaching sunset. We hurried back to beat the darkness because the local driving is complicated enough to risk getting lost.

When we returned, the cicadas and the howler monkeys were making an incredible (!!) racket. It’s quiet in the house now; perhaps the noise was just to celebrate sunset.