Umbrella

27.02.2015

Scientific fact - colourful little paper umbrellas make tropical drinks taste better when in paradise. It's something we've proven over and over the past few days in the laid back areas of Playa Carrillo and Playa Samara, where we are finishing up our last bit of beach time in Costa Rica. There's probably no better place to wind down this trip, since tomorrow night will be spent at a hotel near the Liberia airport, a location that was chosen solely because of the fact that we have an early flight back home.

Carrillo ended up being a great choice, with the prettiest beach we've seen so far in Costa Rica, and one that was nearly empty every day that we were there. Even better was the fact that our hotel maintains a small kiosk at the beach, with toilet, showers, lounge chairs, and a cart where we could buy drinks. It was a perfect spot for a few days of R&R, to recover from a very hectic Costa Rican getaway, one that was full of the typical activities that tourists do here.

The routine ended up being pretty much identical for the two full days we had in Carrillo - have a late breakfast, have a beer on the beach, catch up on some reading, take a dip when we got too hot, go for a nice seafood-based lunch somewhere, and then hide from the hottest part of the day back at the Hotel Leyenda's pool. Oh, such a tough life that we lead here, on the beaches of Costa Rica ... Of course, if there was one complaint about Playa Carrillo, it was that the waves can be a bit strong for casual swimmers, and is probably more suitable for beginner surfers. I always wear my sunglasses into the water with never a problem, except for today - the waves were extra strong, and I was about chest deep in the water, when a wave started to break a good couple of feet above my head ...

I tried to jump high enough to keep my head above water while simultaneously grabbing at my sunglasses, but to no avail - the wave nailed me good, and tumbled me end over end ... and when I emerged from the surf, my sunglasses were nowhere to be found. Now, this wasn't the first time I'd lost a pair of glasses while traveling, but this was the least traumatic of the two - the other time was when we were mugged at knife point in Thailand, so I'm not really complaining this time around!

Even though we do have one more night in Costa Rica, tonight really felt as if it was the last. Staying at an airport hotel doesn't feel like traveling to me in any way, so we were both a bit sad tonight, knowing that our Costa Rican adventures were pretty much over. So to celebrate, we hoped to have one final nice dinner in the area, though some of our previous culinary misadventures made us briefly consider a return to the dive beach bar Lo Que Hay instead, because we knew the food was good there.

Things always have a way of working out, and we finally managed to have a killer dinner in the area, at El Colibri, an Argentinean steakhouse. In fact, the food was so good, that the lack of colourful little paper umbrellas didn't even matter ...

Beautiful Playa Cariillo ...