Jacó

We both spent the night surprisingly well in the city center despite it being a bit warm and humid in the van. Even though it cooled down at night we couldn't open the doors as it was directly on the street 😁
But we had planned to get up early anyways, so with the first noises in the morning we packed up our things and drove in Southwest direction... We had decided that after about a month it was time again for some more beach days 🥰

About halfway on the way to Puntarenas we had pretty intense rain and the temperature had dropped down to 13 degrees Celsius. It felt like the right time to get some coffee but the little shop we stopped at just had some with milk. Luckily there was a restaurant next to it with proper black coffee and also a selection of breakfast menus. We both decided to get the typical Tico breakfast which turned out to have similar content as the Nicaraguan and Honduran 😊 Especially the fried banana are a highlight of it! Interesting is also the change in the use of tortillas... In Guatemala they were common to every meal and sometimes in absurd amounts. Since then it got less and here in Costa Rica they're more like rice tortillas. Before noon we had reached Puntarenas, a beach town mainly known for the ferry service over the Gulf of Nicoya to a peninsula. We parked at the end of a long malecón and peninsula next to a pretty little lighthouse and walked from there first in town and then back along the beach. It was nice to stretch the legs and at a dock we saw a pretty huge iguana 🦎😍

As we had seen everything we wanted to see, we decided to continue on to another beach town about 1.5 hours South named Jacó. It's a famous for surfing and has an annual Quicksilver competition. We went to a surfer hostel and stayed in the secluded parking lot but paid a bit to use the facilities. Then we checked out the tours that they offered but the only interesting one (snorkeling to Islas Tortugas) was a full day tour with all kinds of stuff that we weren't that interested in. They also offered a little hiking tour in the afternoon to a viewpoint.
As we had plenty of time we went to the beach and walked along it and saw a viewpoint from there. After checking it on the map, it was just a little walk away. With flip-flops and a beer each we did the nice and easy ascend to be rewarded with a lovely view over the beach and the rainforest canopy. As a bonus the abandoned ruins had some great graffiti art! After getting back down we had lunch and then got into a downpour but it was a comfortable warm summer rain.

We spent the evening watching the sunset and relaxing at the beach 🥰Leggi altro