Hotel Estela De Fuego Playa Flamingo

... what was going on. There were small manta rays in the water. Although I am sure they were more scared of us, there was a general fear of getting into the water. It was really cool to see that they genuinely seemed to enjoy riding the waves! I even got some really cool pictures of them playing around in the water. After some trepidation, we took the plunge and decided the water was too inviting to let some little manta rays spoil our plans! <br><br>Today we ...

... food doesn't seem to compete with everything else the country has to offer. While not bad, there just isn't much to it. Even the Ticos we ask seem to have a difficult time coming up with a suggestion when we ask them for suggestions about what to eat. There is one dish they all eventually get to called Gallo Pinto, which when described doesn't seem like much; basically a mixture of black beans and white rice. Yes, I know it doesn't ...

... I began my search, low and behold the airfare from LA was great! We decided to limit our visit to two areas since we only had one week (remember, I've learned my lesson the hard way about trying to cram too much into a week's worth). And technically, Susie doesn't go back to work until the 28th, but I have just recently (very recently, as in last week) managed to save up 5 days worth of time off. So we're spending some days at the beach on the nortwestern ...

... that it must be due to the ample population of wealthy foreigners that reside here on a full or part time basis, but that was not the case. These animals actually came from some of the poorest homes that we have seen thus far. On the very first day out on the road with Dawn, we quickly began to understand what put Playa Flamingo apart from the rest. Dawn works tirelessly driving around to all the local homes, down the craziest of ...

... witness all the stinky rotten eggs littered on the beach as well as the sick/old/disabled turtles who came at the tail end. Many of them just made it to the beach, laid their eggs and then died. There are lots of vultures and dogs on the beach that are eating the eggs and dead turtles. Soo its not quite a beautiful pristine beach due to all of that but it is still very pretty and apparently we've arrived at its worst and ...

... the 4th floor of a building overlooking the sunset. Tamarindo has one of the most breath taking sunsets I have ever seen. On Sunday we got up early again to go to the beach and do a little bit of souvenir shopping before we had to leave at 230. The ride home took almost 7 hours, I thought we were never going to make it. Because alot of people are on vacations now so there were tons of cars coming back from the beach. On monday night we went to this bar called ...

... standing room only." At first we got to sit, but after a while the bus got packed, and the people's tickets trumped our late purchase, so we stood. Well, to be fair, we took turns standing because we managed to somehow steal one seat. So, 7 grueling hours later we landed in Nosara beach, the land that time forgot. It was a fabulous place to stay for a week with nothing better to do than go to the beach and **** around. We got ...

... library has internet computers and it´s just about the only air conditioned room to hide in, hence the long entry! ************Stop press************ Latest adventure... On Sunday I went on an adventure all on my own ;) Got up from the couch, went to the loo and picked up the TV remote on my return to the couch - yeah action man! Now, over a week after the accident, I´m slowly getting back into the swing of things - just been on my 1st ´outing´ in a week - a local cookery course...

... to gorging on pastries served in the bar (tea time in a bar, weird i know!), let the carb intake for donna begin and let the naps for mike start! We spend our first whole day on the resort exploring, trying to understand why no one speaks english ...

... when I'll go back for a couple of days. Now I'm in Costa Rica, since about 10 days. I live with a tica family at Playa Flamingo, which is a beach resort in the northwest of the country. I'm going to school for four hours a day and the afternoons we spend at the beach or going on trips. The lifestyle is quite different, although the families got almost everything we've got too. Like big SUV's, microwave, TV's and even Playstations ...