Hotel Playa Grande Inn

... We went back to our cabana, laid by the pool,<br>then went and ate a massive lunch. The rest of the day was lazy (we<br>deserved it!), and was filled with Bocce ball and reading. That night,<br>it was turtle time! Or so we thought. We walked about half an hour down<br>the beach as the sun was setting to Main Playa Grande. It was really<br>gorgeous, and we saw all sorts of snail and crab tracks, and even<br>living sand dollars! We had to make it before 6 pm, as the beach ...

... action, but with it being the off season we have not been terribly successful. There is this great outdoor area over the water that has a fountain with a fire and all kinds of seating areas. They had piled all of the cushions from the benches inside some bar area to keep them from getting wet from the rain, but it had not rained for the past two days so we smuggled them out of there and set ourselves ...

You know there is this magical thing about being on vacation. All of the sudden you are perfectly happy to just sit on the patio and watch the rain fall. The most important thing you have to do all day is make it to your dinner reservation if you want it. Although we have twenty-four hour room service for free here so that is pretty great. Lynn and I broke down one time and ordered in at midnight. <br ...

... location tonight I have come to the conclusion that Costa Ricans do not believe in well lit rooms. We are all wandering around in this dimly lit room. <br><br>So anyways I had a nice lazy morning getting ready because I knew my friends would not be there until 11:00 a.m. at the earliest. I ventured outside for about 30 seconds but I gotta tell you I am not a fearful person but I just did not feel comfortable wandering around outside. I waited in the ...

... minutes we got a ride with a local guy who was headed there. He also gave us a ride part of the way back which was nice, especially because he had air conditioning, haha. I'm definitely picking up Spanish and the local RAs are eager to help us learn. Danilo and Andrey speak pretty good English, all of which they've learned from volunteers on turtle projects. That makes it much easier so when I've got almost a whole ...

... and only rained in the evenings, however, when it did it was torrential. The one blight on our stay in Tamarindo was the persistence of the mosquitoes that relentlessly attacked our legs throughout our stay, particularly in the showers at our hostel and in the kitchen area. On our first night we headed for a local eating institution called the Witches Rock Surf café and mistakenly forgot to put on repellent, the next morning we sat counting our bites in disbelief...

... Our room has an outdoor shower where you feel the breeze &amp; warm air from the outside. It is nice &amp; warm in the 80's but not much humidity so my hair is doing ok!! The house is about 100 meters walk from a beautiful beach. Having fun so far. Just got word that they found my luggage &amp; is supposed to get here tomorrow by noon. Much love, Shirin &amp; Babak

... and put them to the test against a Duncan-Peterson combo appetite. While they were undoubtedly mountainous (a large dinner plate piled as high as it was wide) we were still kind of hungry, and so began to think of absurd ways to challenge their assertion, like bringing in a donkey or a hugely obese man and saying we wanted 'Nachos as big as that ass!' Saturday came, and was very relaxing - can't remember at what hour we awoke, but we took a long walk to the beach before ...

... in Costa Rica, and has the other international airport. The population is between 35,000-40,000 people, and, other than a few main streets covered in American fast food restaurants, banks, and a bus station, does not really seem to contain anything else of interest. The proliferation of banks did allow me to remedy the problem I'd been having with the ATMs in the mountains - Banco Nacional will not accept Visa debit cards from Wells Fargo. I've never had a problem with this ...