Guanacaste:
Day 2-7
We headed out of the airport hotel ready to leave the stick of the rental car experience behind us (see post 1 of 4)!!! So off on our 4 and 1/2 hour journey! We chose to take toll roads, which were pain free especially as we took out local currency at the airport. Roads were paved and in mostly good condition. Just a bit slow due to speed limits and are trucks, lol. I am a @Marriott junkie so first checked where in Costa Rica had amazing properties that I could use points for a 5 night stay (if you have the Chase Marriott you stay 4 nights and get the 5th free). The one I like best was in Guanacaste (northern side) at the JW Marriott. Average price was 850-1K USD per night, but point redemption cost us 226,000 points ,which was not bad at all due to the last minute nature. I wanted to kick off the trip with a relaxing beach vacay, so against every urge I DID NOT plan any excursions for these 5 days. I planned to have us enjoy the FABULOUS infinity pool, beach and resort. I figured once we were there a few days we could choose something if it really spoke to us!
And it was every bit as amazing as I thought! We relaxed by the pool and watched beautiful sunsets on the beach at night. Food was good by the pool and even had the best four cheese rissotto at the italian restaurant, Pimento, on property. The rooms were large and had beautiful patios with a mini-fridge. There was a kids club that looked great, we did not partake however, other that to play with the toys a bit on our own. We decided we were ready to leave the resort 3 days in, to check out the area as there were not too many options for food at the resort, atleast not for our picky 5 year old. We skated this issue mostly by packing a jar of nutella and then hit a Walmart on the way to the resort for bread, and chips and aplples, lol #nutella sandwiches for life!! And of course the breakfasts were great at the resort! We started small and drove to a highly rated restaurant called "Lucy's" which was a short 12 minute drive away. I WISH, took us like 40 mins as the roads were horrific!!! 85% unpaved, heavy gravel and soooooo many huge potholes. We had rented a small sedan and did not want to risk blowing a tire so went super slow. Was a great place though with a faubolous beach so I do think it was worth it, and we were not on a schedule so the slow drive was ok. I am just glad we went at lunch time and not at night.
We wanted to continue the exploration as we loved venturing out and finding the last great beach. I scoured a couple mom travel groups on FB, but not much on this region that jumped out at me... so I went to the tried and true #TripAdvisor to see what jumped out. Crazy enough, buried deep into "things to do" I found a "night turtle watching tour." There were only a few tour providers and they did not jump out with reviews like many other activities. But who wouldn't love to see baby turtles being hatched and making their way to the ocean for their first swim! This tour did not disappoint!!! We met in Tamarindo at 5pm and took a 45 minute bus ride to beach off the beaten path. We then hiked 20 mins in the dark by flashlight to the beach. Here we had to turn off our flashlights and we walked the beach under the stars lit only by our guides 1 red tiorch as to not disturb the turtles. We all waited, laying under the stars, which were so bright that this experience alone was worth the fee. Our guides located a nest with some titles coming out and called for us to make our way over in 2 lines to watch them make their way down the the water. OMG AMAZING!!!! We then sat quietly again as our guide looked for mamma turtles peeking there head out of the ocean to make their way on land to lay eggs. After around 30 mins one came up on shore. It was huge and so beautiful. She walked around, trying to find the perfect spot... multiple times stopping to dig but then not being happy with the choice. About 20 minutes of trying, she gave up and made her way back to the water to lay another day. Even though we did not get to see the magic of the eggs, it was still an unforgettable and awe-inspiring trip. We made our way back to the bus and our 5 year old passed out on the bus ride back.
Before our night tour we figured we would explore the town of Tamarindo where we had to meet up, it was a 30 minute drive from the resort so we headed out around 11:30am. First stop was a chocolate tour. I thought this would be a big hit because what kid doesn't LOVE chocolate. But honestly, I would skip this based on your Childs age. It was 2 hours long and kicks off with a lot of history and processes to make chocolate which was not that interesting to our 5 year old. Also, th chocolate tasting goes super dark to milk to light, and the first 10 chocolates we had were between 100% to 60% so my little one was just dying for something she liked. I suggested giving the kid something she would enjoy to make the experience more fun, but was denied and told I should now influence my child. And it was my fault she didn't like it. This of course annoyed me as I tried to pump her up each time and by saying it was delicious (even though it wasn't). Not cool, anyways we made it through and she finally liked the last few pieces, but definitely not worth the $150USD (50pp). We headed into the heart of Tamarindo next to kill 3 hours. What a great town, amazing shopping and so many restaurants! We hit the beach for a couple hours then changed and had dinner at a place called Ocean. The hubs had an amazing steak with peppercorn sauce, I had delicious Tuna and our daughter had cheese pizza that was not really good (literally the most important person's meal). After this we made our way to the turtle tour as described above.
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