The best of both worlds

Sorry for the lax posting of late. Work has been busy, but we've been lucky to have lots of visitors, so I really can't complain! I'll try to get a Semana Santa summary up soon. But first, a little blurb about this weekend while it's fresh in my mind:

The Los Suenos Marriott in Herradura, on the Pacific Coast, lives up to its "dreamy" name. It's by far one of the nicest hotels I've stayed in, and one of the top luxury spots in Costa Rica. Thanks to generosity and connections from my friend Chris who's visiting us this week, we were able to stay there this weekend. And, I'm not going to lie, it was nice.

The pool is a giant maze, the beds are huge and comfy, and there's a swim up bar. The service is great; my only only quibble would be the quality of the food at the hotel, considering the price(We walked over to the Marina area, however, and had two great meals). I wanted to jet down to Jaco Saturday to take some surf lessons, but, sadly, it was too tough to leave the pool.

Which gets me to my next point: it was amazing having two days off at a luxurious resort, but I worry that many of the people staying there don't go see the real Costa Rica. Yes, it's great chilling at the resort, playing golf, perusing the marina and nearby gift shops--but you can do that in Mexico and Hawaii.


Just a quick drive up from Herradura, however, is the Carara National Park. Unassuming, the park is not one of Costa Rica's big names and is easy to miss driving past on the highway. But, paying close atttention, you can spot the macaws soaring over your head on the freeway and get a little glimpse of what lies ahead.

I thought nothing would beat the macaws I saw at Osa. But seeing flocks of them flying over from a nearby lagoon, with giant lizards and crocodiles also within view, is tough to beat. And Carara is easy access--we hadn't planned on going there, so we only wore flip flops and didn't hire a guide. I wouldn't recommend it, but you can handle it in your beach wear (while getting odd looks from the head-to-toe-in-REI-gear "aventure vacationers"), and if you're lucky, see what we saw, all in only a couple hours.


Then, feel better heading back to luxuries of Los Suenos having "roughed it" a little bit. Our friends, however, are heading to Monteverde, which I'll blog about soon.