Friday, March 28, 2008

Playa Flamingo, Costa Rica: Trip Report

After our short, one-day stay in Monteverde, we grabbed a transport van to head to the Western. Pacific side of Costa Rica, to Playa Flamingo. The bad news is that it was nearly a 4-hour drive, the good news is that only about an hour of it was on the awful, bumpy roads.

We stayed at the Playa Flamingo Hotel (be careful, because there's another Flamingo hotel on the Bay side) with an all-inclusive package. The hotel was nice, the rooms were large, the pool area was awesome, and it was just steps to the beach. The beach itself had soft sand and BIG waves. I wouldn't say it was a good swimming beach, but it was a good beach for walking and sitting and people watching. The food was okay - the menu never changes, so if you stayed here a long time, you'd probably want to walk to one of the other restaurants (maybe three others in the small resort area?) During our breakfasts, we were usually greeted by these large, blue birds who wanted our bread! They were very brave to get so close.

There is a gift shop in the hotel, but we took a cab down the road to another beach area to visit another shop.

We stayed here for three days. Three wonderful, relaxing, beach-filled days. The sun shone down on us (this is the dry side of the country), and we just enjoyed the warm temperatures and relaxed beach atmosphere. We took walks along the beach. We walked to the Bay side to just see what was there (in season, the bay side features turtle nests.) The bay water was kind of dirty, so I don't think I'd recommend swimming here. What we enjoyed at the bay was watching the hundreds of crabs that were living, mating and fighting for territory on the beach. It was like wild crab kingdom! I also enjoyed collecting shells here.

The sunsets here were beautiful, as they would be at any Pacific beach.

Enjoy your weekend, and also the pictures below.



4 comments:

Gemini and Ichiro said...

Hey! so that's the BF!!! And that Pacific Side sounds interesting. The woman quite liked the cloud forest yesterday though. She thinks she'd like to stay there longer (yeah right--um who is going to feed me?!)

Hootin Anni said...

Absolutely stunning Carmen. Wow....I sometimes wish here on our beaches there'd be rocks and cliffs jutting up in the horizon...but I will settle with what we have. Love the night photography too.

Pink Chihuahua Princess said...

The sunsets are beautiful! Sunsets and warm sunshine would be nice about now. Its cold again today in Oklahoma.

Renee Nefe said...

love the expression on the parot's face... "can I have some food please?" lol

It looks nice and warm there.