Back To Costa Rica...Montezuma

As I said in an earlier post, our first stop was Montezuma. It's on the southern tip of the Nicoyo Peninsula. The easiest way to get there is on the car ferry that goes from Puntarenas to Paquera. It's about a 90 minute ride. Then you drive another 20 miles or so to Montezuma. The ferry schedule I got from the Internet looked like they had lots of crossings each day, but I know from Baking Fairy that the workers had recently staged a one-day strike. The roads in Costa Rica are not great (that's an understatement) so anytime you can spend on water to get somewhere is a real bonus. When we got there the ferry was loading the last few vehicles. We both sighed with relief. The funniest part was the workers giving Kerry instructions in Spanish on where they wanted him to park. He worked very hard to get our little Daihatsu BeGo into the space they allotted for us.

The first place we stay in Montezuma was Mar de Amor, which means Love of the Sea. The location was wonderful on a little piece of land that jutted out into the bay. You really felt like you were surrounded by water. Our friends, Susan and Einar, were staying there too.

We had a corner room that was on the street so we had car noise until late into the night. We had one fan that turned from side to side (oscillated?). Every time it turned there was a horrible noise so between the heat, the fan and the cars, we did not have a very good night. Also there was no hot water in the shower, although with the weather so hot we really didn't care. The second night was much better. We got the fan in position so it would blow on both of us without having to turn from side to side. Also the street was quieter.

Then we moved to Ylang Ylang just up the beach. In an earlier posting, I shared pictures of the whimsical towel creations the housekeepers made each day. Even without air conditioning, Ylang Ylang was much more comfortable and quieter.

Our first morning there we woke up to find thousands of little black and orange crabs (pictured below and to the left) all over the sidewalk. Some tried to come into our dome. They were about six inches from claw to claw and thought they were quite ferocious. When cornered, which was relatively easily given their numbers, they would open their small claws and open their mouths in a threatening fashion. It probably could scare other small critters but not us. Lots of them fell victim to cars and buses when they ambled down the main streets of Montezuma.

Every year they come down from the mountain when the area has its first rainfall of the season. It's there signal to go to the beach, lay their eggs or whatever and then a few days later to go back up to the mountain to wait for next year. It's was really interesting to watch them. We had an outdoor shower (wonderful with lotsa privacy) which the crabs wanted to share with me. I declined.

The photo above at the top of this posting is the view from the Ylang Ylang restaurant where we had breakfast and dinner. You could hear the surf pounding the beach all day long. It's a great lullaby. Lulled me to sleep several times a day.

Tomorrow: Volcan Arenal