A Roadtrip Through Costa Rica With Kids: Part Two

continued from A Roadtrip Itinerary: through Costa Rica

Santa Teresa

We had yet another invigorating drive from Tamarindo to Santa Teresa, in the Puntarenas Province. We crossed paths with wild horses grazing on the “road” (yes, literally eating the road), and unnerving signs mentioning something about a “puente” (bridge), that we could not comprehend. And of course, there were still the Toyota Rav 4 sized potholes.

By the time we checked in at the Otro Lado Lodge and Restaurant, we were ready for a swim. The Otro Lado Lodge is a set of private apartments, centered around an outdoor pool, that also has an onsite yoga studio. It appeared to be popular with backpackers, not families with young children. Oh well. Anyway, Roy and Greg really tore it up in that pool – I don’t think it had ever seen so much splashing.

We were now in Santa Teresa, a sleepy surf town on Costa Rica’s Pacific Coast with a reputation for fiery sunsets, surf camps and, I guess, yoga studios. From our hotel, we were able to walk a short distance to Santa Teresa Beach which is where we met a street dog named “Nacho”. “Nacho” adopted Doug and can be seen by his side in almost every picture we took that night. Doug couldn’t shake “Nacho”, even when he went quite far out into the ocean. This was the second time we almost returned home with a dog. After finally ditching “Nacho”, we were back at the pool, much to the chagrin of all the yogis there searching for peace and quiet.

Playa Hermosa Tide Pools

In the morning, breakfast was provided immediately following the sunrise yoga session that we did not attend. The kids enjoyed their daily dose of fresh mango juice and then we headed towards Playa Hermosa. Located midway between Playa Teresa and Playa Hermosa, specifically between the “Pranamar Oceanfront Villas & Yoga Retreat” and “El Peñón,” or the big rock, is a giant tide pool. During low tide, this larger-than-Olympic-sized shallow saltwater swimming pool is one of the best-kept secrets of the area with warm, clear, shallow water that is filled with all kinds of interesting sea creatures. When we were there we found sea anemones, sea stars, crabs, mussels, hermit crabs and lots of little brightly colored fish. 

We timed our trip here perfectly, as we met up with another family from Canada, who had a boy that was between the ages of Roy and Greg. The three boys played for hours, digging in the sand, swimming, catching fish, etc. while all of the adults talked and shared stories from both of our respective trips. When the tide came back in, and our rock pools were covered up again, we packed up our things and headed back to the car. This was a favorite stop of ours, but remember to wear water shoes as the rocks are quite painful to walk on. Also remember to lather up your feet with sunscreen or they will end up looking like mine.

Playa Cuevas

Our next stop was Playa Hermosa. Before heading to the beach, we purchased a coconut from a man on the beach and watched him cut it open with his machete. The most popular attraction of Playa Hermosa is the surf, so we obliged, jumping waves before grabbing lunch in Santa Teresa. In the afternoon we went to Playa Cuevas, the “secret beach”. It should be noted that the road (I use that term loosely) to Playa Cuevas had the biggest pothole to date, so drive carefully. This was a striking beach, but way too intimidating to swim in, so we just checked out the multitude of hermit crabs and headed back to the Playa Santa Teresa for the sunset, and a snack of Doritos and “flower milk”. (This is actually just normal milk, but the brand was in Spanish and had a flower on it.) The street dogs once again joined us on the beach. One of ’em even pee’d on our sandcastle.

Puntarenas Ferry

In the morning we were on our way to Manuel Antonio via the Ferry. The Puntarenas Ferry travels between the ports of Puntarenas on the central Pacific coast and Paquera on the Nicoya Peninsula.  The ride across the bay is 11 nautical miles and takes about 70 minutes. We had pre-purchased our tickets here. Paquera is quite small so finding the terminal and boarding for the ferry was stress-free. To get to the ferry terminal, you take the road (Route 621) past the Pali grocery store and gas station in Paquera and follow it to the end. When you arrive, park in one of the lines with help from the ferry employee and go inside the building to buy your tickets if you didn’t already get them online. 

When we got in line to board, the car directly in front of us had our friends from the tide pools in Playa Hermosa. Such a small world. The three boys spent the seventy minutes eating watermelon and reading about Italian Supercars.

Hotel Parador Resort and Spa

We docked in Puntarenas and began our drive to the Hotel Parador Resort And Spa, in Manuel Antonio. En route, we stopped at the crocodile bridge of the Tarcoles River. This is the most well known river in the country because of these crocodiles. The Tarcoles River is also the most contaminated and polluted river in Costa Rica, but I guess the crocodile Isn’t bothered. The bridge here is a popular tourist destination, with shops, ice cream and restrooms. You can choose to park on either side of the road to catch a view of these massive reptiles. Apparently this is considered to be the highest population of crocodiles in the world.

The Hotel Parador Resort is located on the Punta Quepos promontory in Costa Rica, and is surrounded by twelve acres of wildlife and a rich tropical rainforest with panoramic views of both the Pacific Ocean and Manuel Antonio. With such a close proximity to a national park, the resort receives a number of very unique visitors on a daily basis, including several species of monkeys, sloths and a wonderful variety of birds. After checking in, we went for a swim and then walked the short distance to the beach to wade in the water before having a dinner of salsa and chips.

After dinner we walked through the resort and bumped into its resident two-toed sloth. This sloth was about four feet off the ground, hanging from a mango tree, eating a mango, completely unfazed. It is safe to say that we were nose to (very large and wet) sloth nose.

Manuel Antonio National Park

Manuel Antonio National Park, is comprised of a rugged rainforest, white-sand beaches and several coral reefs. The park’s roughly 680 hectares provides a number of hiking trails meandering from the coast to the mountains. These paths traverse a vast diversity of tropical plants and wildlife. We scheduled a guided tour, with an experienced, bilingual naturalist. The guide was also equipped with a high-powered spotting scope, allowing us to photograph the baby sloth pictured below.

Before entering the park, we had already spotted a number of spider monkeys hanging out on the power lines. They were like the squirrels of Costa Rica. On tour, our naturalist did his best to keep our kids entertained — mostly by explaining the pooping behavior of the animals in the rainforest. As for sloths, we learned that if a baby sloth is unable to hold onto their mom and they fall from the tree, they are left behind as they are determined to be too weak to survive. Sad. In Costa Rica there is thankfully a rescue organization that looks after these discarded baby sloths. But not cool mommy sloth, not cool.

When the walking tour was over, we walked down to the beach with our group. Apparently anything left on the beach was a target for the resident spider monkeys. And we watched them do just that to someone else’s stuff. We also witnessed the park police nonchalantly arrest a guy for having drugs on the beach. No idea how they spotted him, my only guess was that the monkeys had something to do with it.

Anyway, as we left Manuel Antonio National Park there was a police check point. They were being pretty thorough, so I assumed that with our U.S. Passports we would be a target, but they didn’t even stop us. They just waved us through.

Scarlett Macaws and Mini-Golf

We went back to our resort to swim, before showering to get ready for dinner. The kids were in bed reading, while Doug and I were out on the back patio. Suddenly these large rainbow colored birds came into view. I yelled to the boys, “Boys! Parrots! There are parrots flying around out here!”. Roy stumbles out of bed, stands on the patio, and announces, “those are Scarlett Macaws. We learned about them on the tour today. Were you not paying attention?” and then went back to his book. We had been schooled by a first grader.

After that, we decided to play a round of mini-golf. I believe this might have been Greg’s first time at putt-putt. It became more a game of hockey for him, with his ball bouncing off sidewalks, palm trees, rocks, and bridges. I was pretty sure we were going to end up in the Emergency Room before long. Doug and I had to enforce a strict “65 stroke limit” as it was starting to get dark.

San Jose

In the morning we packed up our things to head back to San Jose for our flight home. Prior to boarding our flight, we did visit a grocery store where the locals fawned over the kids blonde hair.

We loved every minute of this trip and felt very safe anywhere that we went. Our only complaint was with the plumbing. Unless you were in a resort, you could not flush anything down the toilets – including toilet paper.