MY TRIP TO COSTA RICA


Images scanned from postcards, pictures by Jean Mercier 1998/1999

I hadn't taken a trip to a far-away place in a very long time and this seemed like the time to go. I spent a couple of weeks researching countries on the net, settled on Costa Rica, then spent more time searching for the right hotel on the right beach. I settled on Hotel Brasilito, right on the beach in Brasilito, a little fishing village just south of Flamingo Beach. The price was surely right and the beach was great, the town was great, the whole trip was perfect. I thought I had my camera set not to show any date on the picture, but there it is. Some 1989 day. It's not right. Here's some pics:


That's Playa Brasilito with the roofs of the hotel and that's the restaurant where I had all but two of my meals while I was there. I tried a couple of other places and while I wasn't disappointed anywhere else, the hotel had the best food for the best prices. The restaurant owner, Ben, was the greatest. He and Jonas, the owner's nephew, helped me a lot during the week. They spoke good English so that made my trip a lot easier. Check 'em out at brasilito.com


Here's the gang at Hotel Brasilito. Behind the bar is Ben, the restaurant owner, Donald, the bartender and evening waiter and Solandy the morning and afternoon waitress. Seated are Mercedes the cook, Jonas the hotel manager and Karla, his assistant. Not pictured is Josef, the owner and Jonas' uncle. He was in the hospital for some stomach looking-at which gladly turned out OK.

The flight was uneventful, just the way I like it. My plane left Little Rock at 6:15AM and I was supposed to be there two hours before, and I live two hours from the airport, so I just stayed up all night. After a connection in Atlanta, we arrived in Costa Rica at about 1:30 in the afternoon. Here's Liberia International Airport.


Here's my room. Not much compared to some "fancy" places but all I use a room for is to sleep anyway. They brought fresh towels and made the bed and cleaned the floor every day. Definitely worth the price. Nice and clean and the people were the greatest. My door is the last one there on the ground floor.


Here's the garden area outside my room door.


Here's the beach at Brasilito and the outdoor tables at the hotel where I ate nearly every breakfast and dinner. That's me with my floppy hat. I still managed to get that sunburned racoon look.



I also had a pair of red flowery shorts that made me look even sillier.

Here's some horses on the beach.


I went on a canopy tour further inland. That's where we hiked up the hill for what seemed like a long way, then went across a bridge to a tree and then rode wires from tree to tree back down to the start.




The last pic is what they call "Superman". They hook the sling different so it's in the middle of my back and I "flew" down the wire instead of holding on as I go. The guide is right behind me so I don't "fly" right into the next tree.

Then we rode horses down, down, down to a river and some hot springs. There was bubbling hot mud that supposedly has great curing powers or something but by the time we got there I was hot enough from riding in the sun. Here's some horseys and the mud and the pools. The last pic is a fellow named Chris, works for IBM in Canada, who was in Costa Rica with his family. He didn't want to do the "Superman" in the canopy but thought he would cover himself with hot mud. Go figure.




I was walking down the beach and saw a sign on a tree for "The Happy Snapper" restaurant. I figured it had to be good with a name like that. It was right on the beach. I mean right on the beach. It was high tide at suppertime and the manager was out digging the sand out of the lights by the bottom of the concrete wall.




These kids drug that cart, empty, all the way from the next beach to load it up with coconuts. They loaded all the coconuts and when they tried to roll it the wheels sunk into the sand nearly up to the axles. So they had to unload a bunch and make two trips clear to the next beach where the big fancy hotel is.



I spent a couple of days driving around to different beaches. There wasn't that much different and I'd have to say that out of the ten or so beaches I saw I liked little ol' Brasilito beach the best. Here's pics of other beaches.



Notice that there's no one there? I went at the tail end of the busy season, the first week of March. These pics were mostly taken on Monday and Tuesday. Saturday our beach got a little busy, I counted 16 people there at one time. The beach is about a mile long.

This is "Magic" Lucas. He and his wife own a restaurant in Belgium and were staying at Hotel Brasilito. Every night he would seek out new people to show card tricks too. I saw them all more than once and couldn't figure out most of them. His wife was on a quest to get a tropical tan to show the folks back in Belgium.


I spent a lot of time watching the pelicans fish. You know what they do. Soar around and then tuck in a wing, bank to one side and beak-first into the water. More often than not they come up with a fish. I could watch them all day. I tried to get a decent pic, but as I would approach they would just move down the beach.


Well, it was time to go home. Sure miss my birdies. For once I didn't spend a vacation in a head-long rush to get a lot of things done. Mostly hung out on the beach and took it really easy. It was a really good trip.