Wednesday, February 13
This excursion started out as a day trip to Playa Flamingo, but did not end up that way. Bob was eager to try out the public bus system again and we were both interested in exploring some of the other beach towns on the west coast besides Playas del Coco where we are staying for a month. So, last night we decided that today would be the day we would go to Playa Flamingo by public bus.
We set our alarm for 5:00 am with the intention of catching the 6:30 or 7:00 am Pulmintan bus from El Coco to Liberia. We would take it as far as Comunidad, get off, and catch the next bus coming south from Liberia to Flamingo.
We got a later start than we had planned and missed the 7:00 am bus. But at 7:20 am, we found two buses waiting to leave Coco, one for Liberia, to the northeast, the other for Filadelfia to the south. We knew that we could connect with a bus to Playa Flamingo by starting out with either of these buses, so we took the bus heading more in our direction - the one to Filadelfia. We had been there two days previously on a park tour and knew what we would do with any time we had between buses.
But here's the catch: there does not appear to be a printed bus schedule available for any of the public bus lines. Some of the larger bus terminals have posted schedules, but as we discovered these can sometimes be wrong. Or, you can ask a bus driver as you board about the return schedule or about connections - that is, if you speak Spanish. But, again as we have discovered, even bus drivers can give inaccurate information about schedules. And then, there is the business of "Tico time". Scheduled time here is an approximation. It is not precise. Buses, like people, can be late, and often are. They can also be early, as we discovered this morning when the 7:30 buses for both Liberia and Filadelfia left El Coco almost ten minutes early.
Anyway, it took about an hour to go from El Coco to Filadelfia. We got there at 8:20 am and noted that we could transfer to a bus for Playa Flamingo at 9:00 am. We had time to go around the corner and get a cup of coffee at the Musmanni coffee shop and bakery - a place we dubbed "the Dunkin' Donuts of Filadelfia", only because their decor was reminiscent of that chain and they did sell donuts, among many other breads and pastries. Actually, their food and coffee was better than DD's.
Musmanni Bakery and Coffee Shop, Filadelfia, Costa Rica. (Photo by Bob)
A young Tico man approached us in the bakery, eager to practice his English on us. He told us we could catch the bus for Playa Flamingo at 8:50, and so we planned to arrive back at the terminal a few minutes before that. Meanwhile, we went across the street into the park where we had been two days earlier and where several very large iguanas live in the trees. We did manage to see a few before we had to head back to the terminal. Bob got involved with a local Tico man who helped us spot some of them.
Back at the terminal, it turned out there was no bus to Flamingo until 10:00 am, but there was a bus to Tamarindo that came through at 9:00. So, we decided to go to Tamarindo instead of Flamingo. That part of the trip took another hour and a half. It was a local and it made many stops. We actually enjoyed going into some of the small towns or villages along the way. We got to see how the Ticos live, outside the tourist areas. But by the time we did the return trip, we didn't enjoy it as much.
Well, we arrived in Tamarindo around 10:30, more than three hours after we started - a very long time considering that the distance between El Coco and Tamarindo is only 57 kilometers (34 miles). Driving there in a rental car, with no stops, would probably take an hour.
We thought that Tamarindo would be something very special. It is touted as the number one beach destination in the country for tourists (hence its nickname, "Tamagringo"). It does have a lovely, wide, white sand beach. We were there at low tide and noticed that along a good stretch of the beach, out in the water maybe 10-20 feet from shore, there is a long string of coral reef. This would be a dangerous area in which to swim, surf, or try to land a boat at high tide when these formations would be hidden.
Our first stop in Tamarindo was at an Internet cafe called Buon Apetito. We were very thirsty and ordered smoothies, which just hit the spot. It was already getting very hot and we were beginning to wilt. (It turns out that the temperature in Tamarindo and El Coco that day hit 97 F as the high.) The cafe was noisy and the cafe owner a little brusque, and we found the place to be unpleasant, so we moved on.
We walked the length of what appeared to be the main street in town, checking out a couple of shops and looking for a nice restaurant for lunch. We found two or three along the beach that looked interesting and finally settled on the Copacabana, which had a thatched-roof, tiki-bar ambience and a promising menu. Bob had a Greek salad and a hamburger; I had a lovely shrimp salad in a half pineapple, garnished with tomato, avocado, pineapple, and fresh artichoke. It was delicious and refreshing.
Bob at Copacabana Restaurant, Tamarindo, Costa Rica. (Photo by Connie)
View from Copacabana Restaurant, Tamarindo, Costa Rica. (Photo by Connie)
During lunch, we decided that we had seen enough of Tamarindo and that we would take the next bus back towards Liberia. We had been told by the morning bus driver that busses left Tamarindo for Liberia every hour on the hour. He even counted off the hours for us, starting with one o'clock. So, we decided to catch the one o'clock bus. We asked several people about the schedule. One said it leaves at one o'clock, another said 1:15, yet another said 2:00 or 2:15. Well, the last one was right. The bus arrived a little after two. We had been waiting since 12:45, in partial shade, getting hotter by the moment.
The trip back seemed long, though in fact it took an hour less to return home than it took to get there. But none of the buses we took today were air conditioned and with temps in the high 90's, this was especially hard to take. The trip was shorter because we were luckier in our connection home. We changed buses on a street corner in a little town called Communidad, and this time we only had a 15-minute wait between buses. We arrived back in El Coco around 4:30 and took a taxi from the bus stop to our condo. We dropped our plans to grocery shop and go out for dinner in favor of a shower, siesta, and light meal at home. It was an exhausting day!
Posted with Blogsy
No comments:
Post a Comment