Playa Hermosa was a slight disappointment. It’s supposed to be quite a good beach break (our first beachie in a while!) but was pretty much just straight closeouts the whole time we were there. Reminded me of south Narrabeen. Apparently the swell was the wrong direction and it can be much better but unfortunately we didn’t see it deliver. Very different here to Panama, it really felt like being in part of America. Lots of expats seem to live here and it was a much different vibe.
We hung out for a few days and made the most of our awesome room! Only a block back from the beach, we managed to score a 5 bed room to ourselves with AC and cable TV for $35 a night! It actually worked our quite well because it was stinking hot outside so we spent most of the day in our “cave” watching the Winter Olympics and the odd soccer game.
We ventured into Jaco on the second last day to sort out some travel arrangements for moving on. Jaco has a reputation as a seedy, dodgy place with a few bars populated by huge numbers of prostitutes. It’s on the beach but not a very nice one and the whole place has a fairly nasty vibe, not somewhere you stay for too long. Anyway, we sorted out a boat shuttle to get us across to Malpais and had planned to go out for a few beers to check out the freaks as night feel but really didn’t fancy hanging around so had a quick, cheap dinner in a little soda (Costa Rican café) and dived into a taxi to take us back. We heard from a few people later on that it’s actually a fun night out but not to worry, it didn’t sound like we’d missed that much.
