Nicola here....
Caught a boat from Puntarenas over to the Nicoya Penninsular. It took about an hour and on the other side we were bundled on to the local bus, very hot, dark and humid and didn't get a seat for the first half hour - Steven had to stand for about an hour, such a gent.
Arrived in Montezuma, i went to look for accomodation and Steven sat with the bags. I found a place which was set just in from the beach amongst the tropical greenery. $40 a night inc breakfast. Montezuma is a small what used to be a fishing village and now is totally dedicated to tourists, most of them being American and there also seems to be lots of Germans too. There are only 3 roads, 1 main one where all of the restaurants are and our hotel is just off that.
Had a lovely dinner at aa beach side restaurant and we both had coconut curry (i had prawns Steven had chicken). There are no little children constantly trying to selling you things which makes a nice change.
We have been having our breakfast surrounded by all of the tropical vegitation and today tropical birds started to land on the tables stealing packets of sugar. There are lots of monkeys just hanging about and squirrles darting around too.
The beach is lovely. Quite rugged in places with coves of white'ish beach, blue sea and palm trees. The waves are quite rough as we are on the Pacific coast. The 'rip' tide we are told can be quite dangerous. We have just been messing about up to waist height playing with the big waves. Steven's favourite game seems to be sitting on the beach just as the tide come in too see if he gets swept away, it's very funny watching him get bundled over by the big waves and it has him in fits of giggles. Unfortunaly this has led to a stubbed to situation. I have uploaded a photo of the toe... ouch, quite painful looking i thought.
We found a lovely spot about 20mins walk away where there was a fresh-water waterfall, which is brilliannt for the sunbathing, sea, wash off in fresh water routine. There certainly are no showers on the beach. In general they don't seem to have gone for any 'on the beach' activities - restaurants, drinks boys, umbrella's etc - its very much back to nature. For the second day we took a picnic which worked out quite well.
I have done a couple of paintings on the beach which have been really enjoyable although not that good. We have been reading each other a Jeffery Archer novel I found in a book shop.
Steven has continued the turbo tanning and is suffering from a burnt chest and shoulders, all part of the process apparently. He had to use factor 30 on day 2 to try and reduce the redness.
When we were swimming/splashing in the sea, monkeys came and stole a half an eaten bag of cashews from my hand bag which I though was very funny, steven was a bit cross though that I had left my bag open after he had specifically told me to put everything away... whoops. He saw the funny side of it later...
Went for an early morning run. About 10mins in I had to walk, I have never been so HOT in my life, I thought my head was going to explode. I tried run/walk/run much to Steven's disappointment for the rest of the way. It's way too hot to run here, it must have been about 30 degrees and humid. Won't be doing that again in a hurry. I think evening runs would be a better idea.
Visited a different beach on day 3. It took about an hour on local bus to reach. It's on the west of the penninsular so its where you can see the sunsset. Lots of surfers. We had a beer on the beach and watched the surfers and the sunset. It made us both want to learn to surf, it looks so cool. Need to improve our fitness first we think.
We both enjoyed Montezuma very much, it was good r&r from all of the traveling.
Caught boat back to the mainland and a local bus into the region of Monteverde, famous for Volcano's and Cloud forest.....
