Santa Teresa

After a bus ride, a bit of confusion, and a shared taxi-van, we arrived in Santa Teresa just in time for sunset. It's on the west-facing side of the Peninsula Nicoya, so this time it was over the ocean! And what a sunset it was!



The beach was so tempting I couldn't stay out of the water. Unlike in Montezuma, there were no rocks here. Just sand that went on and on for miles and miles! Literally! It's such a great stretch of beach that it houses about five beach towns in a row.

On one side there's sand and the sea and on the other green palm trees. The following picture was taken at the same time as the preceding ones: what a color contrast!

Since the coast is so long in Malpaís (which is a town but also refers to the whole stretch of beach; literal translation: bad country) we rented bikes to go exploring!

It was wonderful to have the mobility, especially since things were really spread out along a single, long road there. But unfortunately others had the same idea, only with motors, which led to a lot of dust.

So we would ride for a while and once we got too sweaty and our mouths and eyes were sufficiently dusty we would turn off towards the beach in search of a shaded, secluded spot.

Success! We spent much of the day relaxing and enjoying each other's company.

We also found that as we went south the beaches tended to get a little rockier, which is breathtaking, but not ideal for swimming. Especially with such strong waves! Santa Teresa is probably the most popular surf spot in Costa Rica - it has more breaks than Montezuma and less rocks but the waves are still strong. Luckily for us swimmers, more breaks meant that the innermost waves were a little smaller.

And any beach is great for taking in some sun! Especially one with mountains and foliage nearby in addition to the expanse of sand and surf.

Needless to say we were sad to leave, but our trip home Monday afternoon put us on the ferry at the perfect time to watch  - yet another - spectacular sunset.

This time over the sea and the mountains, with birds flying into it! It just keeps getting better and better...

We arrived back in San José late Monday night and had the whole day Tuesday and half the day Wednesday to enjoy the city before setting off again, this time for the Carribean cost!