Returning to Costa Rica AKA "We Love Costa Rica!"

Days 4 - 7:  Welcome to Los Suenos

RC:  Well as they say on the PGA, today is moving day.  Beanie started feeling a little wonky last night, but seems a bit better today.  We have a 4 ½ hour drive to the Los Suenos Golf Resort and Marina, another Marriott property.  It’s gonna be tight as we must squeeze everything into an 8 passenger Toyota van, but, as you know, we’re the team for the job.  The ride was reasonably smooth, good roads, but almost all two lanes so when one person is slow everybody is slow, but the drivers are quite courteous.

We had a couple small “issues” at check in, probably more our fault than Marriott.  I’ll let the Bean expand if she so desires.  The room was just about the size of the living room at the JW, but it’s very comfortable, nice balcony, and has excellent views of the property and the water.  This resort has an amazing pool complex and a top shelf Los Suenos Golf Club right across the parking lot.  More on that later.  Along the way Beanie’s wonkiness began to upgrade to a low-grade fever, so as soon as we checked in, she hit the sheets for a couple hours. I loaded her up with aspirin and the fever broke, and she was quickly on the road to recovery.  As a precaution, we ate in that night and did a Covid Test, which thankfully, came back negative. 

Dinner At The Marina

Panarama Of The Pool Complex 

View Of The Marina

Pool Complex

Swim Out Rooms - Kinda Cool

One Of Our Breakfast Companions

Pair Or Scarlet Macaws (Good Beanie Shot From 110+ Yards)

 Had some rain during the night, but we were up at the crack of 0900 and after a healthy heart menu of coffee, and a big-ass, loaded omelet, we were off to the links. It’s a beautiful course, very challenging with tree lined fairways that make you feel like you’re playing in a tunnel.  Anything off the fairway is gone.  I stunk it up pretty bad, but the wildlife was brilliant, scarlet macaws, and a bunch of other birds I didn’t recognize.  It was pretty wide open, so the pace of play was pretty good.  Only drawback it was cart path only which is seldom good.  The golf carts have horns on them and below is a video demonstrating why that's not a good idea:

Wild Life Sighting

Golf Course Shot

Squirrel Dude

Can You Tell Where They Got The Tee Box Marker Idea??

The "Unknown Baby Bird"  No Idea What He Was??

Water Hazard Eye Candy

Golf Hole or Bowling Alley - You Make The Call

Yet To Be Identified Raptor

We ate at the resort that evening and had the best meal to date.  Simple pasta dishes, but fresh veggies and excellent sauces.  Also, most excellent service.  We hit the links again the next day as that is the final golfing opportunity for this trip.  We did spend some time checking out the pool.  It’s another great Marriott layout with probably a half mile of meandering canals where you can drift around.  I just grabbed a pool noodle and floated on my back until Beanie got restless and started to tow me around.  Now that’s the way to float – Beanie power!  That evening we walked next door to an incredible marina.  There must have been a couple hundred boats moored and they were all very high dollar.  We just happened to catch a show about Marlin and Sail Fish competitions that night and it featured the area where we were, and we saw some of the boats on the show that were in the marina.  Had another nice meal, sitting on the waterfront.

KC:  Yep, got sick our final night at the JW, seemed to be much the same thing as Randy had earlier.  The next day I was better and then the day after that I was fine.  We rarely get sick on trips and we’ve never both gotten sick on a trip before.  The grounds and pool area at Los Suenos are even more beautiful than the JW.  The room itself was a typical hotel room so I didn’t take any pictures.  Randy golfed both days.  The course is beautiful and reminded us of The Handera Golf Course in Bali that is in the caldera of a volcano.  Lots of birds though they weren’t often easy to get pictures of since they were mostly high up in the trees.  It was a nice couple of days golfing and both feeling good at the same time again!  And that concludes the golf portion of this trip.  We’re heading to the small town of Puerto Jimenez on The Osa Peninsula tomorrow.  It’s about a 4 hour road trip.  We’ll spend 4 nights in Puerto Jimenez and then go to one of our favorite hotels in the world, Bosque del Cabo.

Oh, here’s a general observation from the road trips between the hotels:  There is almost NO litter!  Not even in the poorest villages.  I ask one of our drivers about it and he said the children are taught in school not to litter and they even sing songs about it.  So different from Mexico!  Another observation, waiters often ask if we want ice with our beer.  Apparently its a Costa Rica thing. 

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Day 1: “It almost feels normal . . .”

Randy:  Well, it's day one – the shortest day.  All we did today is grab a flight from Phoenix to Houston International.  The service was quite good, but definitely a notch down compared to pre-covid.  Probably the highlight was the snacks.  There was no meal service, so they gave each of us a "snack" box.  It was huge! The pic shows what we didn't eat!! 

On the positive side, we had planned on stopping at a grocery store on our way to our first hotel in Costa Rica to stock up on beer, wine, and snacks, but I think we can now take snacks of the list!

We're spending the night at the IAH Marriott.  It's incredibly handy as we're able to jump on a mini subway system, go two stops, and grab an elevator right to the lobby:  no muss - no fuss. The hotel

is good and the convenience can't be beat. We had great views of two runways to watch the planes (Beanie love this) and got a cool sunset.  Had a healthy dinner at the hotel bar – beef brisket nachos, coleslaw, and baked brussels sprouts.  You know who ordered the brussels. They also had an interesting variation on the classic Manhattan using Grand Marnier.  It was quite good.  Tommy V, we’ll have to experiment with this option!!

Well, that’s about it for day one.  We’re off tomorrow morning flying into Liberia, Costa Rica. 

Day 2:  “ It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”

Randy:  Off we go at the crack of 0730, couple minute tram ride to the terminal and 25 minutes later we’re looking for Starbucks – much like everyone else in Terminal C.  Helpful hint if you’re like me with the Starbucks’ monkey on your back – get the mobile app.  All the airport Starbucks come up by terminal, and it saves a bunch of time to order ahead on the app vs waiting in line to order and then again for pickup.  We ended up spending an hour or so in the United Lounge – nothing special.  Terminal C at IAH is quite nice.  Very wide so when folks line up for boarding, they don’t impede anyone else.  Every sitting area has a desktop with a tablet installed.  You can order food from any restaurant in the terminal.  We didn’t use it but I suspect you can also get on line – might be a fee associated with the use.

The flight to Liberia was about 3 ½ hours, pretty smooth, and once again, the cabin service was good.   And United has brought back predeparture beverages - way to go United.  Clearing the airport in Costa Rica was also quite smooth.  No Covid restriction, no customs to speak of, just show your passport, proof of return flight and you’re done. Beanie had arranged for a car service to drive us from the airport to the JW Marriott Guanacaste, Link, which was a few hours away sometimes reaching speeds up to and including 35 MPH.  Driver, Jose, very nice and a good trip. 

We got checked in and Beanie had woven some evil spell to get us upgraded from a standard room to an oceanfront suite.  It’s pretty spectacular! Don’t remember ever having a hotel room with a powder room on the entrance though Beanie says we have.

Kathy:  The JW is as beautiful as I remember from our trip in 2013.  The hotel graciously upgraded us and even had a bottle of wine, a plate of cheese and crackers and a bowl of fruit waiting for us in the room.  The huge lizards that lived below our balcony loved the fruit and we enjoyed their show.  The rooms were all beautiful.  The bathroom was huge.  Check out the shower; as beautiful as it is, it is a death trap!  The tile is slicker than snot.  We ended up putting two towels on the floor under the shower.   As inviting as the big tub looked I was afraid if I got in I wouldn’t be able to get out.  I would’ve appreciated this bathroom much more when I was 50 than 71. 

The Olympic Tub

Master Bath

The Deadman Shower

Master Bath

Living Room

Living Room

Pool Complex

View From Balcony

We decided to go to a local restaurant for dinner that I had read about on TripAdvisor.  There was no one else there while we were there.  Hmmm, well it is off season.  The meal was marginally okay.  We got back to the hotel and Randy spent the rest of the night in the bathroom.  I’m putting all responsibility for this on TripAvisor!

Day 4:  Day off for recovery

Kathy:  Randy felt a bit better this morning but passed on breakfast.  I went down by myself and had a lovely meal – sorry Randy!  Lots of fresh tropical fruit and the best eggs benedict I’ve ever had.  I had brought a bird book with me and the waitress and I talked about the birds of the area and she showed me the pictures of the birds she had seen around there.  Early afternoon we walked about 30 minutes along the beach up to a little beach club and the bartender told us about a trail we could take back to the hotel.  Randy spotted a couple of white-tailed deer.  We went for a swim in the pool when we got back and then decided to have an early dinner at the hotel bar restaurant.  Randy still didn’t want anything to eat, but he did manage to choke down a Grey Goose on the rocks – just for medicinal purposes to calm his stomach!!.  It was a nice evening though.  A HUGE thunderstorm went through.  We were eating on the outside patio overlooking the complex and the beach on the 4^th floor.  What a light and sound show!  We came to Costa Rica to experience the nature here and that storm will definitely be a highlight!  We were in bed by 8 pm! 

Next morning came with a clearer sky and nice weather so we decided to give it a shot and hit the links.  We loved The Pinilla Golf Course when we were here in 2013.  On that trip we did the first 10 days with a tour group and the last 10 days by ourselves.  We were with the tour group at this hotel.  Most of the group went on a birding tour while we opted for golf.  When we met up with them later that evening, we shared our pics from the course (was that mean?) since their sightings were pretty lame.  Not as many birds this year though, probably because the rains came early and the birds had other sources of water, plus the whole area is much more built up with houses going in along the golf course.  Huge places, 5000 sq ft plus with very big lots.  Interestingly (well to Randy) only two car garages.  It's unusual for households (even wealthy ones)to have more than one or two cars here as it is one of the more preferred tax revenues for the government. 

Beanie Captures The Flag

Lizard Dude

Golfer Dude

Same Golfer Dude

Bird Dude

Dude That Eats The Lizard, Bird, and Golfer Dude

Randy:  We also had some guests during our stay.  We named them Iggy and the Boyz. Iggy was a black lizard that lived on our bedroom balcony and the Boyz were three giant lizards that lived in the bushes just below the living room balcony.  The Boyz were very fond of fruit so we’d throw a piece of banana or strawberry to them just to watch them fight.  You probably think that’s kind of mean and petty . . . and you may be right, but I dare you to not watch the video!!

 Boyz. Iggy was a black liz

Iggy