Nicoya Peninsula

jb/Costa Rica – Tamarindo/April 15/Eco backpacking snobbery
Backpacking eco-snobbery can really get on your tits. If you read the Lonely Planet guides you'd think Tamarindo was the commercialised armpit of the universe. A sort of super Costa del Sol packed to the gills with fat Yanks and their grim offspring oppressing the few remaining locals who aren't prostitutes or car thieves. 'Some people do manage to have a good time in Tamarindo', the guide grudgingly concedes, before going to to slate just about everything about the place. You know what? They're talking absolute bollocks.

The beach is quiet, gorgeous and endless. The water is warm and easy to swim or surf in, and you can't even see the beach-front hotels because they're set well back in the trees, and there's no music pounding out of sea front tavernas. We've sat without anyone within a hundred yards of us every day so far. And for once that's not because we smell.

Admittedly the town does have a huge AF factor (Asshole Footprint, an international standard measurement of how annoying Americans can be if they ever leave their home state). However it is neither crowded nor obscenely overdeveloped, and the nightlife is hardly 'pounding'. If anything, it's a bit dull.

Based on the Planet, we arrived here expecting the Costa del Sol or Cancun's hotel zone, but it's nothing like that at all. It is expensive and shiny and sterile, and there's a lot of construction going on, but the bottom line is that it's got all the facilities and none of the crowds. I can sympathise with the locals who've seen a sleepy fishing village turned into a pricey resort in less than a decade and are trying to fight further highrises. But that doesn't stop me appreciating a few creature comforts alongside some natural beauty.

Is it so wrong to want a break from bugs, cold showers and second hand toilet paper every now and then? To have a fan in the room or even, heaven forbid, air-con? And not have to kiss your ass goodbye every time you order the local 'special' in some stagnant cafe?

The rest of the Nicoya Peninsula (where we are) is largely inaccessible without a 4x4 and a deathwish - and thoroughly unspoilt as a result - so there's plenty of authenticity to go round. So what if Tamarindo is nothing like the 'real Costa Rica'? We can go there next week.

For now we're having a holiday from all this hard, hard travelling.

jb/Costa Rica – Tamarindo/April 14/They seek him here...
The elusive Quetzal remains just that despite Em's best efforts. This may be because she's looking for 'something cat-like and really cute', as opposed to something that's really like a, um, bird. I'd tell her, but she's having so much fun looking I haven't the heart.

jb/Costa Rica – Tamarindo/April 11/Spanglish Part 2...
Imodium is the same in any language

jb/Costa Rica – Tamarindo/April 15/AF overload
I take it all back, we're leaving. Ok, finding food for less than London prices is tough, but that's nothing compared to a Tamarindo AF that's just totally off the scale. If you stay in for the evening, or refuse to talk to anyone and wear ear plugs it's just about bearable. Just. Otherwise a good evening starts with this observation on Pacific coast geography, “Gee, this music's not, like, very Caribbean, is it?” and goes downhill from there. Quite why the locals haven't formed an Al Quaeda chapter before now is beyond me. Even the town's token Canadian is deeply offensive., and if I have to listen to Bob Bloody Marley, La Sodding Bamba, the Girl from Ipanena, or One Tonne of Mary one more time, I swear there will be blood. Eject! Eject!

jb/Costa Rica – Tamarindo/April 15/Surf's up
Oh yeah, forgot to mention but in keeping with my new found affection for all things watery, I've been learning to surf. And it's fun. And I can stand up on the board (although not for very long). Dude.

jb/Costa Rica – Samara/April 15/Cows and beaches
Costa Rica really is lovely. I never thought I'd see mile long beaches utterly devoid of people, deckchair salesmen or Greek tavernas. However it is really, really unfair on an amiable drunk to have cows with handlebar horns wandering the road on a Saturday night after closing time. It's asking for trouble.