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| Costa Rica Honeymoon, Fall 2000: Tamarindo, Day 8
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Monday, October 30, 2000: Limping about town
I broke out my trusty Lonely Planet guidebook at the pharmacy to ask for my medicinal needs, and only slightly mangled the pronounciation...and became the happy owner of a $4 elastic bandage and $6 ibuprofen (12 capsules). Ouch! Whoever said Costa Rica was dirt-cheap obviously had never sprained an ankle here. We limped off and wandered around town. I took a bunch of pictures and we shopped for some goodies for Niki and Doug, our housesitters.
We surfed again this afternoon. My ankle bothered me a bit, but we still got some fun waves. Unfortunately, the ideal tide is getting later and later in the afternoon -- and closer to sunset, which comes early here, around 5 p.m. -- so that means we'll have to try to catch dawn patrol from now on to surf. David swapped his 8-0 board for a 9-0 stick and is having tons more fun. He looked great out there! However, I've discovered the big downside to surfing in Costa Rica: "sea lice" -- the common name, but actually a misnomer; true sea lice are found on fish. These guys are actually teeny, tiny jellyfish (or, more specifically, the larvae of such). They float on the surface of the water and sting when they come into contact with you, leaving little itchy red bumps. It's like a tiny pinprick every time they get you...ouch! And there's nothing you can do to prevent it, according to locals, except (supposedly) gorge on garlic. Being that this is our honeymoon, I think we'll have to skip that folk remedy.
Back at the hotel, we played out and watched Monday Night Football -- the Redskins vs. the Titans. It made a nice change from soccer...we've seen the highlights from the Asia Cup, the Italian Cup, World Cup qualifying, Europeans Championship, and even the exhibition match between Italy and the rest of the world (held for the Pope) about seven billion times now. What can I say, David is in heaven! Seriously, though, we're not watching THAT much TV (although you haven't lived until you watch "Growing Pains" reruns in Spanish. "Maggie! Donde es la bicicleta!"). Tomorrow, we're trying for our first attempt at dawn patrol for surfing. Our alarms are set for 4:30 a.m. We'll see if we make it. |
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We arose with the dawn again this morning (OK, it was 8 a.m.) and downed breakfast at the hotel...a great combination of bacon, eggs, rice, beans, fabulous coffee, and fresh fruit (the pineapple here rivals that of Hawaii...in fact, David deemed it better). We fed the inquisitive (and obviously hungry) peacock with scraps of bread from our plates, and then headed into town for more exploration (and some painkillers and an elastic bandage for my ankle).
We picked up our rental car today, a red Toyota 4Runner (4wd, of course!). It cost a mere $580 for 8 days. Yikes! Definitely not cheap, but to be honest, it's nice to have our own wheels. Guess we've become honest-to-goodness Californians now, given our affection for having a car.
We had dinner tonight at another amazing restaurant, Stella's. We'd originally wanted to go back to Pachanga, where we'd had such a great dinner with Kati and Erik, but they'd closed up shop and gone on vacation (pretty typical for around here). Luckily, Stella's more than exceeded our expectations. The owner/chef is Swiss (my mom loved that), and the menu included some typically Swiss fare like raclette. I had chicken in jalapeno sauce (and survived), while Dave had baked stuffed lobster. Add in a couple of glasses of wine and a tomato-onion salad for a grand total of $38 (including tax and tip). You just can't match that stateside.