I’m afraid a pun based title has evaded me this time. Lost in Esterillos? We didn’t get lost. Esteril-lost in thought? Nope, rubbish. Please do message me if you have any better suggestions. I also fear for the next segment, Quepos. Expect something tenuous.

Ahh Esterillos. Quiet beach town on the Pacific coast. Known for its laid back vibes and surfing, this is our acclimatisation stop, and we’ve managed it pretty well! I was writing this from a hammock, but in classic me fashion, it broke under my immense weight. This has happened before and is concerning, but I remain unscathed from both incidents so will continue to impose myself upon them in future. I’ll start at the beginning…

Day 2 – Esterillos Oeste

Waking up in Hotel Costa Pacifico was dreamy. We were up at 6.30 because the sun had risen and our jet lag skewed us to an early start. Breakfast started at 7 so we headed to a deserted poolside in what we considered the hot sun (we were later to find out that that heat was nothing), had a swim and laid in the sun on loungers. A cute dog wandered over and Billie was a bit too quick to betray Milo entirely by fraternising with this new pup. It stayed for a while for strokies.

Large birds circled lazily overhead so I grabbed the camera to get some snaps. We identified them as frigate birds and black vultures.

We also identified a great-tailed grackle by using a bird app that tells you what bird it is by recording the sound. It’s call was very tropical & distinctive, I suggest you give it a google. Once I knew what it looked like I hunted it down in a nearby tree for pics.

Also seen was an iguana, very regally sunbathing in the pool water feature. Lots of nature from poolside comfort!

At about midday, we checked out, left our bags at reception and headed down to Esterillos Oeste Beach, the reason anyone ever comes here in the first place. The beach is huge, loads of sand (as one might hope) stretching as far as the eye can see with luscious jungle bordering it.

Midday was a mistake. The heat was just bonkers. We sat under some shade and read our books and drank copious water. It was lovely and there were quite a few people doing the same. We noticed that almost everyone was Costa Rican, which I think is generally a good sign. A bit like when you pick a restaurant in China Town and there are loads of Chinese people eating in it. We had a picked out a‘soda’ – small, traditional, family run cafe where locals eat – but after 20 minutes of trudging through the hot sun unable to find it, we gave up and headed to the trusty restaurant we had our previous evening meal in (you remember the life changing tacos). To say we were drenched in sweat would be, well… quite accurate. We’d probably spent a bit too long in the sun trying to find the soda, so we knocked back copious amounts of water and I started to hit the Imperial – the Costa Rican national beer – and we were rejuvenated.

One tuna and veggie burger down, we retreated back to Costa Pacifico to get our bags so we could check in at our AirBnB where we’d be staying the next two nights. We’d booked 2 hotels because we decided not to stay in San Jose the first night, but to head to the beach, and our AirBnB couldn’t hold us the previous night. Funnily (well, we thought it was) our hotel was literally next door – like, out one gate, 5 meters down the road, into the next gate.

Hotel El Barco is much more basic. No bar, cold showers and more of a hostel feel. We were shown to our room that had no less than 4 beds in it and, most crucially, air-con. It worked so we spent a couple of blissful hours cooling inside with our books for company.

At about 4pm, we headed to the beach for sunset via the supermarket for Imperials & water. The beach was busier at this cooler time of day and with the sunset spectacle approaching. To call it busy, though, would be hard. It’s such an enormous beach you’d probably need about 20,000 people to make it Bournemouth-Beach-mid-COVID busy. The sunset was magnificent, and so romantic some nearby dogs were humping vigorously in the red glow. Gorgeous.

We embarrassingly headed back to the same restaurant for our third meal straight. It’s just such a good restaurant and there isn’t LOADS of choice in the area. This time we sampled piña coladas and margaritas with our meal and once again sleepily trundled back to our abode.

Day 3 – Esterillos Este

We were up for a 6.30 pickup from Brett of Brett’s Boards. He was whisking us away to Esterillos Este for a surfing lesson. While we waited, a young Nicaraguan lad named Cruz met us. He looked about 16 and had a Brett’s Boards t-shirt on. He was one of our instructors. He’d been teaching since he was 13 so clearly knew his stuff. We chatted to him till Brett turned up in the most rickety old Toyota saloon you’ve ever seen. “I’m glad you’re a couple, there’s a cooler behind my seat but it needs to stay there to support it, so you’ll need to squeeze in together”. He had his hand out the window holding the surf boards on the roof for the drive. He was a super lovely man from Houston, Texas who’d lived in Esterillos Oeste with his surf company for 20 odd years. We arrived at a ridiculous lovely resort in Esterillos Este, had an on the beach lesson segment in which Brett cracked many a joke.

e.g:

“Always keep two hands on the board while walking it out. If you get distracted, a wave could swing it up and what could happen?”

“It could knock you out?”

“Yes, it could knock you out, but what’s worse than that?”

“Drowning?”

“Yes, but the correct answer is, it could damage the surf board!”.

Ha, good one Brett. After many a surf board damaging gag we took to the sea and both me and Billie managed to surf some waves pretty awesomely. It was exhausting but gratifying and invigorating, and we’ll definitely do another lesson down the coast somewhere!

We were so taken by the lovely Alma resort that after breakfast back at Hotel El Barco, we decided to grab an Uber there to chill for the day. Unfortunately an Uber never came, so Vlad, our sweet host, crammed us into one front seat of his car and took us there. He used to work there so made a big palava about saying hello to all the staff and making sure they gave us good service. Bless him. We chilled by the beach for the rest of the day, on loungers in the shade of palm trees. It really was quite bliss. I finished my first book ‘Far from the light of heaven’ – a rather gripping whodunnit in space – which confirms my fears I didn’t bring enough reading material. A beautiful sunset finished our day for us and we got a taxi back home, skipped dinner and went to our room to choose which bed we would grace our presence with this night.

Next we head to Quepos, where sloths, monkeys and more will be sighted. I hope to outdo myself, photographically speaking. See you then. Pura Vida!