Day 37 – Decided to Stay in San Miguel

We woke up this morning determined to head to Monteverde. The owner of “The Flying Scorpion”, Brandon Rossi (Rossi), had asked me yesterday if I would take a look at his wireless router before heading out of San Miguel. “Sure”, I said. We had breakfast and afterwards the kids went out to the beach. At around 8:30am I was starting to wonder when Rossi was planning on coming in, because we wanted to try and hit the road early. Finally at 10am, I asked one of the girls in the kitchen to call Rossi. Rossi immediately headed down and was here in just a bit.

A little fellow popping out while cleaning his borrow.

Fibre Optics cable in not an option here in San Miguel, so the people that have Wi-Fi typically use the older USB cell modem type technology. In order for you to get multiple connections, you then have to have a router that accepts USB modems. We fired up the router and then the USB modem. Everything appeared to work fine, but we still did not get any connectivity. He said he had another 

unit at his house, so we hopped in my car and headed up the mountain.

Olivia getting creative in the sand. She really enjoyed San Miguel beach.

His place was breathtaking. The view from up to of the mountain was absolutely wonderful. The sky was clear and you could see ocean and across the whole valley. San Miguel is in cattle country. Guanacaste is the province and most all of the land here is used for grazing. When Rossi purchased the property on top of the mountain, the seller laughed at their closing and whispered something to the attorney. He later found out what he told the lawyer. The seller said, “Why would anyone buy atop of this mountain? You can’t get the cattle to graze up here.” I can only image how hard Rossi must have laughed after hearing that comment.

A view from up top of Rossi's place. 

Once I closed my mouth and picked my jaw off the floor, we grabbed his other router and headed back to the hotel. Within a couple of minutes of getting everything plugged up, all was working fine. Mission accomplished. Although, now it was around 1pm and the day was getting away from us. The drive time to Monteverde would be 3 ½ hours and it would have taken away the rest of the afternoon, so we decided to stay another day and let the kids continue to play on the beach.

Thomas on the boggie board ripping up some roaring waves!!

Rossi lent us several boogie boards and the kids went hog wild. This is the beach to boogie board on if I’ve ever seen one. We all got on them for some time, but Thomas stay on his long enough to perfect the art. Anna showed the kids a trick or two as well being the Fort Myers water baby she is. The kids played out in the waves until at least 4-5pm at which time they came back to hotel and showered off. It would be sushi time shortly and MarBeth, the unbelievable cook, would surely serve up an awesome feast again.

Rossi's house, the owner of "The Flying Scorpion", on top of the mountain.

Six o’clock is sushi time here at “The Flying Scorpion”, but typically only Thursday through Sunday. Somehow, though, we have been able to persuade the staff to prepare sushi for us the last two days. I think Rossi had something to do with that. As an appetizer to the sushi, we order the Vegetable Tempura. We had it the night before and it was quite honestly the some of the best tempura I have ever had. Tried the “Bruce Lee Kick Your Ass Roll” and it was good. Hot, but good. Definitely not a roll you want to try if you don’t like spicy or hot. Thomas and I also went with two orders of the “911” roll. Another delicious, now favorite, spicy sushi roll of the Schiffers. Finally, each of the kids also got a “Caterpillar” roll. 

Day 37 - Finally have Internet

We have been without internet for the last 3-4 days. We helped the owner of "The Flying Scorpion" get his wireless router back up and running, so we are finally back with technology. Hope the net stays on!!

Day 36 – Sunshine in San Miguel

Anna and I had gone down to the beach this morning on a walk before the kids woke up. When we returned the kids joined us downstairs for some breakfast. Olivia and I got waffles, Anna got French toast and Thomas got a side order of bacon. Yummmmmy! The breakfast here reminds me of the “The Original Pancake House” in Charlotte. Only difference is that here you are looking at the ocean and can go in your bathing suite. We all ended up sharing each other’s breakfast and then headed down to the beach.  

Earlier yesterday evening, Anna found a book by Jimmy Buffet and started to read it. She took it down to the beach and got in one of the hammocks. I joined her in the hammock a little later for a head scratch that seemed to last for hours. Olivia and Thomas stayed busy in the sand. Thomas built a bridge that spanned a little creek run-off near the hammocks. We watched him build for the better part of an hour. Olivia spent most of the time shell hunting and exploring her surroundings.

It was around 1pm when we finally got off the beach and decided to head up the road for some lunch. On the drive in yesterday we saw a restaurant called the Pizza Tree. Pretty funky looking place. Unfortunately when we got there he was not serving any pizza yet. Due to the low amount of business during wet season, they fire up the oven for dinner only. Looks like we are coming back for dinner. We continued on down the road and headed to San Francisco De Coyote, the closet town. Basically, we wanted to buy a couple of things for the cooler and some snacks for the beach. After the store, we came back to the Flying Scorpion and headed back out to the beach one more time before dinner. 

Beautiful flower on the property of "The Flying Scorpion".

Single footprints on the beach. We were the only one here!!! Amazing. 

Anna chillin' in the hammock.

Known by the locals as the "Cow Church". The cows can be seen all around the church. 

Some more local flowers.

Incredible Orchids here on "The Flying Scorpion" property.

Awesome blossom.

From a dead coconut, a new sprout of life is shooting out.

Olivia showcasing a new sand dollar find. They grow'em big here!

Bright construction by Thomas

Around 4pm on San Miguel. Olivia and Thomas are in the distance.

The Pizza Tree Restaurant

Day 35 – C-Ya Cubaya!

It was tough to leave this morning. Our Cabuya house stay officially ended today. Rosa came to the house around 7:30am this morning. We had planned to be out of the house at 8am, but actually didn’t get out until 8:40am. We’d done some packing the day before, but left most of everything to pack this morning. We simply couldn’t get motivated enough to pack the day prior. It was somewhat tough to leave this place. We had really come to enjoy the house and had found comfort and familiarity with it.

We were thinking of going to Curu Wildlife Refuge today until around 2pm and then onto San Miguel. Since we were not sure how long it would take to get to San Miguel we made the 2pm our hard stop. It gets dark here at 6pm and driving on the roads here is just no fun at night. When we left the house we stopped over at the Hotel Caleja and wished everyone farewell. We headed north and stopped for breakfast a little shy of Tambor. The place we chose was at one of the only two or three golf course resorts in Costa Rica. It wasn’t too shabby. We finally got out of the restaurant at around 11:30am. We drove another 10 minutes and finally got to the refuge.

Taking a nap on the way to San Miguel.

We debated on going in or simply coming back in a couple of days and give Curu our full attention, instead of some have hearted pass through for a couple of hours. We chose to come back on this upcoming Wednesday. This way we could get to San Miguel a little earlier and make a day of it. Anna and I took turns driving this afternoon. We eventually made it into San Miguel at around 2:50pm. It’s a quaint small town consisting of only some houses and a few hotel/restaurant establishments. San Francisco De Coyote is the closest town, about 10km away, with any type of store. We will most likely go there tomorrow for some provisions.

Just got to the beach at San Miguel. The kids loved the wide open beach.

We have checked into a place called “The Flying Scorpion” (www.theflyingscorpion.com). We rented the room above the restaurant. It has two queen beds, a small seating area and its own bathroom. All the windows are screened. I am hoping to get some sort of breeze through the place this evening. When we first checked in, the lady showed us the rooms and we agreed on the place and price. She then told me we would settle up at the end of our stay. No id, deposit, or personal information required or exchanged. Where anymore does that happen?

Close to sunset in San Miguel looking down the beach.

After unloading the car, we all headed down to the beach. Beautiful wide strand with gentle waves. Nothing like it had been over on the eastern side of the Nicoya Peninsula. The other thing we had been looking forward to was that we would now be able to see the sunset over ocean. It was not possible where we had been staying, so this was to be a treat. Of course when we got to the beach we quickly started looking for shells. This beach looks to be a sand dollar haven. You can see the live sand dollars in the sand all over. Unfortunately, we weren’t too successful in finding many whole dead sand dollars. Tomorrow is another day though, plus we really missed the tide.

Dinner was to start at 6pm. That’s when the Sushi could be ordered. We ordered at around 6:01pm. Ha, Ha. You know the Schiffers family and their sushi. We ordered a vegetable tempura for appetizer and then each of us got a roll. Olivia and Thomas both got a Caterpillar roll, Anna got a Rainbow roll, and I got a Tampa and 911 roll. The vegetable tempura was incredible and huge. It was a sign of what was to come. What came was incredible as well. The 911 roll was spicy to perfection. It was super yummy! I could have hammered down a couple more of that roll. The nice thing was that right after dinner, we simply went straight upstairs and relaxed a bit.

Before we went off to bed, we headed out for a little walk on the beach hoping to see some turtles nesting.

Day 34 – Montezuma’s Revenge

It was our last full day in Cabuya before heading out, so we wanted to go to Montezuma one last time. We figured it had the largest variety of stores with whatnots that we had seen in the past month. It actually has four whatnots stores. Oh yeah, I counted. So we headed in and picked up some items we had seen on our earlier visits. Some of the items we didn’t pick up earlier because we didn’t have a car. We figured it would be a pain trying to haul the stuff around on a bus and surely weren’t going to carry it for 5 miles.

As soon as we got done shopping we headed back in the direction of Cabuya. Since we were still in Montezuma and it was lunch time, we decided to give Playa de los Artistas another go. We had eaten at the place a few days earlier for dinner and it was divine. Lunch was just as good. We basically ordered a schmorgeous board of appetizers. We managed to almost eat all of it, except for a few mozzarella balls that we took back home with us.

Appetizers at Playa De Los Artistas

On the way home we picked up some girls and their mom. As we got to Rio Lajas (Lajas River), Thomas and I jumped out for a swim. The girls decided to go and change and come back. The river had been at the lowest that we had seen since we had arrived in Cabuya. We crossed the river almost daily and wanted to get in one last swim before we left. Today the water was at such a low point, we couldn’t resist. Decisions, Decisions.

A Big Shout Out to Everyone from Mama!

We eventually left the river at around 3:30pm and made our way over to Jen and Sam’s. They had invited us over for some cerveza and fish for dinner. When we arrived at their place we were met by Jen and she informed us that someone had thrown cow patties into their pool. Quite a bit of cow patties. A large intentional amount of cow patties. Change of plans. We piled into the Schiffers Shuttle and went back to our place.

Up close pics of some fishes in the Lajas river we swam .

Back at the splash pad, we all giggled and laugh for the better part of the evening. We ended up having a mix of things for dinner and finished up the remainder of the cervezas. Sam busted out the Texas Farkel, a game of chance that is played with 6 dices, at around 8pm and we played it for the rest of the night. Before long we all said our goodbyes and I took the ladies home.

New birdies that just hatched at the house. 

We hated to tell our new friends goodbye.  It was an honor and pleasure to meet the both of them. I’m sure our paths will cross again one day.

Can't get any better than this!

Come-A, Come-A, Come-A, Come-A, Come-A Chameleon, Red, Gold and Green, Red, Gold and Greeneeeneeen!!!

Day 33 – Ladies and Gentlemen, We have a Car!

Let me first start out with saying, it has been eye opening not having a car for the last 3 ½ weeks. Let me also say it has been a great experience not having a car. We all take a simple thing like a car for granted. Depending on public transportation and taxies, really forces one to plan out the day. After some time, you almost get use to not having a car. Not having a car though, has kept us closer to home (within 30km). Some things would have actually been more expensive traveling via bus or taxi instead of renting a car. So we opted to wait on those type trips until this upcoming week.

Since we now had some wheels, Santa Teresa was in our sites. We had been to Mal Pais and Playa Carmen previously, but never went far enough to see Santa Teresa. Supposedly the Beverly Hills of the Nicoya Peninsula. Jen and Sam joined us for the ride. We took off around 10am and arrived at Playa Carmen a little before 11am. Everyone was hungry, so we hit the food court in the Playa Carmen shopping pavilion. Anna grabbed some grub from the Fish Market and the kids and I hit the Umi Sushi. Jen ended up getting a Spicy Tuna Roll from Umi and Sam got a Falafel from a greek place.

Getting ready for dinner at Mary's in Mal Pais.

After lunch we went over to the Gelato place and had some dessert. Unbelieveably good gelato. I could have had three or four more cups of the gelato. Everyone pretty much devour theirs quickly. When we were all done, we hit a couple of stores and got back in the car to head onto Santa Teresa. We drove down the road looking at all the different places waiting to find something grandioso. All we found was just another small town. Nothing like Beverly Hills though. We did pass one bar that was a Harley Davidson want to be. It looked pretty comical. What made it even funnier is that instead of motorcycles parked in front, it had bicycles.

Art by Olivia Schiffers. On the beach of Playa Carmen, Costa Rica.

We headed back to Playa Carmen and went down to the beach. When we first got there, three horses were roaming freely on the beach. You don’t see that every day. We ended up staying there for the remainder of the afternoon until 4pm at which time we headed to Mary’s. Mary’s is a restaurant we have heard about several times since arriving in Cabuya. We also walked by the restaurant a couple weeks prior only to find it closed for lunch. The owner of the restaurant picked us up in his truck on our walk that day and took us into Playa Carmen. We vowed that we would return the favor by coming in at eating at his establishment. The dinner there was delicious. We actually watched one of the cooks make my pizza. The kids really enjoyed watching him make the pizza. I  think by do so, it really made the pizza tasted better. 


The food slowly came out and we all filled our bellies. We stayed and chatted for a bit, while Thomas played pool with one of the local boys on what must be one of only a handful of pool tables in the area.Once our food comma kicked in and after a couple of yawns, we piled into the car and headed back home to Cabuya.

Wild horses roaming freely on the beach of Playa Carmen.

Pizza cook starting with a clean slate to create our pizza.

Day 32 – Evening at Playa de los Artistas

Dinner reservations were at 5:30pm, but we had arrived thirty minutes early. The hostess came to meet us at the front on the place and ushers us to our table. It was the largest table in the place and the only on with silverware on it. I guess they were expecting us.

The restaurant is well hidden from the road and unless you knew it was there, you would never see it. The only hint of existence is a small sign at the entrance to the place right at the road. As you walk in, you meander through a little garden until you come up to an opened air small covered pavilion like structure. Under the cover were about 5 tables. Our table however, was in an opening facing the beach along with two other couples tables, placed a little closer to the strand. They also had one rather large short table with mat and pillows for those that wanted to even more relaxed approach. The property was amazingly protected from all sides by nature. You could not see any other establishments anywhere in the restaurant or near the strand.

The menu was hand written. I couldn’t read what the heck it was, but it all looked delicious. They have a different menu every day I’m told. It is to take advantage of the daily catches, veggies in season, and primarily to keep things fresh and new. They want customers coming back, each time having a totally new experience. I really like their approach. It only works if the chef can cook though. That was still left to be determined.

The kids being funny and doing some posing.

Jen had read online that the way to approach this restaurant is to order appetizers or go tapas like and simply keep them coming. That may have worked with a couple, but our gang of six had been playing in the sun all day, trekked to Playa Grande, and were famished…. Well maybe not famished, but really really hungry. We had ordered our drinks and when the waitress returned we ordered five appetizers. Shortly thereafter another waitress came and took our dinner order.

Appetizers were out for the devouring.

Thomas went out onto the beach while we waited for the appetizers to arrive. The rest of us chatted and hoped that the food would arrive soon. It eventually did and it looking amazing. The five appetizers were all very well prepared. One was a Mackerel Pate (Sorry no symbols on the keyboard), Stuff Red Pepper with Grouper, Seabass Cerviche, Tuna Salad of some sort, and a Bruschetta. Hands down, my favorite was the bruschetta.

Menu at Playa de los Artistas in Montezuma. We had appetizer (left side) #1,3,5,6,7

After the appetizer annihilation, the dinner came and it looked phenomenal! Anna had order a whole seabass with potates, Olivia got a beef stew with rice, and I got a filet mignon. I believe Sam ordered a zucchini type dish and Jen got a Goat spread (appetizer dish) of some kind a fish plate.  We hammered down the meals until there was nothing left to hammer on. The food was the best we have had in Costa Rica, aside from the dinner at Anchio’s. We all agreed it was the best place we had eaten at here in Montezuma or Cabuya. I wish we would have discovered this place earlier.

A beautiful heron hanging out right by the table.

Thomas going for a Zen moment before the meal arrives.

What more needs to said?

A view of Playa de los Artistas from the beach when we first arrived at 5pm.