Over the mountains we go, heading westwards to the Pacific coast and the resort town of Jaco Beach. There are a string of resorts on the Pacific, and apart from the wide beaches and the lively bar scene, the big draw is their proximity to the magical rainforests and their unique diversity of fauna and flora.
I’ve lined up a couple of tours away from the beach for later, don’t worry, but you couldn’t help think that a week spent walking up and down the samds would not be wasted. And Jaco might not even be the best beach in the stretch, that honour probably lies with Manuel Antonio about 70 km to the south, a white-sandy beach enveloped by rainforest, an actual live national park. Unfortunately I won’t be able to fit it in this visit.
After a splendid day walking along the beach, I spent this morning making my way up the promontory in the second photograph. There is a viewpoint along the coastal road, a mirador in Spanish, but we’ll be hiking up to a higher vantage point, confusingly called El Miro. I’ll explain later, so for now get your hat, your sunnies, strap on your walking shoes – and for goodness sake get your water bottles! It’s 32C out there, I know I know, I should have gone a little earlier. My bad. Anyway, vamos! Let’s go!
The story goes that many years ago a local man called Miro wanted to build a mansion on the hillside, a place to take in the stunning views of the bay. Or it might have been a hotel. Or a restaurant. Sadly Miro died before the work was complete, and the place was abandoned, its ghostly ruins succumbing to the rainforest as the decades passed.
True or otherwise it’s a poignant, haunting tale, and fortunately it’s more likely than my own version. The one where the hotel’s reviews were awful and the tourist authority had to close it down. Why? Well for a start there’s the shocking absence of maintenance of the property…
…the unreliable gardening contractors…
…the irresponsible approach to emergency exits in case of fire…
…and the less said about the infinity pool the better!
Fortunately it’s all worth it when you reach the room with the view.
Glorious. A fantastic reward for twenty minutes of hard hiking.
Oh, I forgot. That’s the economy room. The presidential suite is another twenty minutes climb…
Note the graffiti art. This is the most substantial part of the complex, and the artwork on the walls (indeed on the retaining walls near the top) has become a destination in itself.
But you’ve come for the views, haven’t you?
Let’s turn around.
It might be worth opening up a map of Costa Rica for this first bit, if you’re not familiar with the geography. There’s a stumpy little peninsula running south-eastwards down from the Nicaraguan border, and on the horizon you can make out the edge of that stump. Further up the peninsula, by the way, you’ll find other famous destinations such as the ones in the Guanacaste region. With any luck we’ll be getting closer to that stump in a couple of days time.
The tree gets in the way of the rest of the view so we need to shift over a bit.
Jaco Beach is a surfer resort, as you can see from the breakers. This gives it a low-key, fun feeling, although it’s a well-developed resort with, as you can make out, some unsightly high-rise hotels. One of which, of course, I am staying in.
It was a spectacular view, the silence of the sea, the sky, the headlands only broken by the distant, timeless, roll of the breakers onto the ancient shore, and broken by the distant but piercing roar of the trucks on the main road that passes the entrance to the hike. I guess you can’t have everything.
Time to check out and head back down to the first viewpoint and a complete view of the bay.
Blue sea, blue sky, green forest, teeming with life, endless shore, super-friendly people in the bay. Pure life – Pura Vida – as the Costa Ricans say.
(incessantly. On every T-shirt, souvenir hat and bar front the Ticos can get their hands on…)
orwellianTwo 