As we waited for the main event, we were entertained by quite possibly the most talented musician in Central America. Or this hemisphere.
This young man was playing guitar, keyboard, a percussion machine, steel drum and trumpet. He'd start strumming his guitar, lay background tracks of that and before too long, Emmit Rhodes style he was essentially playing all the instruments at once, a jazzy fusion of disco rock.
The main show at this Riu, every night, was a different themed dancing troupe. From Broadway to Disco to Grease to a Mexican Fiesta Extravaganza, there were different flashy costumes, different flashy tunes, and the same very fit flashy dancers.
My lovely wife's favorite was the all male "Angels in Underwear" review. That's her name for it, and the angel's tight attire left little to the imagination. Ala Robert Mapplethorpe.
There's
not a lot of decision making that is required of you once you arrive at
an all-inclusive resort like a Riu. The hardest decision you'll need to make is whether
to go left or right. Sometimes it's really hard to decide what to put
on your plate with the multitude of gourmet choices. The easy out for that is to just try everything. Then go back for what really excited your palate.
Oh yeah, you also want to watch out for these guys in Costa Rica. They're everywhere.
Fortunately we didn't see any man eating sized Iguanas, but they're out there. Just ask Richard Burton.
Prior to the trip, my lovely wife purchased some sunscreen. She's highly sensitive and needs SPF 2000. I, on the other hand, am a dark skinned Scandinavian. I use SPF 1.
On our second day there, we meandered over to the nearby shops to find a suitable SPF for me since I was not quite as proactive as she. Here's a tip: whatever SPF you use, buy it before you get to Costa Rica. They were selling a six ounce bottle of Hawaiian Tropic for $38.00!! I found an off brand SPF 15 for $20, but um, had I known (like you do now) I would have bought it here in the states.
Even though the resort is all-inclusive, our experienced Riu buddies recommended we bring a wad of $1.00 bills to tip the staff. A US dollar every two to three drinks is fine. Leave a bill at the table after each meal. Things like that. And if you leave your maid a bill every morning, she may do artistic things with your towels and blankets:
When we booked this trip, we booked it for resort'n. We didn't really even think about the Ecotourism aspect of Costa Rica until we got there. I mean, folks come from all over the world to hike in the rain forests and commune with nature. And sloths. We did not bring our adventurous, ambitious selves on this trip, unless eating and drinking requires ambition.
We did meander out and go shopping at a trendy little nearby town called Coco Beach, or Playas Del Coco. It was about a thirty minute drive through the jungle, although it was just around the point from the beach and cove where the Riu's were situated.
There's no coastal highway, at least along the Guanacaste coast. The steep mountain ridges come right down to the ocean in between all the bays and coves where towns and resorts are. I think that's another reason why it takes so long to get from here to there to anywhere.
Coco Beach is one of the more popular beach towns of Costa Rica. It used to be a small fishing village, but has become quite trendy over the last decade with both locals and tourists. The town sits right on the beach in a lovely bay. went there on the equivalent of Labor Day here, and the town was crowded with folks from all over the country as well as a few out of country tourists. We bought a lot of little trinkets as well as coffee for our family. Costa Rica coffee is quite a thing we discovered.
Another thing we discovered (but did not buy) which we found in pretty much every gift shop in town were these guys...(and no, they're not bananas!)
Brightly painted wooden dildos with Huichol Indian type artwork or just plain. Bottle openers, key rings, and bongs all made with a super large (or medium sometimes) wooden penis. What the bizarre holy hell is up with that? I've been to a few foreign countries and I've never seen one gift shop let alone all of them selling wooden bottle openers shaped like dicks.
My thoughts to inquire were thwarted by the fact that all the shops were staffed by young ladies, and, well, I just thought it best not to talk dildos with pretty young girls, no matter how arty they were. Everybody would get the wrong impression, especially my lovely wife.
Of this I'm certain.
After a little research I found out you cannot sell pornography or sex toys in Costa Rica, even while prostitution is apparently legal. It seems these gift type items could be a subtle form of resistance against the strict laws heavily influenced by Catholicism in that country.
We also took another field trip off the reservation to a beautiful waterfall. It was less than fifty miles away and took about two hours to get there. We thought about a rain forest run, but we would have spent more time in the car than in the forest.
"Just crime," shrugged our driver.
Once we were a few miles out of the city many of the country domiciles didn't have nearly as much wrought iron or barbed wire. Which seemed to mean to me the criminals at large in the city were either too young to drive or too poor to own a car. And too lazy to hoof it out into the country to steal another poor person's trinkets.
The main excitement off the resort we did was a half day zip line adventure tour. As it happened, less than a half mile from our resort sat the Diamante Eco Adventure Park, offering zip lining and more.
I bought the full package, which also included the photos that will follow. We were slated to embark about 10:30 in the morning and an open air shuttle bus picked us up at the resort at 10:00. I love punctuality!
At the appointed time we were ushered over to an area where there was enough gear to conceivably outfit fifty people for an Everest expedition. A half dozen young men showed up on cue to outfit the seven of us that would make up the zip line tour that morning.
They went over a number of safety concerns and then told us not to worry about braking, that was automatically taken care of. Not to worry at all. Really.
There were a total of five dual zip lines in the park and we'd be taking every one. We'd start on a line directly from where we were outfitted down to a platform about five hundred yards away.
From there we'd take that open air shuttle (that picked us up) to another platform where we'd do their Cadillac run, a mile long superman style deal several hundred feet up in the air. If we survived that we would then take three different runs down to the Wildlife Sanctuary, where we could visit some native species, like sloths and toucans.
Here we are, outfitted and raring to go!
And we're off!
As we neared the rapidly approaching platform, I began to wonder about braking, you know, stopping without dying. We were coming in pretty hot, somewhere between twenty and forty miles per hour, which are kinda fast when you're not surrounded by metal.
As we approached the platform, I noticed what looked like a collar a horse would wear if he was plowing a field. A big, oval leather type thing. It was hanging around the zip line. As soon as the metal handlebar hit that, there was a semi-loud pop and we went from forty to zero in about five feet.
I suppose a room full of foam rubber might accomplish the same thing, but this route didn't take up as much room and was probably a heck of a lot more economical.
From that platform we all boarded the open air shuttle truck for a roller coaster ride up to the peak where we would magically become Superman. Even the ride up was a hair raising treat. Ever been on Lombard Street In San Francisco? That's nothing compared with this.
This was steeper and curvier. The first half was dirt and gravel, but once we were half way up, the road turned to concrete, probably because it was turning vertical. Add to that the vehicle we were riding in was a stick shift, and, well, I began to wonder...
"If this guy stalls, we're bailing...right away..."
But somehow we made it to the top, wherein we seven intrepid aero-nuts would soon embark on the zip line ride of our lifetimes.
By the way, the white buildings to the left down yonder on the beach is the Riu Palace. The red roofed beige monolith is the Riu Guanacaste. It may have been bigger, but better cuisine was on the left!
About mid way through the almost sixty mile per hour run I started to think about stopping again. I mean, we were zipping along about twice as fast as the previous run. But then several hundred yards before the landing deck the zip line started to edge upwards, effectively slowing us to the pace where the horse collar would stop us with ease.
After that yahoo run, we zig zag zipped down three other runs and ended up at the wildlife sanctuary, which is right down there to the right of the Riu Guanacaste. When we were done there we just strolled back to our resort.
But before we strolled, we met Bob and Dylan, the sanctuary's two toucans. The roadie assigned to the toucans thought that their names were hilarious. We found it amusing. Here's a picture of Bob. Or Dylan. I can't remember who.
Unfortunately, our covid tests (taken at the Riu at no expense) came back negative so we did have to go home. I was kinda secretly hoping. We will definitely return to a Riu, sometime, some place, because we like resort'n done right.
I do think, however, another European adventure is calling. Whenever they open their gates. But who knows when wanderlust calls and where it may take us.
Please take care everyone. I do hope you've had the good sense to get vaccinated, especially in light of this new variant. You know, not all media is out to get you. Some of it just might be true.
