I went back  home, changed into long pants, and returned.   They let me in.

In and around San Jose, shorts are common daily wear for many North Americans and in the past few years, I see more and more Ticos in shorts.  Some years ago, that was hardly ever seen. Ticos eschewed short pants, but the culture is changing.   Shorts at the beaches are common, of course, for everyone.

Anyway… I asked my wife about this at dinner and sure enough… many government buildings do not permit folks to enter unless properly dressed. In this case, the shorts were a no-no and I discovered that they are not permitted in many other locations as well.  I added this tidbit to my knowledge base and moved on.  I even added it as one of the Odds and Ends in The REAL Costa Rica web site.

Well someone (in this case a Tico), did not take kindly to being refused entry to the Registro Nacional, the location where just about all records (real estate, corporations, etc) are maintained.  The difference is that, being a Tico, he filed a complaint with Sala IV, the Costa Rica constitutional court…. and he won!

Sala IV made it very clear that people can pretty much dress any way they please when visiting government buildings.  This ruling does not apply to private businesses of course. They can still set their own rules.

A couple of weeks ago, ML and I took one of our long weekend trips, this time to Tamarindo, a popular beach in the province of Guanacaste about an hour south of Liberia and about 4-5 hours from San Jose, the capital and where we live.  I especially wanted to visit as Tamarindo has been plagued with problems, namely high crime, drug use, overbuilding, and of course pollution of the Pacific Ocean.  I found the area to be expensive, terribly overbuilt, and generally not all that great.  I decided to forgo a dip in the ocean.  Say no need to do that much research.  We were not affected by the alleged crime problems, so nothing to report there, but we pretty much stayed in the hotel venturing out only two or three times.

In general, I loath all-inclusive hotels. However Luisa loves the damned things and after we spent a few days in an all-inclusive in Cancun on our honeymoon, and had a fine time with good food, I thought “Why not?”. We stayed at the Barcelo Langosta Beach, Langosta Beach being a few hundred yards south of Tamarindo.

Rather than driving to Liberia, once the only easy way to get to Tamarindo from San Jose, I decided to cut south and take the new Taiwan Bridge. See photo right.

This bridge was finished a couple of years ago and was a gift from the country of Taiwan totally free of charge… except of course for providing Taiwan with fishing rights that hurt badly the local sport-fishing trade and really screwed a ton of Ticos trying to earn their livings as fishermen.

The bridge was built to cross the Rio Tempisque River, that runs north-south above the Gulf of Tambor. See photo below left. Photo stolen from http://www.nicoyapeninsula.com/tambor/ a nice web site of you wanna know more about the Nicoyan Peninsula.

Before the bridge, the Liberia route was the only option. They say taking this bridge saves time getting to beaches around Tamarindo, but It really does not. What is is though is a very pretty drive and beats the Liberia route for that reason alone.

Barcelo Play Langosta

Arriving in Tamarindo, we made our way south to the Barcelo. About a ten minute drive past lots of North American fast food restaurants and US cloths stores. UGH!

Within one minute, I am now reminded why I hate all inclusives!

First, the lobby is jammed with 485 noisy teeny-boppers aged 15-20 (maybe), all waiting to check-in sans parents. Not a good sign if you too will be waiting to check-in in the 96 degree heat (lobbies are almost never air conditioned in all inclusives!).

Second, as I am getting out of my car in front of the lobby, I am told by the guard I must move. HUH? “I am checking in.” says I. “Then you cannot park here. You must go to the parking lot”, say he. He points. Now I am not blocking anyone and there is plenty of room for other cars/vans to get by. Why would a hotel ask the guest to park in a parking lot to check in? I decline and decide to get a place in one of the lines so we can check in. The guard says not a word… probably makes no sense to him either.

ML gets tired of waiting in the car (she’d have been a ton more tire if she had to wait in the sun for 30 minutes) and joins me as we get to the front desk. Reservations have been made for a ocean view room, king size bed. As you who have had the fun of going to all inclusives know, they do not guarantee anything… so I grovel. I am married and have experience in groveling! The desk clerk finds us am ocean view with a queen bed. Compromise! Fine say we… we’ll take it.

We register, get our bracelet IDs, and grab a bellhop to take our luggage. He tells me he is very happy not to have to go the opposite direction to the car park to get our luggage. I smile, but not for long.

The online photos of this hotel sort of indicate that they are on the ocean. Well they are I guess, but there is a lot of stuff between the hotel and the beach. Ocean view rooms are on the top floor (no elevator), so we clime the stairs and make our way to our room. The electronic key does not work. He looks at my wifes ID bracelet. “Wrong room, I am so very sorry”, says he. We head down one flight to another room and the key works fine. Nice queen bed, but the view is into the rooms of another part of the hotel. No ocean here!

He asks if we want to return to the lobby to get this problem fixed. ML and I trade glances, “No, we’re fine”. No ocean view and no king bed. Air conditioning works great, We’re tired and hot. We’ll make do.

So ML unpacks and gets into her bathing suit. I unpack and remove my cloths just in time to have our door open with the rightful owners of this room. Happily, I have sufficient cloths on to avoid a nasty surprise for the other guests who I am sure would not prepared to see me sin ropa when expecting the beauty of Costa Rica. Apologies are yelled, the bellboy (not ours) is having a panic attack, and they leave. I lock the door and immediately the phone rings. Front desk asking why we are where we are. I explain the bellboy put us here. They hang up. They call back. Why are we not in our room? We are! Not the room we assigned you. OK this is goofy. ML walks in, and sure enough we check the bracelets. We were assigned two different rooms! See photo top.

After more yacking, we decide to stay where we are. The hotel says nothing. No apology. Nothing. Have I mentioned I do not like all inclusives?

We head down to eat. The food is OK. A bit better than most all-inclusives, maybe C or C+. The deserts though are GOOD!

The pool is really huge and contains maybe 300 of the 485 teeny-boppers, another 327 children, and (I am only guessing here) a urine content of no more than 20%. No swim-up bar. I can tolerate just about anything if there is a swim-up bar! Oh well.

Evening! All inclusive hotels love to have “shows” at night and truly some of them (like the ones in San Andreas and in Guadeloupe, are first rate. This one was not. We are treated to kids playing a game. Later there was some dancing which was OK. A standout was a sax solo by one of the band members and THAT made the whole evening worth it.

Next day we traveled into Tamarindo with friends. On the beach I met a couple of Costa Rica’s newest weapons, tourist police. As mentioned, Tamarindo has a bad rep these days, and Costa Rica in general has been getting bad press because of crimes against tourists. Tourists who had problems were frustrated because of too few police and almost none who spoke English. Thus I was really interested to meet these guys in their distinctive uniforms and see how things really are in Tamarindo. The goverment promised that all tourist police woould speak English!

Well, the good news is that they were right their on the beach and their presence was likely reassuring to all. The bad news is that neither officer spoke 5 words of English. “I thought all the tourist police spoke English” asks I. Shrug.

Guess not!

I will say that during our trip, I saw NONE of the crime or problems that have been covered so throughly in the Spanish press here in Costa Rica. Qualifying this, I was not on the streets or beaches at night, but our friends were and they mentioned seeing nothing. Might be good news for Tamarindo!

Hotel Rating: Food: C Front Desk and Service: D-

I have ranted about that area for some time now, and only the people who actually live there knew what I was referring to. The old saying about “S–t flows down hill” has always been correct, and now, “down hill” means Jaco and points north and south.

This first came to my attention about four years ago when I read the incredible book, Costa Rica from Space, now no longer available. This book, published by Earth University, first detailed concerns and gave warning about the lack of sufficient waste treatment in Costa Rica and its long term effects.

This was confirmed only a year later by friends with beach property north of Jaco who were even then unable at times to use their beaches because of the black water (agua negra or raw sewage) flowing untouched from nearby rivers. Now the unrestrained growth in that area has finally gotten official attention.

Featured in today’s La Nacion, the headline reads, “Playa Jacó en peligro de ser insalubre dentro de 5 años”, or “The beaches in Jaco will be (unhealthy – but this really means unusable for use due to pollution) within 5 years.”

I am sure this will delight all those who have plunked down vast sums to get in on the Jaco-Quepos land rush.

I have no doubt the folks at Marriott’s Ocean & Golf Resort, Los Suenos are just thrilled to be reading this. What was not said is that already people have complained about the water as far south as Manual Antonio!

Above is a chart published by the (Costa Rica) water department.

You must click on it to get a readable size, but it bodes a scary future for those who live or plan to live in that area.

I guess the thing that concerns me the most is a number of baby-boomers who are moving into that area totally unaware of the potential problems.

The good news is that if they (and the developers) take strong action now, this dismal 5 year forecast can avoided.