She's Got Legs (about a million of them)

Surf Bar. Beach Cocktails.
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Like many places in Costa Rica, Nosara doesn't have a lot of road signage - other than the confusing collages of hotel and restaurant billboards at most major intersections. It also has a myriad of twisting little roads that all seem to loop back onto themselves. The best course of action is to just relax and accept the fact that you are going to be lost a fair amount of the time until you get used to the place. Luckily there are dozens of cool little places just waiting to be discovered by lost tourists. An open mind and a good attitude will quickly turn a frustrating experience into the chance to discover a new place to try fruity beach cocktails.

It's Hammock-thirty!
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We started our day based at the highly recommended Cafe de Paris - a popular hotel and restaurant (see review). It is walking distance to the beach which is a beautiful semicircle bay of gray sand. The beach is a well known surfing spot and that vibe permeates the place. We spent a good part of the day just walking the beach and collecting shells - of which there are a great variety here.

The best course of action is to just relax and accept the fact that you are going to be lost a fair amount of time...

Go, Sparky, Go!
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Along the way, we wandered into an excited crowd gathered about 10 meters from the water. They were jubilantly cheering a baby sea turtle that had apparently just hatched and was making its way to the sea for the first time. This is usually a perilous journey with many predators, but this little guy had his own entourage who were enthusiastically shooing away sea birds. This seemed a bit unfair to the birds who were denied a nice lunch, but we joined in to help the underdog - er, underturtle if you prefer.  And, of course, this led to a great celebration and, more importantly, excuse for another round of cocktails when the Sparky (of course we named him) floated away on the surf.

We unwound from all the excitement at the Casa Tucan bar (see review) a few steps down the road from the beach. After that, it was off to a nice dinner at our hotel - Cafe de Paris (see review).

We returned to our room that night to find a family of centipedes had moved in during the day. And apparently centipedes have very very large families. It probably wouldn't have been so bad if we hadn't run across a giant centipede in the rainforest a few days earlier. Measuring nearly a foot long, it was easy to see the giant pinchers on that beast. You had to look closer at its tiny relatives, but they had them as well. We weren't taking any chances and soon hit the road to find a different hotel.

Along the way we got lost (of course) and stumbled onto a number of cool places including Blew Dog's Surf Club and the Gilded Iguana, two popular local bar/restaurants with decidedly surf oriented crowds. It was high season and everyplace was packed. Luckily one of the bartenders at the Gilded Iguana had been to the grand re-opening of Jungle Boogie (see review) and knew that it had vacancies. A short drive later and we were comfortably settled into our new room - happy, tired and full of new travel tales.