Our first 2 real days in Costa Rica - strange turns of events!

Remember this part of my last blog post?

We are going to our home for the next 9 days - Uvita House!

Well there has been a turn of events LOL

This is our car btw: 

Our time in beautiful Costa Rica started on Sunday July 17th with an awesome drive in the country of Costa Rica, up and down a mountain on tiny roads, getting lost many a time on very badly signed roads. We finally found the elusive freeway, which we got to ride for a whooping 28 km before we were back on regular roads. 

Oh, and suddenly we were also reminded of why this is called the Green Season!!!

The scenery was awesome and we were all pretty excited about it. Suddenly, we crossed a bridge and I yelled “there are loads of crocodiles here” – and we notice tonnes of people are there taking pictures (more like 5-6 guys, but whose counting). So we parked the car and went to check out the crocodiles for ourselves – and they were pretty darn huge! And fat! And well fed. Not weird really, considering that they were surrounded by cattle! They probably feed on them once a month LOL the cop that was watching the car said the cows and the crocodiles were friends – I don’t believe him hehehehe with crocodiles as friends, who needs mortal enemies! 

 

We moved on and finally after almost four hours reached Uvita – the place where the awesome house was. The path there was definitely one that needed 4WD – it was rocky and steep and narrow and we were so happy when we finally reached the top and found the fantastic house! 

The house was locked of course, which we expected, but Arild and the kids went to the pool side to see if the porch was open – suddenly Wiliam opened the front door and we went inside. We ran straight upstairs to the most fantastic bedroom with a gorgeous view – only problem was that the maid had forgotten to clean up after the last tenants because the bed was not made. And, oops, they must have forgotten their bras too… but what was all that commotion downstairs???

Meet the Germans ;) Who has also rented this house – and were to stay there until the 20^th – the 4 first nights of OUR stay! Interesting. It was impossible to get a hold of the owner in any way, but I shot him an email and let him know we were kind of upset LOL

Ok, so there has been a glitch in the system somehow, based on a big misunderstanding between our landlord here in Costa Rica and us. So – we had agreed with the dates by email, the landlord and us. However, I had originally requested different dates, and when the landlord sent us the paypal invoice, he had forgotten that we had agreed on new dates, and he put the old dates on the invoice. When we paid it, we had in effect agreed to these dates he claims, so there we were in Uvita, Costa Rica – without a place to stay for three nights…

We then left the house sadly and went searching for a hotel to stay for three nights! The first one we checked out was the Whales and Dolphines hotel right by the house – but it was a whooping 180 dollars per night for what was nothing more than a motel room so I kindly declined and we left it as was. The kids were getting antsy now (I include Arild in this group) and we saw a sign that said “4 star spa resort” and followed the signs to where we are now – Crystal Ballena Hotel Resort and Spa - "your dream destination in the south of Costa Rica"!

When the receptionist gave me a quote of 194 per night for a family room I was cautious and agreed to look at it – it felt too expensive for yet another motel room… but love and behold – this was no motel room – it was a suite and it was BEAUTIFUL! One King Size bed and two twins, plus a sitting area with TV and a huge balcony with a view of the ocean! Hello Heaven! We were even treated to welcome drinks :)

What happened with the landlord and the house? Well – we finally got him by mail and after some discussion, we agreed on both of us being faulty and we took half the cost each of us having to stay in a hotel – and we are still waiting for confirmation that we can indeed move in on Wednesday – but that is what we are banking on right now!

So far we have barely moved out of the hotel at all - we have just been hanging out in the awesome pool!

We have though had a trip out – just for late lunch/dinner today and a purchase trip for drinks – because this hotel has a SUPEREXPENSIVE minibar and the bar by the pool is sick expensive also! More than US standard from Hilton even! So we are cutting down on minibarns and maxibars and are choosing local drinks from the grocery store down the street! 

Only scary thing so far are all the SUPERBIG spiders and the cockroach I found up my PANTS tonight (while I was wearing them – even scarier) – I guess that is the price of being on vacation in a wild country as this one is (or in Louisiana)!