ardie514

Hello- My husband and I had such a great time in Costa Rica this past September that we are going back in June. This forum was so helpful in planning our first trip, so I'm back with a few more questions. Currently, we are scheduled to fly into Liberia, rent an SUV and stay in Playa Grande for the first few nights. Then we are going to drive down to Manuel Antonio area for a few nights, then south to Dominical for a couple of nights, and back to San Jose where we'll spend a night near the airport and fly home. A few questions:

1) How long is the drive from Playa Grande to Manuel Antonio? Is it best to drive back to Liberia and take the Highway south, or do we head south to Nicoya and then come down along the coast? Any dining or activity suggestions along the way?


2) Any hotel recommendations in Manuel Antonio area and Dominical? We'd really like to be able to walk to the beach for surfing, though I know there are not a lot of "on the beach" hotels in the MA area.

3) Also any restaurant recommendations in MA and Dominical?

Thanks in advance for your help.

ardie514

Two hotels I have found in Dominical that seem to be near the beach are:
Roca Verde and Hotel Diuwak. Anyone know anything about either of these places? Also I know Hacienda Baru is on the beach, but is there surfing? Thanks again.

shillmac

From Playa Grande (Tamarindo) to Manuel Antonio, don't go back to Liberia! Go to Nicoya, then turn left on highway 18 that takes you across the Rio Tempisque on the Friendship Bridge. At the end of that road, you'll meet the Interamerican highway where you'll go south to Puntarenas and on down to MA. Also at the end of that road, you'll find a great little restaurant across the highway from the huge gas station. Excellent food and frequently monkeys in the trees!

glover

Could you settle for a fabulous VIEW of the beach from afar in Dominical? We loved Pacific Edge there. A small place with just 4 cabins situated on a ridge set back a dirt road off the beach road. Cabins are rustic but comfortable and well planned with great porches and hammocks to enjoy the view. Property is beautifully landscaped and sited with two even higher look out porches (as if they were needed!) and a small outdoor eating area/bar and pool. We saw whales from here! Really, it must have a 180 unobstructed coastal view. We ate dinner several times at La Parcella on the ocean side of the beach road. Good view and great outside view of the ocean. We hiked at Hacienda Baru's reserve. Hired a guide there and really enjoyed that. Saw our first sloths finally -- many birds, monkeys, etc. We also did another reserve farther down the beach road south, though I'm blanking on its name. Enjoyed that too. We were the only ones there. Had to even scare up someone on the property to take us through. We enjoyed just driving on the wide nicely paved road south from Dominical. Little traffic (in May) anyway. Of course a couple bridges were out, so that made for some interesting sightseeing in itself. We were so happy in Dominical that, when we heard bad reports about the road/bridges to Manuel Antonio after a few really rainy nights, we didn't even bother continuing on to MA.

ardie514

Thanks for the help. Shillmac, any idea how long that drive is? I'm guessing 5-6 hours. Thanks.

shillmac

That is correct. It can be done in 5 hours. The restaurant stop and a look at the crocs at the Rio Tarcoles Bridge might bump it up to 6. Highway 18 is a fairly new road and is usually in great shape.

ardie514

Thanks for the hotel tip Glover. I keep hearing great things about Pacific Edge. We'll have a car so maybe we don't HAVE to walk to the beach. We'll be surfing though, so it's always easier to just walk and not worry about loading up the car, but if Pacific Edge is half as wonderful as I keep hearing it may be worth it. How rainy was it in May? We'll be there late May or early June. We were in Playa Grande in Sept. and it only really rained in the afternoons. Considering it was the height of the green season we were very lucky with the weather.

glover

Ardie - when we were in Dominical last May (late May/early June), I believe it rained hard two of the four nights, and one of those nights it had actually started in the late afternoon. But, just as you always hear, we had no rain at all in am or early afternoon on any of our days.

lindadukess

We stayed at Roca Verde last summer and loved it. Very clean, lovely rooms and baths, beautiful private beach and good food. I don't think you coulf go wrong there.

dncee11

Hacienda Baru did not look like a great surf set-up to me, just a beach-break. Dominical works because of the river-mouth there. I have never checked out the north side of the river which is toward Baru - might be interesting! Good luck and have fun!