Costa Rica, Post 3 - Montezuma

After Arenal Volcano we went to Montezuma Beach. When we got there I was feeling pretty sick, so we picked a place we had looked at online, Los Mangos. Again small cute little cabins, but there was no A/C. Also, these were REALLY small. The first night I took a bunch of Tylenol and zicam and just passed out for like 16 hours. Poor Jeremy had to go into town and eat alone. The next day I was feeling better, so we took a boat tour to Tortuga Island. The boat trip was nice, and the snorkeling was okay, but the water was pretty murky so it was hard to see. Also, if you go snorkeling in costa rica, just realize that there are no coral reefs in costa rica. You'll see lots of fish, but no beautiful bright colors. Also, we were dismayed to find that the hiking on Tortuga Island was closed and you had to pay a dollar to use the bathrooms. So the tour was okay, but I wouldn't really recommend it. Basically it's a boat ride and a nice beach, oh and lunch, which was pretty good. After that we decided we NEEDED a/c (and maybe a cleaner more spacious place), so we left Los Mangos a day early and headed to Amor de Mar. If I wasn't so sick, we would have looked at this place more closely the first day, but man were we glad to be here now. It was beautiful! The room we decided on had a/c and was bigger than the cabin and was cheaper! Plus they had a beautiful garden, lots of hammocks, and a tide pool in the ocean. And... it didn't smell like rotting mangoes. Los Mangos had plenty of monkeys, which were fun to watch, but the monkeys throw down mangoes and the mangoes rot since there are no grounds keepers to pick them up (or maybe just bad ones). Either way we were glad to be at Amor de Mar with a/c, this place really livened up our perspective of Montezuma. That night we ate at this wonderful place called Ylang Ylang. You have to walk to the beach to get there (beautiful walk no cars allowed), and it was by far our best meal of the trip. The next day we hiked to the waterfalls. Right away we met this local hanging out a little way up the trail. He had been there guiding some folks earlier and nicely showed us to the first waterfall. Even though the internet calls it a trail, that trail disappears quickly. We were so happy that we hired him to show us the other waterfalls. It was the best/cheapest tour ever. And totally random. Plus he took lots of great pictures for us and showed us where it was deep enough to jump in. While the water in the falls was clean, it was brown looking. This is because it had just rained and only clears up when the rain has stopped for a few days. Besides the waterfalls, we just hung out for the rest of the day and lounged. We also ate at this great little place Palmatis (again, someone's deck on their house, but what great homemade food).