It’s been a couple of years since Sofie and I took a holiday without friends or family—seven years since we took a beach holiday—so you can imagine how sweet it was to spend one week in the village of Montezuma, Costa Rica (pop. 500, plus tourists). As you can see, it’s not such a big place.
Since we never had a chance to take a honeymoon when we were married in 2003 (a story for another time) and since our anniversary was February 26, we decided to splurge on the Ylang Ylang Beach Resort. Ylang Ylang is a ten minute walk along the beach from Montezuma, set among tropical gardens about a hundred feet from the Pacific Ocean. This is by far the largest building on the complex, a bar/restaurant with a yoga studio/library upstairs.
Ylang Ylang sleeps a total of about forty people in a range of accommodation from large, fancy tents (called jungalows) to simplex and duplex apartments. We stayed in the most remote simplex apartment (Dome 6) set in the jungle about two minutes from the beach. Our balcony caught the sun every morning and almost every afternoon we would head down to a couple of large hammocks by the sea.
Ylang Ylang offers what you might call jungle luxury. The dome’s shuttered doors and window are open to the elements. There is no air conditioning, just a fan above the bed. The dome-shaped apartment magnifies every sound in the jungle—birds, monkeys, cicadas. While we were in Montezuma the sea was unusually rough with waves, eight to ten feet tall at times, pounding the shore day and night. Some nights it sounded as though D-Day was being reenacted on the balcony outside. A troop of about fifteen capuchin monkeys, who slept in a tree nearby, woke us every morning at daybreak (5.45 am) as they grabbed a noisy breakfast and headed out for the day. (When we returned to New York I could not believe how quiet it is—in this corner of Brooklyn at least.) The beds are hard but comfortable. Inexplicably, there is no bathroom door.
Breakfasts and lunches are served by the ocean. Dinners are candlelit under the stars. Sofie took yoga classes in the shaded open air studio facing the ocean almost every morning and we went for a few walks along the beach and into Montezuma. But with the exception of a half-day trip to a nearby nature reserve, we did very little other than sleep, eat and read. It really was bliss and I would highly recommend Costa Rica, and Ylang Ylang in particular, to anyone who fancies a semi-adventurous, romantic week the sea.
Next: Monkeying Around Montezuma
Related:
Montezuma Tourist Information (Nicoyapeninsula.com)
Ylang Ylang Beach Resort
The View From My Hammock (EiNY)
Nice, Mr B. And nature does seem to be very loud - everyone I know who has safaried (is that a word) or travelled to the jungle has said that it is a kind of incessant dull roar punctuated by blood-curdling screams. Much like Dalston, I would imagine.
Welcome back, Mr. B. (Is that what we’re calling you now?) Hope you enjoyed the (I’m sure) well-earned break.
Liukchik, to make myself seem like a seasoned traveller, which I’m not, may I say that when I wandered through a jungly bit of national park on a Thai island called Ko Tarutao, it was deafening (and a bit scary as there were jollily painted signs saying encouraging things like, “Look out for the king cobras!” and “Look out for the pythons!”).