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Checking Out the 'Whole Foods Hotel' of Costa Rica

Where: Nosara, Guanacaste, Costa Rica

Here's an instance where our experience of a hotel actually exceeded expectations set by the heavily photoshopped images on its website. We recently spent a couple nights at the Harmony Hotel on Playa Guineas in Nosara Costa Rica, and in our humble opinion, the reality was actually better than the hype. Check out the above photo, with an insert from the Harmony website in the top left corner

Check in / Check out: After a bumpy ride from Tamarindo to Nosara, we were excited to be greeted by smiling faces handing us some sort of tasty refreshing green-colored fruit juice. And at check in, the mood immediately changed from anxious to relaxed, while we sat in the open air lobby enjoying the free wifi and gazing out over the attached pool area. We could have cared less when we were told that our room wouldn't be ready for another hour.

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Seek Out Cute Surfer People at The Harmony Hotel

Where: Nosara, Costa Rica, 5233

Nosara is located in Costa Rica’s North Pacific province of Guanacaste, about 160 miles west of San Jose, best reached via a short flight on Nature Air, followed by a short taxi ride. The village is a surfer’s paradise and The Harmony Hotel has one of the area’s best stretches of beach and surf breaks just outside its back door. Playa Guione’s is a near 4-mile swath of white sandy beach with year-round waves and long left and right beach breaks.

Since we hadn’t been on a surfboard in ages, we asked the staff where we should go for a refresher, since it seemed like surfing savviness was a job requisite at Harmony (as well as super buff arms, flat abs, and the boyish good looks of the Jonas Brothers). For surfboard rentals, we were directed to Nosara Surf Shop, a short walk from the hotel.

But for instruction, we were sent to innocent surf school. There, we were outfitted by Brit-owners, Ru Hill and his Kate Moss look-alike wife, Gem Yates. There are four levels of instructor status within the British Surfing Association (BSA), with only 20 Level 4 Surf Coach Award instructors in the world – Ru is one of them.

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