WHETHER visitors are looking to get away from it all or do it all, Hotel La Finisterra at Playa Hermosa, in the northwestern province of Guancaste, can accommodate everyone.

With a small library, hammocks, breezy patio and numerous chairs around the pool for lounging, guests may find it hard to do anything but laze under the Guanacasteco sun.

However, for those interested in getting out and about, owner Sheila Hawke points out that the hotel is close to pretty much anything visitors may want to do. Ideal spots for sailing, surfing, fishing and more are all within a half-hour drive. Playa Hermosa, which has the Blue Flag certification for cleanliness and environmental standards, is just a short walk down the hill.

The hotel’s Web site links to a variety of tours and activities that Hawke often books for guests. She says making sure guests have an enjoyable stay is her top priority.

She estimates that she corresponds by email four to five times with each guest regarding what to do, see and bring.

“WHEN you’re small, you can really give people personalized service,” says Hawke. “People who come here really feel like we’re here to answer their questions and help them.”

La Finisterra is run by Hawke and her husband, George McGolrick. Originally from Vancouver, Canada, the couple fell in love with Costa Rica after coming on vacation. Seeing the opportunity to start their own hotel in Guanacaste, the couple, with their daughter Kelly, now 19, moved to Playa Hermosa, opening La Finisterra in 1998.

Perched high on a hilltop overlooking the sailboats anchored in the bay at Playa Hermosa, La Finisterra also offers guests breathtaking views and a breeze welcome in the area’s heat.

On the hotel’s lower level, classical, jazz and lounge music wafts from speakers around the rust-colored restaurant and patio. A number of indigenous-influenced stone sculptures by local artists dot the area.

UPSTAIRS, lining an open hallway, are La Finisterra’s 10 guest accommodations. The butter-colored rooms are spacious and well furnished, including a queen-size bed or two double beds, table and chairs, nightstand, bureau and armoire. Each room has a picture window that can be opened for a breeze and to better appreciate the panoramic views. Ceiling fans are also standard. While rooms do not have television or a telephone, the front desk phone is available to use and a cable television available is on the patio.

The Bistro, La Finisterra’s open-air restaurant and bar, is also a draw and generates a good deal of outside business as well. On a recent Saturday afternoon, half a dozen area residents stopped in to have a drink and catch up.

THE menu is influenced by several types of cuisine and changes regularly. Lunches tend to be lighter sandwich-andsalad fare. Dinners are more substantial. Greek salad, Thai curry and jumbo shrimp in garlic sauce are just a sampling of dishes.

The Bistro also features nightly pasta, entrée and seafood specials prepared by the hotel’s French chef, Jose Henry.

To Hawke, making sure customers get exactly what they want is important.

“There is nothing worse than going to a restaurant and ordering and being told, ‘Oh, we’re out of that,’” she says. “Here, if it’s on the menu, we have it.”

Being able to guarantee little things like that is just one of the many things Hawke feels is important and what makes running a quality business rewarding for her.

“It’s really gratifying when you can make people happy,” she says. The cost per night with taxes for two people during the high season is $70 and includes breakfast. For more information on Hotel La Finisterra, call 672-0293 or visit the updated Web site, www.finisterra. net.

GETTING THERE:

By Car: Take the

to Liberia. In Liberia, turn left at the main intersection. Continue to Colonidad. Turn right, following the sign to Playa Hermosa/Playas del Coco. Continue on 17 kilometers. When the road divides, go right 6 km to Playa Hermosa. Turn left at the first entrance into Playa Hermosa. Go straight 800 meters and then follow the signs to Hotel La Finisterra. Driving time from San José is four hours.

By Plane: Delta, Continental and American fly into DanielObuderInternationalAirport in Liberia. Natureair (220-3054) and SANSA (221-9414) have regular flights from San José to Liberia. A taxi from the airport costs about $30. La Finisterra also offers shuttle service from the airport.

By Bus: Take the bus to Playas del Coco leaving from the Pulmitan bus station, Calle 24 between Av. 1/3. Buses leave at 8 a.m., 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. and cost ¢2,060 ($4.90.) From Playas del Coco, take a taxi to La Finisterra, which costs around $5.

PAULA Crabtree, an expert in flower remedies, will host a series of workshops on the healing power of Bach system remedies.

The Bach system is considered the original flower remedy method and consists of 38 remedies to heal the emotions.

Flower remedies fall under vibrational medicine, which operates on the principal of using energy to cure.

“Once your emotions are out of harmony, as a result of inner or external conflict, you can become sick,” says Crabtree.

Often before a person gets sick there’s an attitude change, she says. Flower remedies are said to heal these emotional disturbances before they progress to a level where the body becomes sick.

Remedies are taken in drops and, according to Crabtree, changes are usually seen within two weeks. However, in severe cases, results may be almost instantaneous, she adds. People have turned to flower remedies to help treat stress, anger, intolerance and a variety of other emotions.

CRABTREE’S workshops will take place in the Central Valley and consist of two levels. The first, March 27-28, will deal with the fundamentals of the 38 states. The second, April 3-4, will focus on the more subtle differences in emotional states.

Participants must attend the first level to take part in the second. The workshops will be held in Spanish, but Crabtree says she can make an effort to work with attendees who have a fair grasp of Spanish but may need some help.

For more info call 816-8273 or 817-4082.

“IN Search of Captain Zero,” a surfer’s memoir, is a string of painstakingly described waves from Baja, Mexico to Pavones, Costa Rica, knotted with flashbacks to ill-fated marijuana smuggling jaunts in the Atlantic.

Author Allan Weisbecker’s search for a vanished friend is the switchboard where memories and the momentum southward of his journey are plugged in. He follows hunches and tips from grizzled ex-pat surfers, drug barons, permanent vacationers and a brothel entrepreneur to Costa Rica, tracking the buddy who sent him a puzzling last note signed Capitán Cero (TT, Nov. .21, 2003).

This book is mentioned in Mike Parise’s “Surfer’s Guide to Costa Rica” as one of the books to pack, and there is a surf-guru mystique to Weisbecker’s portrayal of wave riding.

THE book is studded with accounts of surfing’s details – the technicalities of stance and board length, the pitfalls that snag novices and those rare monstrous waves that bang up even the pros. There is the etiquette of the line-up in the water before the waves swell beneath the boards, the art of selection and timing, and the sublime ecstasy at the tip of a long board hurtling ahead of a foamy wall of water closing out behind.

Road-travel chapters end with secondperson commentary from inside the driver’s head.

The flashbacks toss readers onto boats crammed with Colombian weed screaming toward the expectant New York coast and the pipes and lungs of a 1970s nation trying anything to relax. The eyes of Weisbecker and his pal sparkle with dollar signs, and the dream of plopping down on an island and surfing is lured away by wads of cash from the drug trade.

The search seems at first a writerly artifice to embellish a travel journal and autobiography with a plot. But later, the story of the missing Captain becomes a sideline to the real tale, of a man both grappling with his past and reveling in it, whose loneliness is both self-inflicted and unwanted, a natural side-effect of his obsession with surfing “Big Blue.”

THOUGHTFUL and tinged with the paranoia of a single traveler (not to mention recovered trafficker) on Mexican and Central American highways, this story is propelled by well-wrought descriptive passages (keep a dictionary handy) and thrilling surf adventures anchored by the melancholic self-examination of a man who is always leaving someone.

Allan Weisbecker lives in the backwater surfer’s magnet Pavones, on the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica’s Southern Zone. See his Web site www.aweisbecker. com.

“In Search for Captain Zero” is available at 7th Street Books (256-8251) or by order at Librería Nacional (253-9553).

PLAYA HERMOSA— With a flurry of renovations in recent months, Hotel Condovac La Costa held a reinauguration ceremony March 5. After a ribbon-cutting ceremony, music played and fireworks were set off, marking what hotel management say is just the beginning of an extensive modernization project.

“The evolution begins today,” manager Jorge Obando told the press. Several additions and improvements have already been made. A new outdoor restaurant with a patio offers an amazing view overlooking Playa Hermosa.

The new pool, with a cascading waterfall and an area specifically for children that includes a mushroom-shaped fountain, offers families an alternative spot for lounging. Air conditioning in every villa and more vehicles to carry guests around the hotel have been added to improve guests’ comfort.

Located on Playa Hermosa, Guancaste, the hotel has 107 villas available as standard hotel rooms or as part of a timeshare.

All villas have a bedroom, bathroom and fully equipped kitchen with dining area. Officially opened in 1980, Condovac is the oldest timeshare in Costa Rica.

Throughout the years, the hotel has undergone constant change, but this marks the undertaking of a major renovation project in an effort to bring the hotel more up to date.

ACCORDING to Obando, promoting the hotel as a safe and tranquil location with a family atmosphere will remain Condovac’s top priority. He says recent and future improvements will better the experience for all visitors.

As a result of the Papagayo Development Project, Obando says the hotel will also be making an effort to update and progress as the region develops.

For more info, call 672-0154 or see www.condovac.com.

LINCOLN School’s ninth annual International Baccalaureate Art Exhibition will be held at Sophia Wanamaker Gallery of the Costa Rican-North American Cultural Center in the eastern San José neighborhood of Los Yoses April 21–23.

The exhibition is a culmination of two years of work by the IB art students, and will offer a variety of work, from painting and sculpture to photography and digital art.

The six IB art seniors participating in this year’s exhibition are: Marielena Carballo, Alberto Elizondo, Daniela Jiménez, Nichole Koberg, Diana Revelo and Adriana Serrano. The teens completed their works with the guidance of teacher Richard Dewey.

For more info on the exhibit, call the gallery at 207-6567.

OFFERING food and entertainment from Canada, Chile and nearly every country in between, the International Food Festival will take place April 17 in Coronado.

The festival is put on by the International Association of Women of the Inter-American Institute of Agricultural Sciences as a fundraiser for its social projects.

This year’s main focus is funding a medical center for a group of indigenous people in the Southern Caribbean region of Talamanca. The organization also works to help schools, hospitals and native groups.

“It’s an all-day event,” says Helena Condines, president of the organization. “But you obviously can’t just eat all day, which is why we have lots of great entertainment as well.”

CONDINES stresses that the event has something to offer everyone, from every type of food you can find in the Americas to entertainment for children and adults, including a magic show, dance performances and live music. There will also be a car exhibition, craft fair and book sale.

The festival will run from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Inter-American Institute of Agricultural Sciences. Admission for adults is ¢300 ($0.70), children under 12 ¢100 ($0.25).

For more information, call 224-8525 (English) or 288-1330 (Spanish).

DOZENS and dozens of dogs, along with dog owners and admirers, met to enjoy the seventh annual canine festival sponsored by the National Association for the Protection of Animals (ANPA), held March 7 at RooseveltPlaza in the eastern suburb of San Pedro.

Dogs ranged from a miniature poodle pup that fit in the palm of a hand to a huge honey-colored English Mastiff named Pavarotti. Some dogs could trace their lineage; others were a little of this and a little of that. And they were all beautiful and the pride of their owners.

Activities began with a demonstration of training and obedience by the A Team, a group of dogs – all types – and owners who meet weekly for exercises. Veterinarian trainer Dr. Marí Carmen Marín gave the commands and put the dogs through their paces, explaining that even older dogs can learn new tricks, although it was obvious that one or two thought they were the class clowns.

IN another area, Don Fr ancisco and his black Labrador did acrobatics and tricks, and a fly ball competition showed who were the champions at running down a chute full of obstacles to retrieve tennis balls. Talent contests showed how dogs can count and bark up to 10 and do sideways somersaults. The dog-owner look-alike contest was mostly a fashion show with dogs and owners in matching outfits, although one women got down on her hands and knees and woofed with her dog.

They won.

The human crowd enjoyed booths with doggy duds, grooming products, dog furniture and houses and a grand cachi vachi with rummage for everyone. Aminiclinic offered vaccinations and many dogs lined up for a shot at them. A cafeteria run by volunteers included a vegetarian section for those who love animals too much to eat them.

The most popular activity of the day was the kennel with dogs from ANPA’s shelter and Casa de Adopciones. About 40 went to real homes and families. Some dogs had been abandoned and others had been at the shelter for years. Only genuine dog-loving and caring people were allowed to fill out the questionnaires and select a pet.

ANPA’S aim is to promote adoptions of mixed breeds, population control and respect for animals. It offers spaying clinics around Costa Rica and publishes Guaus y Miaus, a magazine with photos and articles on pets.

For more info on these services or volunteer programs call 255-3757.

ALTHOUGH Queen Elizabeth II will likely be celebrating her birthday somewhere in England, British citizens in Costa Rica will have the opportunity to join in the fun at the Queen’s Birthday Party Fundraiser being held by the British Embassy.

A tribute to the queen’s 78th birthday, the event will raise money to benefit Costa Rican schools. Last year’s event raised more than $9,000, which was used to build basic facilities for three rural schools. Organizers hope that this year’s party will be even more successful.

The event will take place in Escazú, west of San José, at the residence of British Ambassador Georgina Butler on April 17 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

The celebration hopes to bring together citizens of Great Britain and BritishCommonwealths as well as their families, friends and anyone else in Costa Rica who has an interest in attending.

FROM pony rides, storytelling and face painting for children to a silent auction and classic British cars on display, the festivities will include something for every age. Live music as well as Scottish and Maypole dancing will take place throughout the day. Tea and scones, homemade jams and chutneys, strawberries and cream, along with food provided by local restaurants will be available at the party.

John Bryant of the Instituto Británico says organizers didn’t want to make any big changes this year as last year’s party was such a success. The event has, however, been extended by one hour.

Entrance fee for adults is ¢2,000 ($4.75), children 5–12 ¢1,000 ($2.35), children under 5 are free. Admission includes ¢500 worth of tokens for food and activities with more tokens available for purchase.

The British Ambassador’s residence is in Escazú, from the old road to Santa Ana, from the AyA, go 300 meters west and 75 m north. In case of rain, there is a large covered area. For more info, contact the British Embassy at 258-2025.