Tamarindo

Day 35 (August 2, 2018) – Tamarindo, Costa Rica

My alarm went off at three in the morning. On purpose. The beginning of a long travel day, we started off catching the 4:20 AM bus from Monteverde to La Irma, which is basically just a gas station, where we caught the next bus to Liberia, where we caught the bus after that to Tamarindo. The last bus was my least favorite, being a local bus that pulled off the main highway to stop in every one of the little towns between Liberia and Tamarindo, but we made it into Tamarindo at around 10 AM. The whole trip was downhill from the mountains and to the ocean where it was dramatically hotter and more humid than where we had come from.

Sunrise as we descended from Monteverde by bus.

Tamarindo is a highly touristed beach town on Costa Rica’s Pacific coast and our first beach stop on our trip. I was pretty excited for these five days. We had nothing to do but relax and enjoy the beach. This was the first time on the trip that we didn’t feel like we had to run around and see all the sights. This was also our first time staying in a hostel and, unfortunately, our first encounter with prohibitively expensive prices.

Finally! A beach day!

We booked a room at the Pura Vida Mini Hostel simply because for the same amount of money we had been spending elsewhere to get an entire apartment, in Tamarindo, this was only sufficient to get a private room in a hostel. It was actually a really good experience. In part because the place was practically empty (it’s low season and rained almost every day late in the afternoon), so we essentially had the place to ourselves. I would stay there again, but we were wondering what it would have been like had it been high season and it wasn’t just Travis and me, but all 12-16 people who could have been occupying the private rooms, sharing the one hot shower available.

Hanging out at the hostel and avoiding the afternoon rains. 

We found some really fantastic places to eat in Tamarindo. Most overly touristy places turn us off, and unfortunately Tamarindo is sort of in that category, but one benefit is that they usually have exceptionally good restaurants. I think had we come right from the US we would have thought the prices were a bargain. After all, we did find $2 draft beers with tables right on the beach at Nogui’s Restaurant, but after coming from Guatemala we were having a bit of sticker shock. We adapted and only went out for one big meal a day. But if we ever make it back we need to revisit Falafel Bar and two surprisingly good burger joints: Surf Shack and Bar Jolly Roger. Not exactly Costa Rican cuisine, but that's hard to find in Tamarindo.

Playa Tamarindo, with a few rain showers off in the distance.

Otherwise, we spent a lot of time on the beach, caught up on the blog, connected to a few folks back at home, practiced Spanish, and I even managed to finish the book I had started reading back in Monteverde. No complaints with any of that. The rain didn't even slow us down. 

Sunset after a heavy afternoon rainstorm.