Tamarindo: Days 1- 3

What did we do?

Day 1: We touched down in Liberia after a 6.5 hour overnight flight from Calgary, breezed through immigration, visited the ATM in the terminal to get Colones, and exited the airport to our awaiting transportation: it is a beautiful thing to see your name printed on a sign in the hands of a welcoming taxi driver.

After stopping for a desperately needed coffee, we arrived in Tamarindo at 8:00 am to hot, cloudless blue skies and a stiff sea breeze. Coming from a cold Vancouver winter it was perfection.

We spent our first day slathering on sun screen, walking on the beach, playing in the waves, and just feeling amazingly happy under the vivid blue skies. Tamarindo is a great walking beach, wide and flat, and especially at low tide, hard packed sand.

From the verandah at Villa Amarilla

Day 2: Luke took a 2 hour surf lesson that was organized through Villa Amarilla ($40). Kevin was an excellent teacher and the price included all day use of the surfboard. Late in the afternoon we walked down the beach to the estuary and took a boat across to the other side ($2 per person each way), and had a long walk along Playa Grande. The beach was nearly deserted. I don't know if this is always the case, but the boats stopped running at 4:00 pm that day, and our boat driver warned us to make sure we returned before that time to get the boat back to the Tamarindo side.

Day 3: Luke took another 2-hour surf lesson, and we spent the day hanging out on the beach and walking. In the afternoon we took a 15 minute public bus ride just south of Tamarindo to Playa Langosta. The surf here is too rough for swimming, but you can walk on the beach and dip in water at the estuary. It was fun to swim upstream in the river's gentle current, I kept stroking but stayed in the same spot.

The estuary at Playa Langosta

Where did we stay?

We spent 3 nights at Villa Amarilla in one of the upstairs rooms with a shared veranda. This is definitely not an upscale place, having more of a laid back surfer vibe, and frankly could use a little updating in the common areas. I sometimes looked longingly at the Tamarindo Diria next door until I remembered that a sea view room there would have cost around $400. At $146 per night the price was right at Villa Amarilla, the rooms were very clean, the beds were comfortable, it had excellent AC, the owners were helpful and friendly and it has a fabulous location right on the beach. They also served the best coffee we had in all of Costa Rica.

Where did we eat?

Villa Amarilla provides coffee, fruit, and an assortment of muffins and banana bread for breakfast. They also have a shared kitchen so we cooked some scrambled eggs as well.

Lunches: Monday-Saturday there are a few vans set up on Calle Central selling typical home-cooked Costa Rican food out of the back of their cars. This is obviously not legal as the vendors were nervously looking around for police, and at one point briefly shut down as a police car drove by, but there was a line of locals purchasing food, it was delicious, and the price was right($4 for a whole lunch).  The jalapeno chicken dished out by one of the vendors was the best chicken dish I ate on the whole trip.

Dinners: We had good hamburgers at the Surf Shack (dinner for 3 $45), tasty tacos at Little Lucha ($3 per taco), and a decent meal at Wild Panda (about $40).

Other info/comments?

It was Spring Break and Tamarindo town was packed with tourists, however the beach is so huge that it never felt crowded. We also felt quite safe in Tamarindo, even walking around town in the evening when it was dark. The smell of pot smoke is everywhere, but hey, we are from Vancouver and so it just seemed normal to us. I guess we look too old as no one ever approached us to buy drugs; there are some benefits to being on the upper end of middle-age.

Next: Days 4-5 Bijagua/Tenorio National Park