We flew into Liberia, Costa Rica after taking a flight from Northern California, to Southern California, then So Cal to Miami, and finally from Florida to Costa Rica. Airline mile flights can get a little crazy. We did feel like jet setters though. We had dinner in L.A., breakfast in Miami and lunch in Costa Rica. We both sleep fairly well on planes, so it really wasn’t as bad as it sounds. Although looking at this first photo of us, we do look a little fatigued.
- Tamarindo Beach had lots of surfers in what appeared to be a beginning surf. We aren’t surfers, but we did boogie board and body surf a lot.
Beautiful sunset beach. Nice and flat for walking too.
We enjoyed watching the families. The beach appeared to be quite popular with Costa Ricans too.
We stayed at a small place called Hotel Flores. It was quiet, cozy and quaint with a nice breakfast on a lovely second story balcony. Under a full moon we captured this lovely shot of the pool and courtyard.
Here is a shot of Tamarindo main street at night. Tamarindo itself has the nickname of ‘Tamagringo’ and there were a lot of us tourists and expats living there. But it also felt very safe and clean and had many restaurants to choose from as well as all kinds of vendors on the beach. Which is nice sometimes. You want an ice cream, here comes the man with ice cream. Or how about a pipa fria (cold baby coconut with straw shoved in it), or maybe you would want to try the Costa Ricans favorite beach desert, granizado. This yummy treat is a mix of shaved ice, flavored syrup and a mix of powdered milk and condensed milk. (Thinking about this treat makes me realize why I gained almost 10 lbs in 2 weeks!)
This photo was taken at Playa Conchal, or Shell Beach in English. The whole surface of the beach was small white shells. This is a great place to snorkel at low tide, we got there when the tide was coming in, so we had fun playing in the surge with this large group of people who seemed related and having a ‘familia’ day at the beach. They didn’t seem to mind us gringos too much and we shared a lot of laughs.
Brasilito is the closest town to Playa Conchal. It is quite small and colorful.
This area of Costa Rica is in the Guanacaste region. We visited in February which is their dry season. We have visited other areas of Costa Rica and we were quite surprised by how dry and barren this area was. We did get to see some lovely trees in bloom though.
We didn’t see much of a town by Playa Flamingo (this photo) but there were a lot of condos and rental units available, as well as a lovely beach.
While in Tamarindo we visited a restaurant called Nibbana at sunset quite a bit. It is classified as a French Latino restaurant and it was really nice. Well, one of our waiters, Ivan, invited us to join him for a full moon horse ride. The price was right, so we joined him. It was especially fun because a couple of the band members from the Pneumas Proyecta, came as well. We had really enjoyed their performances at Nibbana, so it was a special treat to get to hang out with them all night. The one downside of the ride was they gave us beers before we mounted up and many of us really needed to take a pit stop along the way. It was pretty funny in retrospect. If you happen to be in Tamarindo near a full moon, look up Ivan and join his family for a very authentic evening of riding, music and food. I think the price might even be negotiable. As one vendor told me, everything is negotiable.