Costa Rica - part 4

Tamarindo is a small town on the west coast of the Nicoya Peninsula. The town is a little more touristy than we might have wanted, but it was charming enough. We had to decide on one beach town to visit, and our eventual decision was based largely on the accommodations we could find. Carrie was the most pro-beach of our group, and her criteria for accommodations were threefold: on the beach, ocean view, and with a pool. There was another unofficial criterion: it shouldn't break the bank.

It's currently high season, meaning availability is limited and prices are at their highest. What we ended up getting had a pool, but it didn't have an ocean view and it wasn't on the beach (but a mere two-minute walk to it). Our two-bedroom suite was part of a five-suite complex with small shared pool. It was a very nice place and we enjoyed our four days there.

R&I chilling in the pool:


The pool at night:


Tamarindo is quite a surfing town, and the water is great for that. We learned that for swimming or tanning, however, there are probably better locations out there. The surf was considerable, which can be fun to play in, especially if you like accumulating sand in your swimwear. But hanging out on the beach was less fun, since it was quite windy and sand was constantly being blown in our faces (and trying to steal our stuff). But we sucked it up and dutifully hit the beach every day since that's why we were there.


Watching the kids play in the water. (Occasionally gringo strangers would ask me to watch their stuff so they could go in the water; apparently being an extraordinarily pale foreigner makes me a reputable guardian. Interesting how the threat of theft is perceived by tourists.)


Riding the waves... the easy way.


Reuben did try the hard way (our hotel had boards we could borrow) but without paying outrageous prices for surfing lessons, he didn't get too far.


Local wildlife; howler monkeys I think.


As seen in the first photo in this post, I worked hard on my tan/burn, as I tend to do when forced to hang out in the sun. I tend to go easy on the sunscreen for the sake of colour. Not always the wisest strategy but the results are guaranteed (more on that later).

Since Tamarindo is but one of many beaches along the coast, and since we had our own wheels, we did a couple of day trips to other nearby beaches in the hopes of finding better conditions. One trip was to Playa Conchal, which was rumoured to be very nice. As we found with most beaches, it was fairly unpopulated (surprisingly) and not groomed. This is fine as it means things aren't over-commercialized. A minor problem with that, however, is having trouble finding beach chairs or umbrellas for day use.

At Playa Conchal, the Westin is the one major resort near the beach. On our search for beach chairs, we came across a pile for use by Westin customers only. But since money talks, we thought we'd ask to borrow/rent four chairs for the day. We asked the attendant and he said they don't rent chair but would for us (because we're special I guess). We asked how much. He in turn asked us what we wanted to pay. Then, to the horror of my great negotiating sensibilities (and I have next to none), Reuben says $20.

TWENTY BUCKS!!!

I imagine that's as much as the guy makes in a day standing around guarding chairs. Clearly floored by our amazing bartering skills, he swallowed his anticipated response (he was probably about to counter our initial offer with $5 of his own or something) and turned to his buddy, kinda confused. Then he recovered nicely and agreed to our offer with a warm handshake. We had our four chairs for the day. And he had a good chunk of his next month's rent. (I'm thinking now I shouldn't have had to pay half... hmmm.)

Anyway, the girls were happy they had chairs to lounge in, so that's all that matters, right?


Locals tend to be creative when finding employment, and one older fellow parks himself in a lawn chair at the beach and tries to be helpful to tourists by providing pamphlets, recommendations, and information in general. We met Teo there that day, and we chatted with him about our trip. He seemed to think we had nothing planned and tried to send all over the country to see the sites. Never once did he ask for money for his dubious services, and we rather appreciated his genuineness. I did give him a dollar for his efforts, as presumably this is how he tries to earn a living (and thankfully in a non-overbearing way).

We had brought a cooler to the beach with a few drinks in it, only to find that our beers weren't twist-off and we had no way to open them! Reuben took off with great purpose, and soon returned with Teo's keychain. (I think he paid him in beer.) Teo told us to keep the keychain for the day, trusting us not to run away with them. (I think we earned said trust earlier when, upon hearing we were from Canada, he gave Reuben and me big awkward hugs for living in the Canada where a couple of his grandkids are living.)


Playa (Spanish for "beach") Conchal turned out to be nicer than Tamarindo (and even less busy), but maybe just because it wasn't as windy, as well as the fact that we had lounging chairs.



Further down the beach there were opportunities to rent Sea-Doos, ATVs, horses and maybe other stuff. Instead of spending money on that, Reuben and I decided to drive on down the beach to see what there was to see. Beach access is via a path you drive along at the edge of the sand until you decide to stop wherever you want; we figured we'd explore by following that "road" further.


The narrow road soon hit a patch of beach where we had to drive through the sand to get to the path on the other side. We decided that a 50/50 chance of making it across was acceptable, and off we went.

We made it through without a problem and proceeded down to the end of the trail. It met with a road that led to real estate developments further down the coast. We thanked ourselves for not shelling out for a lame four-wheeler tour that would have taken us down the same roads we'd just driven. After exploring a bit and looking at real estate, we headed back.

Back at the sandy expanse, we figured we again would have no problem.


But partway through, the car did flounder a little. We probably should have taken a faster run at it. Oh well. Thanks to 4WD, and no thanks to our bald tires, we dug our way back to safety. As always, four-bying is funner than four-wheeling!

C'mon, you can do it, crappy car!


Back to the ladies, where we caught some more sun. At some point, we were visited by some monkeys overhead. These creatures didn't like ATVs; every time an ATV tour passed by on the path under their tree they would bark their displeasure. Quite amusing, and we quite agreed with their sentiment.


We also saw some nice iguanas, both at the beach and during our little drive down the beach. These are pretty big lizards and can moving surprisingly fast.



The one sad event of the day involved the mean ol' ocean. Reuben had borrowed a nice waterproof GoPro camera from a friend; it's the kind you strap on your forehead so you can take cool videos of whatever you're doing... skydiving, mountain biking, bungee jumping, ziplining, snorkelling... or just playing in the surf.


He was enjoying the latter activity when the tide ripped the camera harness off his head. This didn't particularly impress him, and we spent the next half hour sifting through the sand with our toes amidst the crashing waves. Only slightly amusing was the knowledge that the camera would be filming high-quality ocean floor video for the next four hours or so.

The following day we tried yet another beach, Playa Hermosa. On the way there we stopped by the supermarket to stock up on food. I stayed in the car since we had stuff in it we didn't want left unattended. As the other three went off into the store, smartypants Reuben decided to lock the car with the remote while I was in it. This of course locked me in the car lest I set off the alarm. A few minutes later Carrie came out to the car to get her wallet or something, and of course my opening the car door for her tripped the alarm. I very casually walked away while Carrie ran to get Reuben and the remote. Good times.

Looking around for somewhere decent to park for the day at Playa Hermosa, we found a resort that had beach chairs set up on the beach in front of it. The problem was that all the users seemed to be wearing those colourful resort bracelets, presumably authorizing them to use the chairs. Not being the type to ask for forgiveness later, I finally spotted a fellow who wasn't wearing a resort bracelet. I mustered up some false authority and said to him "Excuse me sir, I see you're not wearing a bracelet, ahem!" Fortunately he had a sense of humour, and we learned from him that using the beach chairs was fine, but we should maybe order a drink from the resort staff. And so we did.

Playa Hermosa was a nice beach, and as quiet as the rest. There are so many beaches around, and the ones you have to drive to are bound to be even less crowded than the rest.