Alright....so the story I left you wanting to hear. We got to Tamarindo at dark, so we were happy to have help finding a place to stay. A guy on the street showed us this hostel, we checked it out and for $8 a night in expensive gringolandia the place looked alright. We put our stuff down, made friends with our roommates for the night and then headed off for dinner. We came back and hung out with the manager, Diego in the patio area upstairs. We are all having a great time and Diego is showing off his homemade surfboard [View Full Entry]

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We left Liberia to get to Playa Tamarindo early on Friday Oct. 30. We arrived by bus and settled in at La Bottella de Leche (The Milk Bottle) Hostel, a cow-themed establishment. Friendly and chaotic it was packed to the brim that weekend for reasons that had nothing to do with the wildlife or surf. More on that later. Our guidebooks warned us that Playa Tamarindo was overdeveloped and commericalized. Well, it was a bit odd in that none of the roads were paved, but there were several tall, luxury hotels, bars, and pricey restaurants. Still, the beach was very beautiful. [View Full Entry]

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My first day in Costa Rica was spent wandering around San Jose, changing money, eating Quiznos, and silently laughing to myself at how excited T-Bag gets when he talks Spanish to other people. We caught a bus out of San Jose on Wednesday, and rode six hours to the beach town of Tamarindo. People like to party here, but not in the methods that Taylor and I are used to. The closest we could find was this dude named Andre who suggested we get three bottle of rum and take it to the bars with us. We are staying at a [View Full Entry]

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We had been in Costa Rica for almost a week, with everyday filled with some sort of activity, adventure, or random act of stupidity. Steve had left town early on Thursday morning, and I believe this is really when our trip came to an end. Being that we were in Costa Rica in September, we had just hit the beginning of the rainy season. We already got soaked on the atvs the previous day, and the rain just did not stop. All day Thursday, it was nothing but terrential downpour. We couldn't go in the pool or ocean, or even lay [View Full Entry]

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Well we HAD to take a little detour and go to Costa Rica, mostly because my parents MADE me spend some family time with them. GOSH. I hope you can sense the sarcasm in my writing because we were stoked to head off to Costa Rica and spend some time in ‘The Good Life.” There is just so much to talk about, especially since we ended up staying for 10 days, therefore I’m going to give you the main highlights. We left the airport from Miami around 6 a.m. and arrived in Houston for our layover. I had a message on [View Full Entry]

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Claiming that he only had so many vacation days to take in September, our boy Steve had to leave Costa Rica a couple of days earlier than the rest of us. Given the experience we had at Carlos' restaurant the night before, we decided we would try to step it up a bit to give Steve a proper departure. This way the day we went on the atvs, so before we went to dinner, we went into town to pick up a few gifts and have a couple of drinks. This is when I discovered Rock Ice, the Costa Rican knock [View Full Entry]

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One of the things that I enjoy most about traveling is the chance to interact with locals of where ever I am. Most of the time, you will get the inside scoop on a place, and in the end, make a new friend. Another one of my pleasures of traveling is trying out local restaurants, rather than eating in a hotel or at a chain place I could have anytime in the states. When these two forces combine into one in the town of Tamarindo on the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica, the outcome was by far one of the most [View Full Entry]

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We spend the rest of the week going surfing and lounging around the hotel. This truly is a vacation even for me. And yes I needed a vacation from traveling. It's been a while since I last surfed and I'm not very good at controlling the surf board. It's a good thing the beach is not very crowded or I would probably hit someone if they were in the water in front of me. Kitt (Adam's brother) comes down from Nicaragua to go surfing with us. He's a much better surfer than we are. I guess surfing for 6 years makes [View Full Entry]

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Another beautiful morning in Costa Rica. We eat breakfast before checking out the beach next to the hotel. It's very hot so we all decide to take a dip in the swimming pool (water is actually colder than the ocean) and then head to Tamarindo. For lunch, we end up eating in a Soda shop again. The food is good and well priced for the portion size you receive. We explore the town a bit and find a surf shop where Jayne, Adam and I book a surf lesson for the next day. We explore the town a bit more before [View Full Entry]

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We head out to Guanacaste. It's a very hot day, but we have air conditioning, so, we are golden. It takes us a good part of the day to drive to the JW Marriott. We stop at a Soda shop for lunch. I order a whole fish and actually finish it. I must have been more hungry than I thought. The food's good, but more expensive than Peru and Ecuador. The one redeeming thing is you can pay in USD or Colones (local currency). We eventually make it to the Marr [View Full Entry]

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