Blogs from Tamarindo, Guanacaste, Costa Rica, Central America Caribbean - page 5

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 Marriott after getting lost twice. That's not bad. The Marriott is on the beach. It has it's own pool, jacuzzi, hot tub, gym, and spa. Our room is very nice. It has two double beds--wonder who I'm sleeping with?--a big screen LCD TV, and air conditioning ... read more

"THIS F**KING SUCKS!!!" Ah yes, the infamous words that were screamed from a catamaran lavatory on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica one fine Tuesday afternoon. But how would a harmless boat ride get to this point you ask?...... After a day of relaxing at our hotel, we decided it was time to do a "beach activity". Fortunately for us, there was an activities booth set up near the main reception which we decided to investigate further. One tour operator offered an all day boat cruise which included snorkeling, sea kayaking, and most importantly, beer. For about $60 dollars, this sounded like a pretty good plan. We payed up and a van picked us up and took us to the beach where our catamaran was docked. We took a short dingy ride out to the catamarn ... read more

After a couple of days in La Fortuna, it became obvious that the volcano was not going to show itself, so I decided to head for the beach. I hadn´t heard many good things about Tamarindo but it is a beach, and it is (roughly) on the way to Nicaragua, so I decided to head there for a couple of days and try to do some surfing. I arrived in Tamarindo after a 6.5 hour bus ride, exhausted and hot. I was wearing jeans and sneakers, and of course a huge black backpack. To say I stood out at this beach town was an understatement. I was standing on the side of the main street, looking confused, when I heard a voice from beside me, in accented english... "why don´t you come inside, take off your ... read more

Hola! Pura Vida, Costa Rica! Pieces of advice: avoid rainy season - (it rains practically every single day), avoid buying anywhere in Tamarindo (better go to the supermarket with Buddha statues - we think it's called Auto Mercado or something like that- right before entering Tamarindo) , bring lots of sunblock and insect repellent, bring your camera everywhere, and DO NOT miss surfing (or surf lessons), ziplining (or canopy tour), and Palo Verde national park tour (if you are into crocs, monkeys, grasshoppers, iguanas, and egrets). Best time to go- December to April. Good places to eat: Portofino - inexpensive, good pizza, if you do not mind monoblock chairs. Our favorite so far is one that we call "Mama's place" but we do not know its real name, for some reason we just started calling it ... read more

Well.... this is it... the last blog. The rain has started to pour down here in Tamarindo (aka Tamagringo).... so no better time than now to duck in here and sign off. Hard to believe that our 35 day escape is about to come to an end!! It has been a while since my last blog (and i have received a few complaints... so my apologies). When I last blogged we were in Granda, Nicaragua and enjoying our four nights there. We hiked volcanos, enjoyed boat trips on the lake, watched the parade, took a carriage ride around the town... and relaxed. Probably the best time was the evening visit we made to Masaya Volcano. Wow... that was so cool. You arrive at the crater rim to see all this smoke fuming out of the center ... read more