Playa Tamarindo

I just returned for a short vacation to the beach!! Kari and I left Wed afternoon for Playa Tamarindo (on the northwestern border). After a 6 to 6 1/2 hour bus ride (we had great seats in the front of the bus), we finally made it. We couldn't find the hostel we made reservations at, so we stayed a different hostel for the first night. We shared a room with 2 girls from California. Our first night, the only thing we did was sleep... Since this hostel was a little out of the budget we set for ourselves, we decided to look for a different on the next day.

(Pictures from the bus trip to the beach)

After securing a room for us in the next hostel (only $10 a night), we went in search of an ATM...you wouldn't think that would be very hard in a very tourist town, but it took 3 different machines before we found one that actually worked... Then we got our things and moved into our new room before heading off to the beach! We swam a little, there really weren't any big waves like at Playa Jaco (read La Playa), but it was nice for swimming! After a while we went walking down the beach. The coral reef has kind of washed ashore so there are a lot around on the beach. One part in particular was covered in the reef, so we walked around on it. It was pretty cool. There were some fish and some crabs and some other water creature that I don't know the name that we found. Finally we found some nice sand, sat down, and read our books for a while.

Eventually we headed back in search of some water (it was very warm!!). We also decided to head back to our hostel to shower and have some time out of the sun. We watched a movie that was on in the hostel before we decided to head out for dinner. We had some very good food at a nice restaurant. We split a salad and fish. Both of which were EXCELLENT!! Then we just meandered around for while. We were able to sign up for a snorkling/kayaking tour for the next day which we were VERY excited about! (When we walked up to the counter, a huge grasshopper looking think almost attacked me - it was about 4-5 inches long!) Then we just hung out at the hostel for the rest of the night.

(This is what the grasshopper thing looked liked - it's 4-5 inches long and flies - that's how it almost attacked me...the guy who was working the front desk told me to watch out because they were dangerous, but don't worry, he was only joking!)

Our second day pretty much started with our snorkling/kayaking tour. It was just the 2 of us and our tour guide. We kayaked out to an island (my first real kayake experience), walked around, found some shells and a whole village of hermit crabs. Then we went snorkling. We saw some really cool looking fish there were very colorful. We even saw a blue starfish (I've never seen a real starfish before). It was really cool and I wish I would have had an underwater camera! Our kayaking back in was much more choppy, so it was more work.

(Yes we saw monkeys in the trees!! There were at least 8, if not more. It was hard getting a good picture since they were up in trees and on the smaller side, plus there was the whole sun thing...)

The rest of the day was spent laying on the beach. It was cloudy, but it was still beautiful and so nice being able to listen to the ocean! We had a pretty quiet evening since our bus was leaving for San Jose at 5:45am the next morning!

Overall, it was a very nice trip on a very beautiful beach!!

(I thought I would share a little of the ocean with you, I hope it works!!)