Wed Aug 16

I was feeling much better today. Things were looking up. I made a breakfast of all the food we had to use up: scrambled eggs with chayote, green beans with onion and garlic, black beans and rice (hah look at me making my own gallo pinto!) and leftover mango salsa. It was a typical Costa Rican breakfast.

We packed up our things and walked to the bus stop (about 15 minutes, near La Ventana del Surfista) and waited for the 8:45 bus. Well, it leaves Playa Junquillal at 8:45, so it would probably get to our stop around 9am. That’s how the buses work here. You have scheduled start and end times, but the other stops don’t have specific times, you just have to use your common sense to predict when it might arrive. Maddi walked and waited with us. I guess we didn’t traumatize her too much yesterday! We said our good byes. We will miss her. 

We took the bus to Santa Cruz arriving right at 10:15. Our next bus to Tamarindo was scheduled to depart at 10:30. We had to take out some money and I really had to go to the bathroom, so we were in a little bit of a hurry. James handled the ATM and I found a soda to go to the bathroom. I bought a smoothie to be a paying customer but in the end I think he still charged for the bathroom. The smoothie was supposed to be 1300 colones and originally he said bathroom 500 colones. But we paid 3000. Whatever.

In a frantic rush, I knocked over the full smoothie cup. It was a mess and I was covered in papaya.

We ran to the bus depot across the street, bought tickets, and hopped on the bus with barely a minute to spare. If we had missed this bus it wouldn’t have been the end of the world, but we would have had to wait another couple of hours in the nothing town of Santa Cruz.

The bus was a fairly comfortable, long distance style charter bus. It was a pleasant, scenic journey through farmland and small towns. In total, it was a little over an hour to Santa Cruz, then about an hour to Tamarindo. 

So now we are in Tamarindo! Many locals we met didn’t speak highly of Tamarindo, saying the beaches are just okay, it’s super commercial and in terms of culture and appearance it looks just like a beach town in the United States. But now that we’re here, it’s fun! Definitely super touristy but it’s a fun little beach town. Great vacation vibes and lots of shops, bars and restaurants. A world apart from our rural home in Junquillal.

We found our accommodation (Oveja Surf Lodge) quite easily but our room wasn’t ready yet. So we left our luggage then went out to explore the town. We were starving so we scouted out some lunch options and went to a nearby food hall. We got 3 tacos (pastor, chicken tinga, carnitas) and a Venezuelan empanada with braised beef). The tacos were not the best, but they were tasty. The empanada was okay, the tender beef filling was really good but the empanada dough was super greasy. For 4$ it wasn’t great. Then we walked around and found the beach.

The beach is pretty but definitely not as nice as where we were before in Junquillal. It was small with very little stretch of actual beach, no shells or wildlife, a good amount of people considering it’s the low season, shops/bars all along the beach and hotels too. But it wasn’t bad, just different. There were also lots of people selling knick-knacks and pushing different services so that was kind of annoying. Overall, I’m glad that we didn’t stay in Tamarindo longterm, but it was great to be here for one day and night.

After a short walk, we walked back up through town, this time stopping at Alamo and Sixt car rental offices to inquire about prices and insurances. In the end they gave us similar rates so we said we would think about it. We walked more through town, and came across some little puppies! There was no one around so I had no idea if they were strays or what. They were so, so tiny. I offered some water in my hands to which they eagerly lapped up, so I gave them all the water I had left in my bottle. Then a guy came and said thanks. I guess they are his dogs. He said they were 3 months old. He is from San Francisco! Well, he was born in Costa Rica but lived in San Fran for 27 years before moving back to Costa Rica. I am not sure what to think of him. He was kind of weird, seemingly harmless and wasn’t trying to sell us anything… but still kind of a strange dude.

We continued walking and came across a food truck garden. It was nearing check-in time so we headed back to our accommodation which is a pretty cool place. There is a restaurant and cafe/bar out front and the rooms are in the back, past a communal outdoor lounge area and pool. 

Compared to where we were before, there are hardly any bugs here in Tamarindo, and seemingly no wildlife at all. Lots of people and cars. We showered and talked about our car options a bit before going out . We decided to book a week through Sixt with the full insurance package for about $600. Then we cleaned up, got dressed and hit the town! It felt good to wear nicer clothes and be clean without fear of getting dirty/muddy/sweaty.

We came across a street vendor selling meat skewers of marinated pork al pastor. They were juicy and spicy! We continued out to the beach, saw a beautiful sunset and had “happy hour” piña coladas at a beach bar.

Afterwards, we went to a restaurant called The Jungle, sat at the bar and ordered some drinks and shared some appetizers. We had two different kinds of Moscow Mules (with different fruit juices), shrimp tacos and some ahi tuna tartar. The tacos were tasty but nothing to write home about. The tuna tartar was excellent, very, very fresh. Dark red tuna, mango, cucumber and some sort of ponzu sesame sauce.

To round off our night of progressive dining we went to an Argentinian restaurant called La Boca. We started off with a delicious empanada filled with slow-roasted suckling pig and a side of chimichurri. Holy smokes, it was amazing! Definitely the best empanada I’ve ever had. They also gave us some fresh, garlic bread with bruschetta-on the house. For mains, we ordered lamb a la D10s (dios but 10 for the football player Messi) and a seafood pasta. The tender, braised lamb came with a bit of fried polenta. The pasta consisted of homemade squid ink fettuccini, dorado (mahi), mussels, and shrimp, in a white wine tomato sauce. Everything was divine. We shared two glasses of wine: a pinot noir from Chile and a Malbec from Argentina. 

Full and satisfied, we wandered back. It was nice to be out at night without fear of animals. There was plenty of light, and a decent night life for a Thursday! Our lodge turned into a sort of casual, brightly lit club/disco atmosphere with a live feed of a surf competition. A DJ was spinning all the 2000s hits from Beyonce to Sean Paul to Missy Elliott and some Latino songs here and there. We hung around for a bit, then turned in. From our room we could still clearly hear the music, so we had a little en suite disco. For one night, it’s fine but I can see it getting annoying if we were staying here longer. 

Tomorrow we will rent the car and drive to La Fortuna!