Costa Rica—

Getting there

I had intended to go straight to Nicaragua as soon as I finished the surf camp. I didnt want to spend one entire day on public transport to get up to Nicaragua so when I was told I should go to Tamarindo, about halfway between Nicaragua and Santa Teresa, I booked a shuttle there. It took about 4 and a half hours to get there with the Tropical Tours shuttle from Santa Teresa. There is the option of taking public transport, but from what I could find, there isn’t any direct trip, only one that goes on the ferry to Puntarenas, which would be mean double the travel time. The shuttle is the more expensive option at $55 USD vs ~$10 USD for public transport. I’ll try not use the shuttle again, as comfortable it was, I can’t justify paying the extra cash, especially since I have ample amount of time on my hands.

Meeting Kiwis on the bus

In the shuttle on the way to Tamarindo, I met two kiwis who had just finished uni in Auckland and were doing their OE. They were easily identifiable by the NZ flag that was sowed onto their backpack. They were the first kiwis I had seen in 2 weeks and I enjoyed conversing and reminiscing about life back home and how it compared to here.

About Tamarindo

Tamarindo is a popular surf and vacation destination for all kinds of tourists; it attracts both backpackers but also a significant number of families. In contrast to Santa Teresa, Tamarindo is significantly more ostentatious; it clearly has seen more overall investment, with paved roads and flashy dance clubs. What Tamarindo offers caters for all tastes, from packaged tours on outdoor excursion on land and sea, a number of different surf breaks, and a nightlife that persists into the early hours of the morning. It is still a small town, you can walk from one end to the other in 10 minutes, and it is quite easy to navigate with one main road, which leads to the only exit out of town on road. It does feel a less authentic tropical coastal town than Santa Teresa, with paved roads, opulent Western-styled facades and many of the older tourists kitted out standard issue travel gear.

Getting solicited at the beach

Walking on the beach at 5:30pm and there are still many people on the beach from the day, families taking photos, many people out on surfboards catching the last of the night. Amongst all the tourists are some local Ticos who are on the lookout for tourists to sell drugs to. I’m not sure exactly why, might be crazy look, but at least every 20 metres, a local Tico would quip “Amigo, weed or blow?”. I kindly declined their persistent offers. It isn’t such a good idea to get the hard stuff from these guys, there is the possibility that they are undercover cops and you’ll need to bribe them to get out

First night

On my first evening there, I hung out with people I had met at the hostel, two Canadians, an American and a Danish guy. The first 3 were on short vacations of 1-2 weeks, a common theme for many of the young people in Tamarindo. As much as I enjoyed the eating vegetarian meals at Zopilote most nights, I was craving meat and had no compunctions satisfying that want. The other guys knew a place, the Patagonia Argentinian Restaurant who can serve up a delightful, satisfying rack of BBQ ribs.

Out at first night

Despite being a Sunday night, there is at least one thing being held at a bar or club in town. A Beer Pong tournament was being held at the Sharkys bar. Sharkys is the equivalent to The Holy Grail in Christchurch (RIP), even aesthetically, with a bare but capacious and lofty interior. I played the worst Beer Pong in a long time, to the point where my opponent and I flipped a coin to force a win after sitting on the final cup for 30 minutes. I did meet a nice French girl there who was studying Spanish at the local school and living with a homestay of the next couple of month. Nothing really happened, as you aren’t allowed to bring guests into hostels, which is the norm, and the security guard on patrol enforced it that night, and she wasn’t keen on the beach, which is understandable, as it is common for items and clothing from preoccupied beach goers in the early hours of the morning. While I did go out at least every second night, I only really dabbled in the nightlife, as I was saving myself for my next destination, San Juan Del Sur in Nicaragua.

Buying a surfboard

At the beginning of the trip, I was on the fence about purchasing a surfboard vs hiring one where ever I go. After discussions with more experienced surfing travelers, I had decided I would buy one, and the best place to do so is Tamarindo, offering the largest selection of surf boards within the surrounding region. After a couple of hours searching and wandering through multiple surf shops, I decided on a 6’6” Fish board with a thruster setup. I am still a very inexperienced surfer, more so when it comes to selecting gear.

Picture - My new board

I picked this particular board as it felt like the right shape, enough volume and width (20”) for an 86kg body with less that developed paddling muscles and the fish tail should provide a bit of a stability as I go and start throwing basic turns in the mix. In total, it costs $410 USD and that was with a 20% discount on the fins (FCS M5), leash and board bag. It is difficult to, but overall. The main source of the remorse is the fact that I have lost the baggage advantage of a 38L backpack. Now I’m hauling this 6’8” surf bag that takes up one side of a sedan, so I have to taxi by myself with the board.

Avellanas

I tried out my new board at two of the surf spots near Tamarindo. The first was at ‘Avellanas http://www.nicoyapeninsula.com/avellanas/`_. It was a 30 minute ride and cost $20 USD out there and back with the hostel, that included a board hire. This is the same price whether you don’t hire a board as well, which I found out when I checked out. That discrepancy with pricing would be my only qualm with the hostel. Anyway, I sat in the back of the ute. I didn’t bring my board bag, which was a poor decision as it was an extremely bumpy ride out there and the board suffered from superficial damage.

Despite being quite a large beach, there were fewer spots to surf along here and didn’t enjoy it very much. The powerful current pulling it back to the beach and my first time on a surfboard of that size in regards to the extra effort required to paddle contributed more paddling and less surfing. I spent my last hour there on one of the hostel’s longboards the other guests on the trip had brought for a bit of fun.

Playa Grande

The other break I surfed at was the Playa Grande beach break, that I did with one other fellow hosteler, Benjamin from Germany one morning. From Tamarindo town, you can get there on foot by going north up the beach, crossing the river mouth either by boat for $1 USD or paddling across. Apparently, there are crocodiles in the river but when we paddled across, we didn’t see any. I was more worried with the current and that I found it exhausting just to paddle across the river mouth. I had fun surfing at this break, there were many waves to surf that were uncrowded and were generally more steeper, which made it easier for me to catch.

Broken GoPro

I had my GoPro in my pocket which I was just going to use to take photos with. To my demise, I had tied the anchoring string to the GoPro waterproof casing incorrectly and the interior was saturated in sea water. I’ve taken some advice from the internet and am trying to recover it from the grasps of the rubbish bin, will give it another day of drying before trying to get it to go again. This is the reason for the lack of photos out surfing.

I had only intended on staying for 2 nights in Tamarindo, and extended it by another 2 nights of my last night as I hadn’t found a surfboard by that stage or surfed any of the local breaks. This meant I didn’t buy any supplies for eating in as I didn’t want to be carrying it when I left.

I was on the lookout for cheap local food. At midday, there is an nice old lady that sells the typical casado from the back of her car for 2000 colones ($4.50 NZD) which was the cheapest full sized cooked meal I could find. She continues to sell until her pots are empty. Another delicious place is Fiesta Del Mar, which is at the end of the main road right beside the roundabout. The facade of this restaurant is pretty plain, but the service is impeccable. We were gifted a free entrée of baked potato pieces and refried beans to dip them in. The meals there are some of the best for value in Tamarindo ($8 USD for 250gm of Grilled Snapper), and also given a free taster of rice pudding and coffee liqueor. In the early hours of the morning, outside the popular bars and clubs, street vendors offer kebab sticks of charcoal-cooked Chicken or Pork for $2 USD a stick. On the nights I went out, I would regularly scoff 3 or 4 of these down.

I also tried food on the other end of the price spectrum. On my last night, I went out to dinner with two nice Danish girls that I had also met at the hostel, and decided on Copacabana restaurant, as it was right on the beach and had a nice atmosphere. I had their signature Mahi-Mahi dish there and that alone set me back $21 USD. It was delicious and of a decent proportion, but not the place I want to be going often. When they asked me for drinks, I stuck with tap water that night.

After 4 nights in Tamarindo, it was time for me to depart. I’d met a great bunch of people staying at the Blue Skillz hostel, extremely friendly, as shown in the picture. I dabbled a little bit with nightlife, purchased a surfboard and had some time at the local breaks. I decided that I’d take public transport out of town, certainly the smarter option.

The Costa Rica bus schedule website isn’t very informative where to wait, In fact it had the incorrect information. If you are ever leaving to go to Liberia with public transport, do not go to the roundabout as shown in the map, just wait along the main road. I was lucky enough to be wandering down the main road after leaving the designated bus stop when I caught a glimpse of a bus making it’s way towards me with the sign “Liberia”. I waved it down and jumped on, not so swiftly anymore as I had to give my surfboard first to the driver That day, I left Costa Rica for the land of Nicaragua. I’ll go into more detail about my time in Nicaragua, this is probably the best time for me to end this post.

Hasta luego,

Charlie