First Impressions of Tamarindo

Tamarindo, Costa Rica

When we drove into Tamarindo for the first time, it seemed almost as if we had suddenly been transported to a generic southern California beach town. The main street was clogged with traffic, the store fronts modern, and the upscale restaurants featured a large variety of cuisine. But Weaving through the myriad tourists are numerous local street vendors selling hammocks, jewelry, woodcarvings and grass weavings. One woman had long beaded necklaces draping from either arm and a frisbee full of hand carved, bird shaped, whistles balanced on her head. Following google maps to our new home, we turned off the beachfront where the road turns quickly from well kept pavement to what may have once been paved but is now mostly dirt, loose rock and lots of holes. Clogged drainage ditches line either side of the roads and the corners are piled with garbage overflowing from its bins. This is the part of Tamarindo where we will be spending the week and it is less than a five minute walk from the glittering downtown.

Our new home is part of an older, gated, four story complex arranged roughly in a figure eight with small over-chlorinated swimming pools in the center of each circle. The condo consists of a main floor with a half bathroom, tiny laundry area and one room that serves as living room, dining room and kitchen. For our week here it will also serve as Liam and Ronan's bedroom with two twin air mattresses occupying most of the floor space at night and propped against the wall when not in use, though they find it convenient to throw them back on the floor to stretch out and study or read or watch tv. I am pretty amazed at the boys' resiliency regarding the living arrangements from one house to the next, one or both are often on a couch or a floor and they accept it without protest. Upstairs are two bedrooms and two full bathrooms for Kris, I, Fionn, and everyone's luggage.  There is a friendly cat wandering among the condos so we feel like we have a pet for the week. The small pool is right outside our front door and our internet reaches easily to the covered poolside patio allowing us a comfortable outside space for school.

The beach in Tamarindo is beautiful, the water seems relatively calm and there are seashells everywhere. During low tide the south end is full of tide pools and we can walk around the point there to a smaller beach on the other side. It is considerably cooler here than Jaco was, but quite windy, especially on the beach, which can be  nice when it is a gentle breeze, but less nice when it means sand blowing relentlessly in your face. There are many restaurants facing onto the beach and at night there are live bands and fire jugglers. The river that lets out into the ocean on the north side of the beach has crocodiles in it, which freaks me out a tad, but there are howler monkeys in the trees just a couple blocks from our home which is super cool. It is loud too, I can remember the one time we got the howler monkeys at the zoo to make a sound, in the wild they are not so shy. There are a lot of tourists here and most of them seem to be American, we haven't heard this much English in awhile. In addition to the souvenir knick knacks being sold along the main street and beach, we have openly been offered pot and Kris had someone try to sell him cocaine.

It should be an interesting week.