Today, we moved again! We are now in Playa Tamarindo, or as friends call it, Tama-gringo: a seaside resort area perfect for tanning, surfing and drinking! We didn’t specially plan to party and it’s still low-season, but it looks very spring-break-y.
To get in this tropical paradise / touristic hell, we started with the 6 o’clock bus. Well, 4:20AM and 3PM were not much better options… And considering timing, it was almost worse than the trampoline of the death, which here means 35km in one hour three quarters, on a curvy dirt-road. That being said, we had the nicest driver, who transformed himself onto a free touristic guide to show us monkeys on the side of the road (15 monkeys in a tree against 60 sleepy tourists, which were funniest?)
Once on the Pan-American Highway, we took a second bus to Liberia, bit Costa-Rican city, and from there a third one to the nearest beaches. We arrived at 12:30, devoured some meals from the hostel’s restaurants and went to have some siesta!
Tonight, we went out to visit, though. The town is mostly constituted of touristic housing, restaurants and souvenir or clothing shops, with some surf-shop here and there. We sat at a table on the beach, with the stars, the coconut trees, the lanterns and the sound of the waves, to sip at cocktails and listen to soft music played next door. It was very very cliché. But in the movies, you don’t have to tell the musicians that it’s not worth it to play at our table, we are poor backpackers sharing a pizza (the cocktail was in happy hour) but thanks for offering. You also don’t have the tiny blood-thirsty animals buzzing around, or the taxes that are not included in the menu (23% – ouch!) and the diverse sea-front playlists covering each-other…
Well okay, it’s easy to be a buzz-kill and mock the touristic seafront, but all is not so bad! The climate is perfect (we’re entering dry-season!), there are iguanas in the trees in our hostel, the wet sand is so soft under our feet and the sound of the waves is soooo nice. We also know that, at home, the temperatures are painfully dropping, so we enjoy it as long as we’re here!
About coming back, you may have noticed that we are a bit short if we want to go all the way to Mexico before Christmas. That’s because we changed our plans some time ago and decided we largely preferred to take our time rather than running and spending days and days in buses. Colombia was much longer than expected, because it was big and beautiful and interesting, and even Panama and Costa Rica, where we didn’t plan to stay long (for money reasons mostly) we decided to stay a bit more in the end. Nicaragua was always a goal for a long-time stay so we are not out of traveling-time, and it’s okay! We enjoy much more to taste different regions in each country anyway, so we decided to fly from Managua (Nicaragua) instead of Cancun (Mexico) on the 4th of December and then to Paris on the 13th. We will visit the ancient ruins and jungles of Guatemala and Yucatan another time, and take our time on the Nicaraguan volcanoes instead!
See you tomorrow, X
Coucou! Je vois que le voyage se déroule à merveille 😉 c’est drôle de lire vos commentaires sur le Costa Rica : je crois qu’on va avoir pleiiiin de supers discussions à votre retour 😉 juste pour info, playa penca (près de playa del Coco) est magnifique et montezuma vaut aussi le détour 😉 des bisous et à bientôt. Profitez bien. Anaïs