Tamarindo beach, where the day trip boats anchor. Dinghies shuttle the passengers to and from the beach. This one has seen better days. No way to tell whether it broke up here or out at sea and then washed in. It’s a bit of an exaggeration to call it a shipwreck but it still looks a bit scary.
Home yesterday. I’ll stick with these for a bit until I find some local stuff.
It’s on the to-do list for every trip to Tamarindo. After dark, groups of dancers who play with fire go from one beachfront restaurant to another, performing to pounding music. The shows are spectacular. They do it for tips, and we tip generously.
Have to do this one every time we come here. Taken from poolside at the condo development, Playa Langosta, near Tamarindo.
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I have a problem with this month's theme. We don't dine al fresco much, generally preferring the comfort and, in the city, quiet of an indoor dining room. A search of my archives turned up nothing appropriate from the local scene. We regularly dine outdoors, however, during our frequent trips to Costa Rica. In fact, there are few opportunities to eat indoors in the beach town of Tamarindo that we usually visit. This will have to do. BTW, I wouldn't be caught dead in that shirt.
From the Feria Tamarindo, the twice-weekly outdoor market. We are approaching the end of the dry season here so these peppers must have been irrigated, or perhaps grown in a greenhouse. It has been hot and very humid and, we are told, about to get hotter. After that, the roads and hillsides will be awash.
A vendor's stall at the twice-weekly Feria Tamarindo street market. Every kind of local food, clothing and crafts are on offer. I, personally, wouldn't be caught dead in any of this stuff. When I'm shooting on the street I tend to wear black or soft blues and greys to blend in. Around here, that might make me stand out.
We've been coming to this town regularly for maybe a dozen years. Every time we see more development and more crowds. This building wasn't here, or maybe was still under construction, at our last visit. Fortunately, we stay a distance out of the center where commercial development is restricted.
We are, in a way, creatures of habit. Year after year we return to this beautiful condo on Playa Langosta, just outside of Tamarindo in the northwest of Costa Rica. I didn't have a chance to shoot anything new today so here's a IR taken on the beach a couple of years ago.
The area may be getting overdeveloped. We've been coming here for at least a dozen years and we've never had traffic from the airport like today. The regional airport is so jammed that there aren't enough gates and some passengers have to descend stairs to the tarmac. We noticed many new furniture stores, which means that there are lots of new houses and condos. The main drag of Tamarindo was choked at dinnertime, when I was going to the supermarket. Langosta, where a road runs out of town and ends at an estuary, is much quieter. I hope it stays that way.
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Another vendor at the Tamarindo night market. An American ex-pat (there are lots of them) was promoting organic and vegan products. Unusually, they were all chocolates, Costa Rican grown, gently fertilized and lovingly processed. One of the products on offer were heart-shaped chocolate pops on a (wooden, of course) spoon-stick. It came with instructions to stir it into your favorite non-dairy milk substitute. Our granddaughter chose to ignore those instructions and pronounced the result excellent.
Tamarindo has a weekly night market. It's not very big but it is bustling. Lots of crafts, jewelry, art and also several food vendors. This was one of the bigger operations. I'm not sure what they were making but this man seems to be working a very large wok with cauliflower, broccoli and carrots. We didn't sample any because we had dinner plans for Mrs. C's birthday.
Scouting the Saturday market in Tamarindo, we found a vendor we'd met before. An Argentine family sold authentic empanadas and this unusual international assortment of hot dogs. Porteño is the word that residents of Buenos Aires call themselves, people of the port. The price is in Costa Rican colones, about $4.50 or €4.00. I'd go with the French, myself.
So here we sit at the Miami airport Saturday night with most flights running very late due to weather across the southern U.S. We are now scheduled to arrive in St. Louis at 2:00 AM if there are no further delays. I wish my car had autopilot.
Tamarindo has a weekly outdoor market on Saturday. There is some food but most of the things on offer are crafts, herbal this and that, costume jewelry and clothing. The Ticos who help set up and supply the feria need something to pass the time between tasks. This man was part of a four-person card game just outside the market. No idea what they were playing. I stopped, had a look and found that a little ¿permisso? goes a long way.
Through all of our busy travels over the last month we have come to our final destination, Playa Langosta, Costa Rica. This is the view from our balcony. We figured out from the guest book that this is out twelfth time in this condo, fourteenth time in Tamarindo/Playa Langosta and nineteenth time in Costa Rica over the decades. I guess we like it a lot. Pura vida.
The apartment building where we stayed in Tamarindo has six stories. Each unit has a large balcony at the corner with an awning off the sides. We were on the top floor, so the next apartment's awning was immediately beneath us. One morning we looked out and found this large grasshopper, perhaps 4 in / 10 cm, just sitting there. It sat all day. It was there after lunch. It was there after we came back from a walk on the beach. It hardly moved the whole time. By the time we returned from dinner it had found another perch. At least we got to say hello.
Contemplation of mortality in a coffee cup in our apartment here in lotus land. In English, the phrase says the finish line is closer than you think.
Not what I was expecting. The U.S. State Department put Costa Rica in the Class 4 - Do Not Travel category yesterday. But, as Kurt Cobain (with whom I share a birthday) sang, here we are now, entertain us.
We are staying in a different apartment in Tamarindo this year. It is spacious and modern but, well, a little harsh in its decorating sense. Only white walls and ceilings, light blond floors and cabinets. The few large wall hangings are monochrome close-ups of surf. The place needed some color. Fortunately, the supermarket has a good floral section, where I bought some lillies. And very fortunately, I brought a macro lens.
Even a city kid like me doesn't get tired of this place. At this time of year, while it's quite cold back home, the weather report here is the same day after day: clear, warm but not awful, dry and a refreshing ocean breeze. From May through November it may rain some most days but hardly all day, every day. My spikey New Yorker brain waves enjoy the laid back pace and pura vida attitude.
From the beach fire dance shown here a few days ago. The finale looks like the end of days or the judgement of the locals, known as Ticos. Except for all the tourists taking photo or videos with their phones.
This has turned into the not-exactly-post-pandemic summer of wandering. Two and a half weeks until we leave for Kansas City and my Mrs. C's area of Kansas. Four weeks after we get back from there it's off to some interesting places in central Europe. It's probably good to get away from Missouri, which is experiencing a sharp increase in infections and deaths, almost all of which are among the unvaccinated. Anyone who wants a shot can get it for free so draw your own conclusions.
Tuesday was our last night in Tamarindo. Flying home today via Miami. Everyone had a great time. Ellie just wrote something in the guestbook about the nightly gecko party on the patio,
Yesterday was also Mrs. C's birthday. She chose to have dinner at one of our local favorites, Dragonfly, https://www.dragonflybarandgrill.com , where the sesame crusted tuna is as good as ever. Since I gave them a little hint, the staff brought something special at the end.
I do not know how this picture will look on your end. The video display on my laptop is on the edge of failure so I'm using a minimally edited phone cam pic. Might be offline until I can get this fixed.
One of the things we frequently do when we visit Tamarindo is take a boat ride on the wide estuary that separates the town from Playa Grande. A local guide takes you out for a couple of hours, teaching about the local vegetation and wildlife. The place is crawling with iguanas. Some of them seem to have a sense of nobility.
