STL DPB CHATS WITH A CHOCOLATE VEGAN

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.           

STL DPB AT THE NIGHT MARKET

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.             

STL DPB THINKS ABOUT BOTANY

I do some B&W work when I think it's appropriate for the scene. These trees grow in sand at the edge of the beach in Playa Langosta. High tide comes very close. How do they get nutrients from salty sand? I'm sure it has been studied but there was no one for me to ask.                   

STL DPB AT THE BEACH - RELAXING IN THE ROCKS

Costa Rica sits along the Pan American mountain range that goes from the Andes to the Rockies to Alaska. There are lots of volcanoes, active and not. The effect can be seen on many beaches on the Pacific side, where tan to black lava flows have not yet been reduced to sand. Low tide brings interesting pools, with critters from very small, like tiny hermit crabs such as the one that unexpectedly showed up in our bedroom (https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10161256324502313&set=a.128314812312) to larger fauna, who don't seem to mind lounging on rocks.       

STL DPB LOOKS FOR FINE DINING

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. 

STL DPB WALKS THE TOWN - PASATIEMPO

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.         

STL DPB FORETELLS THE FUTURE - THE ORACLE OF TAMARINDO

At least that's what the scene made me think of, maybe at a temple on an Aegean island. It is actually just out back of an excellent restaurant called Pangas Beach Club. The strip of water in the mid-ground is an estuary between Tamarindo and the next beach over, Playa Grande. People walk across at low tide but there are, uh, crocodiles.