Farmer's Markets

As you might imagine, with the warm weather here, there are wonderful fruits and vegetables available.  Many of the small towns in the area have weekly Farmer's Markets to allow people to sell their produce.  Tamarindo is no exception and has begun their own Farmer's Market.  It takes place every Saturday and is well attended by both vendors and buyers.

There are, of course, lots of fresh fruits and vegetables.

But Tamarindo has taken their Farmers Market a step further and has added many other products.  For example, they have fish and chicken,

and eggs and honey.

 There are also people selling homemade baked goods of all kinds like chocolate, flavored  nut butters and empanadas.

Homemade Chocolate

and lots of spices.

and soap.

Naturally there are folks selling jewelry

and clothing.

 

 
 
 
 
 
There are also paintings and carvings.
 

They have specialty items as well like ice cream

and even wine.

Overall, they have done a good job with the market.  It is a very interesting experience.

ElBe's

When I finish a painting I sign it Elbe.  This is longhand for my initials--Larry Blech, LB, Elbe.
The other day we were walking down the street when, to our surprise, we saw this sign.

This stands for The Be "anything positive" club--Be safe, Be comfortable, Be relaxed, etc.  They had signs all over the place to "Be ........."  The main "Be" is Be Happy which is on the back of all of the t-shirts worn by the employees there.  One "Be" I liked was Be Clean".

Our group of friends decided to stop by there for happy hour and to watch the sunset on our way home from the beach.

This is our group.

The restaurant is open to the sea, under the trees, on the sand.

  We were seated at a nice large table to accommodate all of us.

Throughout the restaurant were various kinds of seating options like swings, recliners, hammocks, lounge chairs, etc.

We had a wonderful meal--Gail and I had fish tacos--and stayed and watched the sunset.

It was a good evening.  I think I am going to change my signature to El Be.  I might have to practice that a little.

 

Our Street

The street where we are staying is a "hard surface" street, not unlike many here in Tamarindo.

The surface of the road is in-between dirt and paved.  It is a dirt road that has been covered with a mixture of a petroleum product and sugar cane syrup.

This mixture makes the road sticky, shiny, and sweet smelling.

When it has been freshly applied, or even when it gets hot in the sun, it sticks to the bottom of your shoes so you always want to leave your sandals and flip flops outside your door. 

Most of the main streets in town are black topped--

although some are just half-and-half.

If you go out our front gate, cross the street, and go up the hill, that is where Gus and Carol are going to be staying when they come in February.

If you look up our street (away from the beach) you can see on the left by the red sign, the Fitness Center in the two story building.

There is a very nice little day care center there as well.

The complex where we are staying is next door to a bank and Hertz car rental company.

As you can see, the banks here do not mess around with security.

If you walk down our street to the beach, you will pass a number of banana trees.

You will almost always pass a "free range" chicken or two.

And sometimes a vulture,

and now and then horses.

 

You quickly come to a lot of restaurants, bars, and businesses.

That large white building is pretty much right on the beach so it is only a five or ten minute walk from our place to the beach.

There is a little ice cream shop on the left that has a cart they use to go around town selling ice cream products.

On Friday's there is a local guy selling fruit on the corner.

And, our favorite pizza restaurant is on this corner (If you can't see it, it is the brown roof at the back of the coca cola truck behind all of the signs. We told the owners wife they should get rid of those signs.  She just rolled her eyes and walked away.  I guess they already tried that.)  One of the grocery stores is at this corner also--right in front of the blue truck.

Although we weren't exactly sure where our condo was located until we got here, it has turned out to be in a wonderful location.

Auto Mercado Shopping Trip

Today we walked to the Auto Mercado (auto market) which is an "American-like" grocery store.  It is approximately 1.5 kilometers from our house and is a good walk along the highway.

There are many beautiful flowers along the way.

And flowering trees.

There is the entrance to a housing addition.  You can't see the houses but the entrance is nice.

They were trying to water the grass but it was tough because of the lack of water pressure.

The last time we were in Tamarindo, and walked to the Auto Mercado, I stubbed my toe--on two different occasions--on a piece of rebar sticking up in the path.  This time I was very careful and found the rebar before kicking it.

The Auto Mercado is in a very nice shopping mall.  They were cleaning out the water fountains but it was still nice.

The store is clean and well stocked with all kinds of food that you could possibly need.

 

There is a wonderful selection of fruits and vegetables.

There is a large dairy section,

sodas and snacks,

and sundries of all kinds.

 

This is not to mention the bakery, the liquor section, the pharmaceuticals, cheese, fresh fish and butchers slicing lunch meat--everything you would need and mostly American brands.  The prices are no more than at any of the local groceries in town.  In fact, they are a little better on many items.  For example, fresh shrimp was about $4 a pound, a two hundred gram squeezable tube of Ranch dressing was $1.50, a large tube of Colgate toothpaste was $3.60, and a fifth of Captain Morgan spiced rum was about $20.

We followed the highway on the way back home

and saw a few other travelers along the way.

Overall, it was about a three hour adventure--but a fun one.