South Shore

Tamarindo is in a bay.  To the north is Playa Grande with it's smooth sand ideal for walking.  To the south is all together different.  The south end of Tamarindo Bay is defined by rocks and a high cliff.

There are two ways to get around the cliff.  You can wait for low tide and walk on the rocks.  But that is a little tricky.  Or, you can follow a trail and go over the top.

From the top of the hill you get a good view of the entire Tamarindo Bay.  Looking the other direction you have a totally different experience (this is a picture at low tide).

 

 

Instead of a nice smooth beach with solid sand there are rocks and the sand is very soft and consists mostly of ground up shells.   At high tide the waves are much bigger and this is where the better surfers tend to be.

 

You can walk on this beach for miles.

There are beautiful homes along the way.

And places to rest and relax.

We have Tamarindo Beach, Playa Grande, and Langosta Beach.  It is wonderful to have such different beaches to enjoy so close by.

Howlers

Just about every morning you can hear the Howler monkeys.  They live in groups of six to fifteen and the males make loud, deep guttural growls or "howls" that can be heard from as much as three miles away. 

 

They range in size from 56 to 92 cm (22 to 36 in), excluding their tails, which can easily be five feet long.

 The Howler monkey can smell out its food (primarily fruit and nuts) up to 2km away.  Their noses are usually roundish snout-type, and the nostrils have many sensory hairs growing from the interior. 

 Howlers eat mainly top canopy leaves together with fruit, buds, flowers, and nuts. They need to be careful not to eat too many leaves of certain species in one sitting, as some contain toxins that can poison them.  Howler monkeys are also known to occasionally raid birds' nests and chicken coops and consume the eggs.

  They can use their tails as well as their feet to pick their food.  They very seldom come to the ground except for water during the very dry season.  Otherwise they get all the water they need from the leaves in the trees.  The people here in Tamarindo have even built bridges so they can cross the roads without coming to the ground.

They are interesting and cute to watch.

Latitude Blue

Tamarindo is in the Nicoya Peninsula of Costa Rica.  This area is one of the top five areas in the world where people live the longest.  Many private and corporate studies, such as the National Geographic Magazine, have shown that a relaxed lifestyle is a major contributor to this longevity.   As these areas were studied they were identified on maps using blue circles—they called these Blue Zones.  There is a restaurant here called “Latitude Blue” which is a reference to this relaxed attitude.

 Researchers have found that a Costa Rican man at the age of 60 is twice as likely to reach 90 years of age as a man living in the United States.  This is despite the fact that Costa Rica is a developing country with minimal health care. 

 

Nicoyans enjoy an active yet low-stress lifestyle in a beautiful environment where friends and family are close and everybody, including the oldest, feel needed and loved. They also benefit from a healthy diet of natural unprocessed foods and organic produce which they grow themselves. They are wonderful examples of how good health and happiness can provide longer lives. 

The Latitude Blue restaurant attempts to reinforce this low stress environment.  This is what it looks like as you enter the Blue Latitude after sunset.

 

The restaurant is located in the heart of Tamarindo right on the beach.  The floor of the restaurant is sand.  There is no roof.  

Every night, either in the middle of the restaurant or on the beach right in front of the restaurant, there is a show put on by fire dancers.  When Gail and I were there the first lady to perform had a hula hoop that was on fire.

 

She wss followed by a guy who was a juggler.

 

Two other girls also performed a very intricate fire dance.

 

 

 

 At the end of the show, all performed at once.

It was a very unique show.  The performers are young people from all over the world.

They seem to enjoy performing and it provides them a wonderful way to travel and see the world. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Visit to the Dentist

Today Gail and I had an appointment to see "our dentist" here in Tamarindo.

Her name is Dra Alicia Serrano.  She is a resident of Tamarindo, married, and has a three and half year old son.  The last time we were in Tamarindo she provided me with emergency care when I had a toothache. 
Today she arrived at the office on her bicycle at the same time we did.  She was coming straight from her tennis lesson--an immediate connection with Gail.

Her office has a huge picture window overlooking Tamarindo beach.

 

I had been told previously that I needed about $2000 worth of work done here in Costa Rica (that would be about $6000 in the US).  I have a bridge on the front of my teeth that supposedly needed to be replaced.   After taking X rays, Alicia said "no".   She said that if you start messing with something like that you are just asking for more trouble.  She would fix the problem without replacing the bridge.  She did that, deep cleaned all of my teeth, and rebuilt three of my other teeth. 

Then it was Gail's turn.

Gail has always had beautiful, healthy teeth.  She still does, but had a couple minor problems starting to show up.   Dra Alicia fixed her problems and gave her a thorough cleaning.

It is amazing how much time she spends with you telling you what she has to do--she even drew pictures.  She got on the internet and showed examples of what was happening.  She is gentle (gave me two "little" anesthetic shots just to clean my teeth), thorough, speaks good English, and is extremely knowledgeable.

 

I can certainly see why Central America is a destination for "medical tourism".



Villa Real

As I said before, many, if not most, of the small neighboring towns also have farmers markets.  The next town north of Tamarindo is Villa Real (pronounced via re al).  Since these small towns are selling their produce to locals instead of tourists, we thought the prices might be cheaper.  So we decided to go to Villa Real and check it out. 

The farmers market in Villa Real is on Friday and you have to take a bus.  We were not sure of the bus schedule but we thought there was one going that way at nine o'clock.

The bus stop is only a block away and the buses come very frequently.  I think next time we will try to catch an early bus.  The local buses here are very nice.

It cost us two dollars each for the ride.  If they had air conditioning they did not use it.  We rode with the door and windows open.  It took about fifteen minutes to get there only because we had to stop several times to let people get on and off.  They dropped us off at the corner and we had to walk about a block to the market. 

As you can see, the farmers market at Villa Real is much smaller than the one in Tamarindo.  It has only fruits and vegetables but they are wonderful.

 

There were all kinds of fruits and vegetables.



Gail loves her green beans.

Pineapples were $1 each.

And we found Guanabana!!!!

 

We headed back to our corner to wait for the bus.

While we were waiting for the bus, a taxi came along and Gail negotiated a ride home, right to our front door for $2.

When we got home we had spent $16 (plus the cost of our ride) and had all kinds of stuff including one nice Guanabana (that cost $8).  I looked up on U Tube how to cut it up, clean it, and get the seeds out.

 

 It was quite the ordeal but we have a large bowl of the meat of the fruit and also froze some for smoothies.

 

We will definitely go back.  It seemed the prices were indeed quite a bit lower although all you can get is fruit and vegetables.

 

 

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.