Tamarindo

This week's post will be featuring Tamarindo Beach, one of my favorite places that I visited while I was in Costa Rica. Tamarindo is located in the Guanacaste province on the Pacific coast of the country. It is a three and a half kilometer stretch of white sand and warm water that seems to always have sunshine with temperatures around 90 degrees in the dry season. During May through October there is often a late afternoon rain shower which doesn't last long, and only makes the sunsets more extraordinary. During this "green season," temperatures average about 80 degrees.

In town, there are many shops and activity centers where you can sign up to do things like take surf lessons, ATV tours, or kayaking excursions. The shops that are located in Tamarindo are not stores that we would expect to see when we go to a vacation place in the United States. Most of them are where locals sell their handmade gifts and you get to see the unique products that they have to offer.

The picture above is one of my own photos that I took during sunset while staying in Tamarindo. We stayed in a hotel called La Laguna de Cocodrilo where we enjoyed the beauty of the beach. Hotels in Costa Rica are on a much smaller scale than we are used to and this one being an average size, only has 10 rooms. There are hammocks outside and while laying in them you can enjoy the howler monkeys swinging from the branches of the trees right above you. Here is another photo of mine that I took while relaxing on one of the hammocks.

Traveling to Tamarindo is not hard once you are already in Costa Rica. There is public transportation that is readily available and also very cheap. If you are not looking to go the route of public transportation, you can rent a car near the airport and take the 5 hour trip to Tamarindo. The other possibility is a short flight from San Jose to the airport located in Tamarindo.

I hope that if you are ever visiting Costa Rica that you spend some time in Tamarindo because the beautiful beaches and local cuisine that you can find here is something you will never forget!