This excursion, like the tickets we bought for San Lucas, is one we didn't foresee choosing. We came to decide to travel to the beaches of Guanacaste after Clark was asking around to all his work buddies which beaches were their favorites. All the beaches they mentioned were in Guanacaste.
I have to admit I wasn't looking forward to the drive. It is the longest one yet. I can't say if our Quepos drive will be around the same. We'll see. I am glad we chose to travel to Tamarindo and some of the beaches north of Tamarindo. It was also good to experience Liberia, even for a short time, and see the differences between the Guanacaste and Puntarenas country sides.
A vibrant tree along our way
Sugar cane fields
Feels like Missouri
The first goal was to find a bathroom when we arrived, and we spent a few minutes exploring in the busy part of town then headed to find our Airbnb in a remodeled bus. This bus cost the same, if not less than, the average accommodation in Tamarindo. Tamarindo is a very tourist-driven city with many foreigners and the costs reflect this. Our bus house was inside a food truck park. You can't tell here, but behind the leafy screen on the left of the picture, was the food truck park. It was very nicely kept and gated too.
Bus house for the night, hot tub and all. The kids had fun in this unique place.
The memorable dish that day from lunch at surfer's bar. Tall burger. I ordered a caesar's salad with grilled chicken and it came as a garden salad with caesar dressing.
Because lunch was pretty big, we weren't too hungry before heading out to our turtle tour. It was still turtle nesting season in Tamarindo so we thought we'd give it a shot. After researching a few tours, I decided on a smaller private one, but the reviews were clear that our guide could be a bit cranky. Thus, we weren't surprised when, once we got on the beach, he told us bluntly to stay very near him and he didn't want to be telling us again, so we better listen the first time. Actually, his directness was refreshing, and we found his quirkiness fun. There was another family along with ours. They were from New York but French, with two young daughters. We followed behind the guides truck to a beach near Matapalo and Las Baulas National Marine Park. Then we walked down a steep trail to the beach and watched the sunset.
A little water inlet along the trail
Pano of the beach
Another hermit crab friend... this guy was pretty large
Sea turtle tracks
The sunset
As the sun went down, other groups arrived with their guides, some groups larger than others. The guides were adamant about keeping the white lights of our phones OFF. If someone accidentally used their flash or flashlight, there was audible disdain voiced through loud moans and tsking followed by a lecture of the importance to respect the nature and prevent scaring the turtles. I think we all felt somewhat like chastised children. Also, even though the guides knew and seemd to respect one another, they tried to keep their distance. While they accepted they must work together in some ways, they also didn't seem to really like each other and were protective of their groups.
A good example of this happened: Our guide left us for a time to go searching and told us to watch for his flashing light. When we saw the flashing light we went to follow him and were reprimanded by another guide telling us to wait there for "Juan". Except Juan wasn't our guide. We told the man so and he used his walkie talkie to contact our guide, whom was nicknamed "Argentia" (actually seemed derogatory), to find out if we should leave the main group. Our guide said, "No we should remain" and wait for him to return.
A turtle that came up to the beach. She sat there for a few minutes then decided to return to the water.
This is a small hole with three new baby turtles there. We disagree some on the story, so I am going to write what I understood about this. I thought the guide (from another group) was saying sometimes newly hatched turtles at the bottom of the nest get confused since they are the last to leave and they must be rescued. The babies are taken briefly into captivity (near or on the beach) to recover then brought back to the shore to be released at night. The guide is trying to simulate the nest by putting them in the hole. Then he used his light to act as moonlight, wriggling it back and forth, to guide the babies toward the water. The turtles have an instinct in them to follow light, such as the moon, to know where the water is. Everytime the little turtle got confused and tried to go back, the guide would frantically wiggle the light to bring the baby toward the water. This way, all three babies successfully made into the ocean. Of course, our guide wanted to be right in front and tried to demand we stay right by him, but we chose to stay in the line that formed on each side of the babies' path so other people could enjoy seeing the baby go too.
If you zoom in, you can make out the baby turtle crawling up to get out.
It's hard to see this, but the baby is going towards the water. On some blogs, I've seen the photographer photoshop the pictures back to white light but I'm not the fancy. Haha! This picture's purpose is for my readers to see how the guide was using the light to guide the baby.
A spider our guide spotted. He insisted I photograph it. Of course, I obeyed like a good student should. My camera flash is why the bottom picture is white.
After the turtle tour, it was pretty late, after 8, so we were ready to hunt and gather. What better place to grab some grub then right next to our bus, at the food park!
Arepa and yucca fries
She said it wasn't as messy as the last one in Puntarenas?
Clark and Rose went out for a short walk after eating to experience the night life in Tamarindo. On to day 2 of our Guanacaste tour!
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