Day trip to Tamarindo

Well, as usual, my photos and videos aren’t cooperating and are coming in all out of order 😡 I also can’t get this part to left justify! 😂 

Today we took a day trip to Tamarindo. It’s about 75 minutes from where we are staying. We decided to side trip to this beach because it has the best surfing. We booked lessons with Carlos’ Surf School.  For some Reason these videos wanted to show up first so enjoy the end of the day when everyone could sort of surf!

 

But the day started in more of a boring manner with catching up on some laundry!  I asked the air bnb host how to use this washing machine and he explained in Spanish and I didn’t u sweat and a word he said 😆 So this morning I YouTubed ‘how to use a Costa Rican washing mashine’ and of course got a bunch of amazing tutorials!

You load the soap and clothes into the left hand side and fill it with water using a hose.  They you Kelsey the timer and let it agitate for 15 minutes. Then you set it to drain and it lets all the water out. Now you fill it again with the hose and this time you don’t add soap. And you set it for 5 minutes or so for the rinse cycle. And then set it to drain again. . 

Out of order pics…the finished laundry!

Then you take the laundry from the left hand side and put it in the right hand side. 

Then you set it to spin on this side for 5 minutes!  The laundry came out almost dry and we put it all on the drying rack!

We didn’t have to be in Tamarindo until 12:00pm so we took our time in the morning. Owen made this smoothie by pouring strawberry and kiwi yogurt into his cup at the same time!

Looking for Howler monkeys

Our AirBNB listing mentioned that they often have howler monkeys in the mango trees. So we sat outside to have our breakfast hoping to see some. Suddenly we heard the loudest growl. It seriously sounded like a lion was on the patio. Go search for what does a howler monkey sound like. It’s crazy!  Despite the scary sound, apparently they are friendly!

Owen taking a picture of the monkeys 

There was a big one, a medium one and a little baby!

After that we headed to Tamarindo!

These pictures are backwards so this is actually after surfing!

With our instructor, Carlos!

These pics were from the beginning of the lesson when we were leaving in land!  I have to say that I was actually the best of all of us on the land!  But that did NOT translate in the water 😂 Trev says I’m more of a terrestrial surfer. 😆 

The one thing that surprised me most about the surfing was just how powerful the waves were. You have this huge, heavy board in the water with you and if you don’t have 100% control of it when a wave comes, the board can easily get tossed into you which really, really hurts!  There are no pics and videos of me unfortunately. I did get up for a couple of very short runs but not long enough to feel like I had control. Eventually I went back to shore and got my phone for the last half hour so I could take pictures and videos. 

We had sushi for lunch at a place Trev’s friend recommended 

A couple of people asked me how the drives have been. It’s been 80% like this.  5 % really rough. And about 15% dirt roads with a million potholes where you can go about 10kph max

I liked this pic of our AirBNB patio 

Some of the other pics from surfing randomly decided they’d like to be here instead? 😂 

Surfing is a dangerous sport!!

You know those things we all wear in the sun caked rashguards?  These are the rashes they are meant to prevent 😔 I had wanted Anna to change into her one piece bathing suit but we ran out time before our lesson. This is even with the rash guard. She’s a tough girl!

After surfing we headed back to Playa Hermosa. Annie and I went for a walk to see if we could find a shady spot to have a picnic while the sun was setting. We found a great spot!

Having a picnic dinner after our expensive beach dinner and sushi lunch! 😂 

The picnic was good until it wasn’t any more. Owen ran from the beach and with his hat on didn’t see a low branch and ran into it and hit his head really hard. This was the beginning of the end for him. He was hot and exhausted and at that moment he felt like he was fine with this stupid trip (even though he had a total blast today and can’t wait to go fishing tomorrow). You know how tired you get when you spend a day at the beach?  We’ve been going non stop and it’s SOOO hot. Mid to high thirties and I haven’t seen a cloud since we’ve been here. We are trying to stay hydrated and not get too intense but it’s been a bit much.  One thing we’ve found is that none of the restaurants have indoor seating or air conditioning. They are all either outside eating or open to the outside. So there’s not really a great place to cool down if you aren’t at the Airbnb. And even here, it’s just the bedrooms that are air conditioned so if you are puttering around washing dishes or packing up day bags it gets really hot. After about an hour and a cook shower and some time spent in Air Conditioning, Owen was back to himself, cracking jokes!

 Even though we applied sunscreen an hour before the surf lesson plus again right before, we were all sunburned after the lesson. All of us have sunburned hands and wrists where the rashguards weren’t covering 😂. All our faces are sunburned also!  We haven’t take our hats off since we got here basically but you can’t surf in a hat and obviously the sunscreen washed off. Not sure what we could have done differently!

Three sunburned kids. Look at Joel’s wrist 😂 

Trev and I just sat outside for about an hour while I wrote this. I think I did a pretty good job packing but one thing hung I wish we had brought was body lotion. Spending the days in the sun, the ocean and the sand means we are all feeling like we are shrinking uo! 😂 It’s 9pm now. The kids have been asleep for over an hour now 😮 Heading to bed. We have an early morning tomorrow. Our fishing trip leaves at 7am (to try to avoid the worst of the heat!