had an amazing time, altho there's way too much development for my taste along the pacific coast, especially in playa tamarindo, where we spent part of our time. almost felt guilty adding to the mess.
beyond that, we camped/hiked in the rainforest, sat and watched an active volcano's lava flows, ate some amazing tacos de pescado on the beach, did some hot doggin' on the zip lines through canopy jungle, and generally had a great time.
not so thrilled to be back in brooklyn @ this point....

anyhow, pics

very nice

i keep trying to convince my employer to send me down there to visit our factory.

nice pics

Beautiful photos! Is that your girl? And, I love the chickens!

Tamarindo is definitely uber-touristy. at least half the people that live there aren't even costarican. However, not too far a drive from there is Playa Grande, Playa Negra, and a couple other spots that are kick ass and empty. Robert Frost or whatever his name is from the Endless Summer movies has his Best Western in Tamarindo. Me and my friends ran into him one day and he was pleasant enough but one hell of a dirty old man. He told us that there was a secret beach about an hour south of where we were where the water was cold and all the local girls lay out on the beach and play with themselves. We all sort of laughed uncomfortably.

I love Costa Rica, Tamarindo and all. The good/unfortunate thing is that places like Tamarindo are only going to get more and more touristy. It's like going to Hawaii for a third the cost. It's great for learning to surf as well as just having a damn blast. Glad you had a good time.

We were in Tamarindo about three years ago...hadn't really been built up too far. The Best Western was there, but it was unobtrusive enough. The only bad sign was that there was a guy staying at our hotel who was down there on business--he was a golf course architect.

nice, man. we had our honeymoon in costa rica and saw the same stuff as you. we stayed first in Tamarindo then the 2nd half by Arenal volcano in the rainforest. it's a pretty amazing place.

my friend just went down there a couple weeks ago for some yoga retreat or something.

hegel, yeh we almost bolted immediately to head either up to playa del coco or further south along the peninsula, but decided to stay in tamarindo to make the best of it. we had been camping for the previous 2 nights by arenal and wanted to continue to do so, but surprise! there are crackheads camping in tamarindo. seriously.
we wound up staying in a hotel with howler monkeys living on either side, which is either awesome or lame depending on how you think of it [awesome, b/c who doesnt like monkeys! and lame, b/c the fact that they lived in trees right next to our hotel means theyre being displaced from their natural habitat]
i think the next time i go back i will prob head up by arenal again to camp @ cerro chato - our host there was really incredible, i would recommend his place to anyone - and then head over to the caribbean coast instead. it's still a bit more remote [the roads are notoriously difficult] and the chance of running into the same problems that exist on the w coast is still there, but def not as much so.

edit: yeh, T, sorry i forgot to say so, but she is mi amor, indeed...

My parents just came back from Costa Rica. My great-uncle lives there permanently so I thought it would be cool to visit, but if it's too much of a tourist destination I don't think I'd enjoy it that much.

i didn't really feel that it was that touristy. there were definitely tourists there, but it wasn't overwhelming like going to cancun or anything like that

Costa Rica was great. My wife and I were there a few years ago. We did Arenal and Tortugero on the east coast as well as some white water rafting in one of the national parks southeast of San Jose. It was amazing. I loved the whole place.