When we arrived at Tamarindo we found a great beach next to a typical beach town. The main drag in Tamarindo is composed of surf shops, some restaurants, the town's upscale hotel, and your usual gaggle of souvenir places - and a lot of cars, most of them driving a little more aggressively than you'd prefer. Our hotel - the Hotel Pasatiempo - was on one of the side streets, about a quarter of a mile from the beach. In Tamarindo only the main street next to the beach is paved. Everything else is dirt - not gravel, dirt. Things were a little dusty, which was a little annoying at certain times of the day. I was wondering what it was like when it rained.
On our second day in Tamarindo we had arranged a half-day fishing charter. We found out that getting breakfast in a Costa Rican beach town before 7:00 AM is not the easiest thing to do. We had noticed the night before that there was a little cafe a few doors down from our hotel that advertised breakfast, starting at 6:00. Needless to say, "breakfast at 6:00" here is very similar to "reserving" a car. In theory, it might happen, occasionally . . . maybe. When we showed up at 6:45 the proprietor was in her pajamas and looked like she had gotten out of bed within the last five minutes. Two of our party ordered granola and yogurt (don't ask me why), which seemed innocent enough until we noticed a guy behind the counter making a grocery list, which we came to find out included granola. Rather than waste precious - and expensive - fishing time, we left before shopping boy had returned with the granola. Luckily there was bakery on the way to the beach for the granola people.
Our fishing trip was a great success. For starters we all caught a skip-jack, which is a small fish that was fun to catch but not good for eating. Then, following a lull of about an hour when we didn't catch anything, the mahi-mahi showed up. Bethany, Kayla, Lance and Cody all caught a mahi-mahi, each one a little bigger than the previous one, with Bethany's being the largest. I didn't get a mahi-mahi, but I did get to reel in a sail fish, which we released after a few pictures.
Unlike skip-jack, mahi-mahi are delicious. One of the deck hands cleaned each of the fish as they were caught. We ended up with what I'd estimate to be about fifty pounds of fish. We kept enough for dinner for the six of us and gave the three crew members the rest. At the beach side restaurant where we'd had dinner the night before we found out that if you brought in your own fish they would cook it for you. When we made it back to shore we dropped off our catch and then returned that evening for a feast of very fresh fish.
After our fishing expedition we rented some boogie boards and headed for the beach. We had some great fun playing in the waves, although dodging the amateur surfers was challenging and a little dangerous at times. There's really nothing like being in the path of an out of control twelve year older surfer who's yelling "get out of the way" at the top his lungs as he speeds over or past you.
Tomorrow: We head back to San Jose in anticipation of our whitewater raft trip through the mysterious depths of the rain forest. Don't miss it!
Tamarindo Beach through the palm trees.
Sushi being served about fifteen minutes after it was caught.
Me and two surfer chicks I picked up on the beach.
Me and the only sailfish we caught. I was told by the captain of our boat that this is actually a small fish, although it was the biggest thing I've ever caught!
Kayla with her mahi-mahi (also called a "dorado" in some places).
Vicki and the surfer chicks. 
Bethany, Cody and Lance with their catches of the day.
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