Tamarindo… stop right here

After our 4 nights in Playa de Garza, we decided to head back up the coast to Tamarindo Costa Rica, we used airbnb.com to book a little place for a week in Playa Grande.  After driving up and down the same road looking for a big church called the Super Milagro (Miracle) we spotted the sign, it was a liquor store… sometimes my Spanish leads us in the wrong direction! We arrived at the gate drove up the hill and were surprised that our “casita” where we were going to spend the next week was barely the size of our truck and that the bathroom was across the garden (and around the pool), I immediately burst into tears knowing that this wasn’t going to work for us and starting to feel the wear and tear of the last 4 months on the road coming to ahead. 

I was tired, tired and frustrated and seriously considering stopping this adventure right there, driving back to the States.  I mentally started doing the math in my head, we could find a place close to the border to stay for the night, drive straight through, Nicaragua and Honduras to El Salvador the next day (yes in my mental state I was considering 3 borders in one day!) and be through Guatemala in a few days, back to Mexico and then home!  I was on the verge of being done.

Instead of throwing in the towel in a dramatic fashion we found a restaurant with wifi and on booking.com (my favorite hotel site because they have a “pet friendly” option) located a pet friendly 2 bed hotel room with a kitchen that would take our dogs.  Still not sure that I wanted to continue with this trip, I only booked it for 3 days.

After checking in, Fritz, the puppies and I collapsed on our “couch” in the air-conditioned bliss and watched TV in English (our hotel has ABC, NBC and CBS from Florida) for the rest of the afternoon, only leaving to walk the dogs and get take-out food from the Shwarma place across the street.  The next morning we regrouped, the town was great, touristy yes, but also charming.  We walked on the beach and decided maybe we should stay here for a month, it was obvious that I needed a break and as we had passed about a million realtor’s offices with short term listings pasted on the window, we decided to see if we could make it work.  We went in two offices and left our information for the rental agent but in the third she said she had a place she could show us in an hour.  We drove over to the place, it was a cute 2 story, pool, air, REAL kitchen but a bit more than we wanted to spend, she mentioned another one that she could show us later that afternoon or the next morning.  That evening we were treated to a great electrical storm and tropical down pour!  It was then, as we sat on our covered porch (which the apartment didn’t have) that we realized why move, maybe we could rent this place, so the next morning we arranged to stay for a month or maybe two!