Day 5 

Tamarindo Beach 

Guanacaste Region of Costa Rica

We said goodbye to Arenal this morning and survived a five hour van journey to Tamarindo Beach.  The ride was a narrow two lane road through mountains with at least a million curves.  Mrs. Ogle said she felt like she was on the Mind Bender roller coaster at Six Flags after eating six corn dogs and not being able to get off.  Travel tip of the day:    We are also learning that you need to sit as close to the front as possible in a shuttle van. Being in the back, as we were, was like riding Fu Man Chu at the rodeo.  

However, the rough ride was all worth it when we arrived at our nice resort.   Our room was not yet ready so we ventured down the shady rainforest path which opened up to the Pacific Ocean. The beach was quite a surprise.  Unlike our white sandy beaches in the Gulf of Mexico, this beach has brownish sand.   Black and brown pillow lava jutted from the shore out into the surf about 40 yards.   We could see the barnacles and marine life that were waiting on high tide to cover them. Black crabs darted all around the sand and the lava.   

A close up picture of the beach lava

While we were unpacking in our room, we heard a strange sound so we went outside to investigate.  Here's a video of us hunting... Mrs. Langford's ribs hurt from laughing at this!  

We found the monkey up in a tree.  We had been told that howler monkeys will try to poop on you if you get too close, so that thought was in the back of our mind, as well as being attacked by a rogue monkey!  The monkeys also woke us up before dawn the next morning by 'howling', hence the name Howler Monkey.  

We ate dinner at a restaurant on the beach.  Afterward, we saw a beautiful Pacific Ocean sunset as we walked along the beach.  Below is Mrs. Ogle.

Below is the Pacific Ocean sunset.  Why can't you see the sun set on the Atlantic Ocean?