We woke up fairly early. Once the sun was up it is hard to keep sleeping. We walked over to the tables on the beach and had some coffee. The weather report was saying we would have lots of sporadic rain this week but it was bright and clear right now. We were waiting for Sasha and Petru to come out for breakfast so we had some time. Lots of time since they don’t rush or wake up early. A vendor came by with Banana Empanadas. It was Some kid of red Plantain– and they were excellent. so that was perfect with the coffee while we waited.
Sasha pinged yulia on the phone that they weren’t hungry so Yulia and I ate, and the guys joined us once we were finished. We walked along the beach and went into a path between the various restaurants and bars that too us to the Tamarindo Main Street. It was super nice and clean. The torrential rain of the last few days probably had something to do with how clean it was, but you could see this was tourist focused. We went into the shops to check things out and as expected prices were not cheap, but everything was nice. It was a good mix of clothes, tourist stuff, bars, craft and art shops. It reminded me a lot of Lahaina, except that Lahaina doesn’t exist anymore.
Most of the construction was new, but there were a few older buildings with some interesting architecture that told me there was an old town hidden under the surf shops, but it was too buried to see anymore.
We found a car rental on the far side of town (far meaning about 3 blocks) and booked a car for the next day. We had been thinking of some plans out of town so this was perfect. Once i had that booked we went back along the beach and dropped into another beach cafe that had some pretty good looking Ceviche. That and a few drinks turned into our lunch, and we headed back to swim. The pool was actually cooler that the ocean. With the heavy rains the day before it was full from rainwater so that brought the temp down and it was honestly refreshing.
We had a cooking class this evening, so a shuttle came to pick us up. It turned out to be the same driver that got us at the airport. We headed out back towards the main highway and he asked us if we knew the address of the place. We of course didn’t, and he called back to get a destination. We have noticed that there don’t seem to be actual addresses in Costa Rica. Just relative locations. This might be different in the big cities, but out here the address of our resort is literally “50 meters on the right from the Pura Vida Market in Tamarindo”
We drove north a ways and saw a sign for a cat cafe. We hoped to have lessons in a cat cafe but it turned out we were going to the same little shopping complex, but a cafe on the other side. We walked up to the cafe – it was full of kids so we were hoping that we weren’t coming on to cook the late shift. They were all packing up and leaving so we talked with the young girl at the front desk. She Worked there and told us to grab a drink from the cooler and the chef was setting up. She also handed us recipe cards so we could see what we would be making. We were going to be making Empanadas, Tofu Tacos, and Chifrijo with Pork Rinds.
I could tell the tofu was thrown in there for the high volume of Californians who come down here. but we’ll let it slide.
The chef was super friendly, and the class was really a lot of pre-made items and we were doing assembly. It made sense since most of the recipes i read when we cam in had things like soaking the beans overnight or the pork for two hours and we didn’t want a sleepover event. The good part of getting lessons on the technique for working with the Corn Flower. This was spiced for making empanadas, and we took a ball and pressed it our into a circle for the empanada, and their secret was doing this over a plastic sheet cut from a ziploc bag. basically the same as using parchment paper but reusable. We filled the dough and fried it up. It was amazing – as expected.
The Taco was a taco. I worked at Taco Bell as a teen so i had a head start on everyone. There’s nothing positive I can say about tofu – as is tradition.
The Chifrijo was fantastic. the big deal is learning how to do beans with the secret Salsa from Costa Rica that everyone loves – Lizano. Add that to beans and add it all to rice and its fucking amazing. Top with the pork or whatever. I could eat a bucket of it. We finished our time and headed back. We just missed an amazing sunset, and saw that the empty resort we had yesterday in the rainstorm was now full of folks. We grabbed a few cocktails for ourselves and relaxed for the evening.
Cognitive Dissonance 