Farmers Market

Every Friday there is a Farmers Market several miles down the road in a little town called Haucus.  It is too far to walk but a very short $1.00 per person taxi ride.  They have wonderful fruits and vegetables along the side of the road.  Last Friday we went with a new friend from the condo unit who has been coming here for years and really knows her way around.

The vegetables are fresh and wonderful.

Gail bought a bunch of bananas, two mangos, a beautiful bunch of green beans, a pineapple, two peaches, six wonderful tomatoes, one red pepper and one green pepper, the biggest head of lettuce I have ever seen, and big bag of potatoes, all for $16.

I know there is a golf course nearby Tamarindo because they advertised a charity tournament in the paper the other day.  I don’t know where the golf course is but on the way to the Farmer’s Market we passed a driving range.  It is a little crude but looks like it is probably effective.

It has not rained here for over two months and the Driving Range was the greenest thing we saw on our ride to and from Haucus.  The entire country side is very dry.

One of the major concerns this time of year is fires. You can see smoke most every day up in the mountains. These are wild fires that are left to burn because it is too hard to reach them and try to put them out.

Even though it is dry the flowers continue to bloom and the yards of many of the homes are full of color.

With so much color now, I wonder what it looks like in the rainy season.

Man's Beach

Nature continually changes her beach with the coming and going of each tide. 

Man's beach is a bit more predictable.  
Every morning when we take our walk, the first thing we see when we approach the beach is all of the boats moored in the bay.

The majority of these boats never go anywhere.  I have no idea where the owners are but I would guess someplace where the "Rich and Famous" hang out.  The boats with the two and three masts, however, are out most every day and are beautiful whether under sail--

or just at anchor.

One of the first things that happens every morning on "Man's Beach" is the lining of the beach chairs.  Some are just your basic wooden chairs.

But, there are also the more elaborate lounge chairs that have canvas seats and built in sun visors.  You can rent two of these chairs plus an umbrella for $15 a day.  Not bad because that also includes delivery service of your favorite beverages from the nearby restaurant (cost of the drinks is extra however).

It doesn't take long before the whole beach is outlined with all kinds of lounging apparatus to make your day in the sun enjoyable.

Of course there are always some people who are too cheap to rent a chair.  They bring a spatula from the kitchen, dig a hole in the sand and build their own chair.  Actually it works pretty good--comfortable and cool--but it's tough to roll over.

Shortly after the chairs are aligned, the vendors begin to show up.  These are local people selling everything from cold beer, to shaved ice--

to jewelry and trinkets of all kinds

(many of these people wear long pants and long sleeved shirts-I don't know how, or why,they do it)--

cigars and sunglasses

and massages.

If you want something, and they don't have it, I'll bet they can get it for you pretty quick.

Next to arrive at Man's Beach--the Gringos.

And pretty soon the sand and the surf is full of people.

Man's Beach, where all of the people are, is lined with bars, restaurants and souvenir shops.  However, if you walk a little further, to Natures Beach, you often run into some fishermen.  Yesterday as we were walking we saw this guy fishing out on the rocks.

When we returned, he was gone and the only thing we found was this fishing rod laying on the rocks.

We couldn't call 911 because we don't have cell phones.  I guess I'll get a copy of the Tico Times and see if any fishemen have been reported missing.

Nature's Beach (Part 2)

There are small areas of the beach that have just the right composition of sand where the tide creates "Sand Forrests".  As the tides receeds the water pulls small portions of sand with it.  This erosion process creates images in the sand that look like trees in a forest. 

A good thing about the tide is that it cleans the beach every day. There is no litter on the beach not only because the tides wash it away but the people are taught in school not to litter. One of the beautiful things that does wash up on the beach and is cleansed by the water is drift wood. Some of it is very beautiful:

 To the South is a cliff that helps protect that end of the bay.

This cliff is very stark and rocky with varied vegetation but at the same time beautiful.  It has cactus growing on the one side.

The vegetation can provide for some very interesting scenes.

Once you leave the bay and walk around the corner you are exposed to the Pacific Ocean.  It is just like entering Texas--everything is bigger.  The rocks are bigger, the waves are bigger, the wind is stronger, and the beach goes on forever.

These birds were on the rocks lined up like soldiers standing at attention heading into the wind.

When they flew, they stayed low close to the waves.

Nature's Beach is amazing.

Nature's Beach (Part1)

The natural look of the beach is totally affected by the tides.  They are always either coming in or going out.  At high tide the waves are the best.  The surfers say two hours before and two hours after high tide is the best time to surf.

High Tide

When the tides are out, or at low tide, the beach is very wide.  The sand close to the water is smooth, not coarse or full of shells like some beaches, and it is firm so you do not sink into it.  It makes for a very enjoyable walk which we take about every day.  

Since Tamarindo is located in a bay, we walk from one end of the bay to the estuary at the other end.

This is a picture taken from the air that I copied from another site but it shows the shore line and the configuration of the bay.  You can see the estuary at the bottom right of the picture, the town in the middle, and the southern point of the bay in the top right corner.  The bay extends further to the north at the bottom right of the picture for several miles with beautiful sandy beaches.  The only safe way across the estuary, however, is by boat.  It is not very wide or deep but, since it is a mixture of salt and fresh water and extends quite a distance inland, there are crocodiles in it.

Nature provides so much to see and it is different every day.  Just the changes in the patterns of the sand that are made from the waves are fascinating.

          

The snails painstakingly scribe their signatures in the sand.

And even we leave our mark...

MOONS

In the Beginning GOD created Heaven and earth.   When he did this, he made thousands of different kinds of animals.  Some of these animals he scattered throughout the planet.  I can understand why he did this in some cases, like horses.  Man might have helped a little with horses, however, since we have used them forever for transportation and work.  However, one kind of animal that seems to be everywhere, and I don’t understand why, is the Raccoon.

These two pesky little creatures are pets in a hotel/restaurant down the road.   They feed them cat food but I can’t imagine the carnage they will create when they get to the restaurant.

Some animals God seemed to place just in certain parts of the world, mostly because they fit the environment.  For example, in the warmer climates he placed Iguanas—

This guy was in a tree just off our balcony.

There also monkeys here called “Howler” monkeys.  They live in families in the trees and rarely, if ever, touch the ground.  There is an Alpha male, several secondary males, several females and, of course, lots of babies.  The Alpha male is the youngest and strongest, as opposed to other types of monkies where he is the oldest and wisest.

We hear them in the  morning and evening.  They make a loud guttural sound like a very large dog barking.

Some of the birds here are also unique.  The people who live in the unit below ours are here year round.  They have two parrots that live in a bush next to their patio.   The first time you walk by, not knowing they are there, and they screech at you and stick their heads out of the leaves, can be quite startling.

                          There are also a lot of very pretty yellow birds that are like our canary but much larger—about the size of a Robin.   They are one of three hundred species of fly catchers, which explains why we have seen no mosquitoes and maybe two flies since we have been here.

And Bluebirds are here too.  Although Bella Vista is the Bluebird capital of the world, these Bluebirds are a different kind and are blue colored all over.  Believe it or not, it is the female of the Red Sargeant that is like our Red Winged Blackbird but the Red Sargeant has the red on it's back rather than on the wings.

But I think one of the best things God did, before he rested on the seventh day, was that he took a rib from Adam and created the moon(s).

Gail thinks I have the interpretation of this passage

confused and suggests I go back and review the Book of Genesis

again. 

I say there are many parts of the Bible that can be interpreted in

different ways and I personally think I got this one down pretty

good.