This morning, Hek and I woke up began driving from La Fortuna to Tamarindo. The first half of the drive follows the shores of Lake Arenal, a man-made lake created by a dam. The drive is very windy and it is often difficult to maintain a speed of over 40km on the windy roads.
About an hour and a half into our drive, we followed through on Peter’s (owner of Sleeping Indian) recommendation and visited Lake Arenal Brewery, a secluded remote brewery and hotel about 8 km about from the nearest town. The brewery and hotel overlooks Lake Arenal from a hilltop, with dozens of hotel rooms. The hotel was founded about 25 years ago, when a 24-year old visited Costa Rica and started building the hotel. The hotel has so much potential, yet it will take a lot of work to realize the full potential because of the remote location and the fact that so many people that visit Costa Rica rely on public transportation.
We arrived in Tamarindo at around 2PM and checked into the Sirena Serena Boutique Hotel. The hotel is on the outskirts of town, but still within walking distance of the beach and downtown Tamarindo. A few years ago, two siblings from Canada acquired the hotel and started running it. It’s been inspirational and interesting to see people courageous enough to leave their lives behind and start a new in a new country.
Josh and I walked around town and had a smoothie in Downtown Tamarindo. For dinner, we walked over to Gallo Fino, a fancy restaurant on the main road in Tamarindo that was recommended to us by Eddie. The atmosphere was beautiful and the chicken/beef fajitas were delicious. After dinner, we walked to Crazy Monkey, danced for a few hours, and then went home to sleep around 2AM.
