This year’s TGT has been thought about for a long time, and thus Costa Rica was the chosen destination.
We started our adventure by catching a red-eye flight out of LAX. We landed in Liberia, Costa Rica in the early morning, where we promptly headed to the hotel to catch some much-needed sleep. This year’s trip had nine participants with three newbies – Scott, Jacob and Steve along with Wyatt, Ian, Justin, Shane, Rob, and Jof. After catching a few hours of shut-eye, we headed to a local micro brewery walking distance from the hotel called NUMO brewing Company. After sampling some beers, we headed into Liberia for a meat, bean and tortilla filled dinner. With full bellies, we headed back to the hotel for an evening of chilling and prepared for our trip to Tamarindo in the morning.
In the morning, we caught our taxi and headed to the official destination – Tamarindo, Costa Rica. Tamarindo is located on the Nicoya peninsula on the northern Pacific coast in the province of Guanacaste. Tamarindo is a touristy town with plenty of amenities, but is best known as a surf destination with fun waves and warm water, but also offers great saltwater fishing and lots of extra curricular activities such as jungle zip lining, horseback riding on the beach, sunset cruises, great nightlife and chilling out on the beach. We arrived to our beautiful home, called Casa Giving Tree which was situated on the south end of town. The casa was a large five bedroom, five bathroom home with a pool and decks in a beautiful neighborhood. Once we got settled in we headed down the street to a local restaurant, called Fishes and Cheese for some pasta, pizza and fish. Once again with our bellies full, we headed back to the casa to relax around the pool and prepare for the honored mate ceremony that evening.
The ceremony got started with the traditional greeting, welcoming everyone to another TGT, receiving/educating newbies and celebrating friendships. We toasted on more than one occasion with Cacique Guaro – the traditional Costa Rican hooch. The ceremony culminated with the selection of the new honored mate – Rob. Let’s not forget the heartfelt live stream to Bob and Joe expressing how much we missed having them on this year’s trip.
The surf was chest to head high, 84° water with moderate crowds. We surfed Tamarindo Beach with its sandy bottom and some rocky outcroppings. No pics this year, but we had a few great sessions. Other excursions included deep-sea fishing – we ALL hooked up and landed sailfish and almost some marlin… which managed to get away. Scott, Shane and Jof went zip lining in the jungle and all of us went on a sunset cruise. The cruise included snorkeling in a small cove off of a peninsula and lunch, but the most memorable experience was a dazzling lighting show followed by a cacophony of thunder from a passing storm. There were a few crazy TGT members who thought it would be exciting to experience the storm while basking out on the catamaran‘s trampoline, drinking beer, giggling, and just admiring mother’s symphony while sitting below a 60 foot tall metal mast! Following the storm, we all were treated to a beautiful sunset on our way back to port.
During our time in Tamarindo, we rented cars and traveled along the coast searching for surf and just enjoyed a little sightseeing. Most surf spots we checked tended to be rocky points, the tide was low and the rocks were too exposed to access the water. Eventually we ventured back to Tamarindo and grabbed our boards for a late afternoon session.
Before concluding, I have some parting thoughts besides the aforementioned memories… Scott and Ian barbecuing Costa Rican hotdogs, bratwurst and beef, taking our fresh caught fish and then dropping them off at a beachside restaurant where it was prepared for our evening feast. I would be remiss if, I didn’t mention Mr. energy – Rasta Scotty who always greeted everyone in the morning with freshly brewed coffee and a smile!
We had the newbies wanting to join the fraternal order of TGT and all of us wondering where next year’s trip was gonna be. We left Tamarindo in our two rented cars and headed back to Liberia airport where we caught our flights back to LAX. Once in LA, we all said our goodbyes and headed our separate ways to Nevada, the Northwest, Northern California and Southern California.
Cheers & Audios,
2025 HM,
Jof