I loved Dominical. If the San Clemente is still there, tell the owner that the guy who fixed his ice machine for a meal says is an ungrateful carajito peru muy feo.
Mad Mike is a bad hombre. Meaner than his hot sauce. Once he got robbed and chased the perps with his Mac-10 or AK-7 or both over the bridge and shot them up before the policia could intervene. He hasn't had any "problems" since then. Never seen so many broken boards in my life in one place, he must have 100s hanging from his ceiling.
haven't been to tamarindo in a while, but it was way too sleazy for my taste. A lot of drug mules running through that place and full of crackheads and thieves. I've literally found used, uncapped syringes in the sand. If that scene is for you, the waves are good at the reef and the rivermouth in town, but they get extremely crowded. You can walk a few miles north to playa grande...but that usually just as crowded. The other thing is all of these spots are ultra tide dependent...like, half the day, you wouldn't even know they were a surf spot. I've been to CR in both july and winter. July is not nearly as clean as winter...you will get surfable waves, but chances of getting offshore winds are low. It also rains torrentially in july (water will be relatively murky and mud is everywhere)...it's just not particularly pleasant.
Everything your mentioned about tamarindo here is spot on, the only difference would probably be the amount of international influence going around. There are more Italian restaurants than Tico. Word of advice would be exchange your money to the colones, they take usd everywhere but round up and over charge you.
Also, I don't think it rains as much up near Grande /Tamarindo as it does in the Southern Zone. I was there for a couple months 2 summers ago and it never stopped raining in Dominical but rained for less than an hour a day when we were in Grande and Avellanas. Some days it never rained.
I agree the nicoya peninsula is somewhat dryer...but I think you just got lucky. It rained every day, for most of the day when I was in tamarindo during summer (or maybe I just got unlucky).
