Killer's Central American Travel Log: 3

Howdy folks. I am currently in Tamarindo, Costa Rica.
We spent a few low key days in San Juan Del Sur, Nicaragua. It is a really beautiful town, but not a whole lot going on. We took a taxi back to the border and walked through. After standing in the sun for a long time, and a small bribe to the local official, we made it out of Nicaragua and crossed the mysterious area that always exists between border crossings. It is not really one country or the other. It is usually about 100 yards, but Nicaragua and Costa Rica share a confusing 300 yards of unclaimed land that contain several small buildings, many vendors selling fruit and an unknown liquid in small plastic bags, not to mention the mandatory duty free liquor store. After wandering for a while in no country in particular, we figured out which building was the actual entry point for Costa Rica, politely declined the hundreds of offers to exchange our now useless Nicaraguan Cordobas into Costa Rican Colones, and got a stamp to return to Costa Rica.
We found a suprisingly cheap taxi willing to drive us the 100 kilometers into Liberia, once there we re-rented our same Dahaitsu and drove down to Playa Tamarindo. Unlike San Juan Del Sur, it is teeming with the seedy side of life. It is a surfer mecca so there is no shortage of shaggy surfers walking around, nor is there a shortage of scruffy people offering a multitude of drugs, alcohol and almost any other vice you could ask for.
Chad has a friend who is living here right now, a guy named Brian that worked with Chad in Taiwan, and also happened to be in Bangkok a few nights with us last summer, small world. We met up with Brian and he showed us the cool hangouts in town and we spent a few hours playing a bastardized version of Black Jack. I quickly lost 60 bucks, declined the oddly man looking prostitute that had taken seat next to me, and headed to the next club. We stayed up until almost midnight, which suprisingly enough is very late for us on this trip. We usually are in bed by 9pm and up around 6am. I don't know if it is the traveling that wears us out, or just the fact that we are all getting pretty old.
We are probably heading towards San Jose in a few days, so I will write more later.
Killer