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Real Estate Update
The Endless Holiday | We ? Tama
The Family Keeps Growing! | Welcome to Senderos
Departure/Detour/Destination | The Tamarindo Almanac
A Big Year Ahead and Breathtaking Homes | Real Estate Update
There’s a big year coming ahead for Tamarindo, and if the first month in this bustling beach town is anything to go by, you’d be right to be bullish!
The Guanacaste community’s resilience and forward-thinking over the past few years looks primed to pay off. The tourist economy was hit hard here like everywhere else in the world, but a combination of intelligent adaptations, the support of the community, and thoughtful investment has left the region primed for incredible growth as travel comes roaring back.
Global shifts in work and lifestyle have also helped reveal a new side to Tamarindo, a side that shows that this town is more than just a vacation destination, it’s a place to live, work, and build a life.
It’s hard to understate exactly how excited we are for these changes to come in the area, as well as the changes that are on our doorstep already. All this and more in this month’s newsletter.
Airlift Continues to Match Records
To a longtime resident of Tamarindo, it’s easy to walk out along the beachfront and know instinctively that the town is thriving again. The streets are bustling with life (and quite a few new shops and restaurants), the waves are dotted with surfers, with beachgoers just in front of them relaxing and socializing on the sand.
But nowhere is the return to form for Tamarindo more noticeable than in the continued record-breaking and record-matching months for Liberia International Airport. Since May of 2021, airlift has either matched or surpassed pre-pandemic records, and with much of global travel still depressed, that’s a potent sign of exactly how much demand exists for Costa Rica.
Promising signs for the future.
Ocean Base | Senderos Collection Home Debut
And speaking of the future, we’re happy to share two brand new Senderos Collection Homes. First is “Ocean Base” on lot 2-E, a 4 bedroom, 4 and 2 half-bath “luxury lookout” by Inverse Projects founders, Daniela and Richard Hammond.
Formerly Principal and Regional Design Leader for the Latin America offices of global powerhouse Gensler Architects, Daniela and Richard sought to create a magnificent ocean view home with with all eyes on the surf breaks at Playa Grande and the natural wonders of Las Baulas Estuary National Park. And they certainly succeeded!
Both modern in its approach to clean lines and living, the home on 2-E is designed and sited to leverage the views, solar, and wind conditions. In addition, the home is engineered to not only meet Costa Rica’s exacting building standards, but also sit “lightly” on the land with an environmentally conscious footprint.
If you’d like to learn more about this gorgeous Ocean Base listed for $2,100,000, you can explore the full listing on the Senderos Realty website, or reach out to us at realty@senderos-cr.com.
Horizon Luxe | Senderos Collection Home Debut
Equally breathtaking is the second Senderos Collection home to debut this month, Horizon Luxe. Designed by Inverse Projects exclusively for Senderos Homebuilding, the Horizon Luxe on 19-E is built to do nothing but maximize the views and luxury coastal living experience.
This 5 bedroom, 5 bath and 2 half-bath home positions itself to overlook the rivermouth, the waves of Playa Grande and the Las Baulas Estuary winding its way through the jungle.
The layout of the home itself is a sneak attack, with only the deluxe Master Suite at entry-level.
However, as you descend to the lower floors, the house magically unfolds to reveal the private guest suites and the vast private, indoor-outdoor living areas on the lower floor.
Oversized social areas for gathering in the double-height great room and main terrace, flow easily to the pool where more private areas are designed to take in the view and escape it all…
Gourmet kitchen, a private outdoor exercise/yoga level, and a secret detached sunset cocktail deck round out a masterful use of space and light in this beautiful home.
Oriented to the north, you see forever from this lot. The entirety of Las Baulas National Park and its beaches and mangroves is only the closest part of the view from here. Watch small planes lazily cruise by at eye level while still being a quick hop down the hill to bustling Tamarindo and all it has to offer.
If you’d like to learn more about Horizon Luxe, listed for $2,900,000, you can explore the full listing on the Senderos Realty website, or reach out to us at realty@senderos-cr.com.
Finding the Right Home for You
New lots and concept homes are constantly on the horizon in Senderos, but they can go quickly! If you’re interested in learning which listings are coming up and which lots are available, you can reach out to us and learn more at realty@senderos-cr.com.
The Endless Holiday | We ? Tama
There are a lot of reasons to love Tamarindo. Bustling shops and restaurants for all tastes dot the beach. The natural world around us is full of life, both on land and in the ocean. The weather is just about perfect all-year-round, and the landscape allows for some truly astounding dream homes.
And in this month’s edition of We ? Tama, we’re taking a moment to show our love for Tama’s spirit of the endless holiday, which permeates every part of life down here.
It’s not that nothing ever gets done, or no one does any work in Tamarindo. Quite the opposite actually. In fact, more and more people are moving to Tamarindo in the heart of their careers to live, work, and raise families. And when they get here, they’re discovering a place that allows more balance between work and life, better physical and mental health, and more meaningful time with family.
These new nomads have been a part of life in Tamarindo since the dawn of the digital age, and this migration to Tamarindo (and similar destinations) has only accelerated as companies have begun to move towards more flexible work schedules and remote work.
Still, it can be hard to believe just how wonderful this life is at times!
Do You Really Live Like This?
It’s a question that anyone who’s lived here long enough gets. Whether you’re hosting friends from outside of the country or chatting with a new friend who you met around town. At times, it’s even a question you might ask yourself.
The activities, the experiences, the beauty, the weather — these are all great reasons to come to Tamarindo. But as you stay here longer, it becomes more and more clear that there’s something more to life here than just the separate pieces.
Living in Tamarindo is like constantly having one foot in an endless holiday. We live in one of the most beautiful parts of the entire planet, and even when you’re working hard, you can pick your head up to watch the waves crest on the ocean, or step out for a breath of fresh air to look out across the mountains.
The natural world is a part of life here, whether you’re spotting howler monkeys in the trees, a troop of pizotes in the brush, or getting to take a walk in the woods a few steps from your front door.
The people are full of life here too. Tamarindo locals and visitors aren’t afraid to celebrate, no matter the time of day, no matter the day of the week. Wherever you go, you can find people in a good mood, and that’s something that can’t always be said when we’re elsewhere. It’s healthy to be around happy people.
Proximity to nature, to family, to everything that makes this town so great is important too. You’re not spending hours and hours stuck in a commute, holding onto brief moments of relaxation between work and sleep and obligations. You have time to take a walk on the beach with a loved one, dip in the ocean over lunch, grab a bite to eat with your feet in the sand, and spend more quality time, not carpool time, with your family.
And on top of that all, Tamarindo is a happening town. Pay attention to the myriad newsletters, Facebook groups, and bulletins and you’ll always find something new to do, someone new to meet, or a new place to explore that will take your breath away.
That’s Life in Tamarindo
It’s a real joy, any time you’re asked a question like “do you really live like this?” to be able to say “yes.”
That lifestyle, the endless holiday is how we live life every day. It’s more balanced, it’s healthier, it’s happier. It’s more connected to nature, with less time spent inside feeling cooped up, and less time in a car.
That’s the Tamarindo lifestyle.
And that’s one of the many reasons We ? Tama!
If you’d like to learn more about life in Tamarindo, or are thinking about joining us for our endless holiday, you can reach out to us at info@senderos-cr.com.
The Family Keeps Growing! | Welcome to Senderos
And with a big year ahead, we’re happy to announce that the Senderos family has continued to grow. Making homebuilding a joy takes talented people, and it’s a pleasure to be able to introduce a few of those new talented team members.
Brayan González
Brayan is a local of Grecia, Alajuela, and joins the team in Tamarindo after 5 years as a construction and infrastructure engineer, where he’ll put his extensive experience in civil and hospitality infrastructure projects to use as a Resident Engineer.
Brayan’s breadth of project experience — including road construction, electrical, telecom, and sanitary among others — is notable for a 5 year career, and he’s excited to contribute to the team as he joins Senderos.
“This opportunity is an excellent chance for personal and professional growth, and the fact that I get to do it in Tamarindo just makes that even better. I’ve always loved living here when I’ve had the chance to — it’s beautiful naturally and the people are fantastic — and I can’t wait to see what we can all accomplish together.”
Karolina Lutz
Karolina is a Costa Rican native currently based out of the Tamarindo area, where she joins the team as a Sales Office Coordinator. As Karolina explains it, she’s been surrounded by sales her entire life, and is excited to take the next step helping support and organize the team at Senderos.
“I have had sales experiences practically all my life, but working with a team like Senderos is very different. I can’t wait to contribute with all of my knowledge, and learn even more about sales and marketing with some very experienced people.”
Outside of work, Karolina has an unwavering spirit of adventure. You can often find her surfing, water skiing, quad biking, and even doing extreme sports like ultralight flying!
Rodolfo Jimenez Acuña
Rodolfo is a native of Zarcero, Alajuela, and brings more than 35 years of experience in the construction industry, where he started as a draftsman before shifting to budgeting and estimation, which he has focused on for the past three decades. He joins the Senderos team as an Estimator.
Rodolfo’s experience at Costa Rica’s top construction firms established him as a top professional in the nation, before transferring his work to the public sector for the past decade. Now, Rodolfo joins the team at Senderos in search of a new challenge. Though his experience has included residential projects before, joining a high-end, ambitious project outside of the capital was a fascinating prospect, and Rodolfo is excited to contribute to the growth of this team.
In his spare time, you can often find Rodolfo spending time with family and following his passion for hiking and being in nature.
Walter Schmidt
Walter is originally from Coronado, San José, though his work and adventurous spirit have brought him near and far, including 18 years as a designer, builder, and project manager throughout Costa Rica, Mexico, and Belize.
Walter’s next step brings him to Tamarindo and Senderos as a Project Manager, where he’ll put all of his varied experience to work helping the Senderos Homebuilding Services team fire on all cylinders moving into this busy year. It’s an exciting prospect for Walter.
“I am very inspired and motivated in this company and this project. I think it will be a very good experience both professionally and personally and that Senderos is an incredible project that will bring many good things to the Tamarindo area. Plus, I love living in this area — there is something very special about getting to go out and see the sunset after a day at work!”
When he’s not bringing homes to life, Walter is out on another adventure, whether he’s finding new places to explore on his motorcycle or trekking — like in his photo above from Chirripó, the highest mountain in Costa Rica.
Roy David Duarte Marchena
Roy, known to some friends as David, is a Guanacaste native, born and raised in El Llano. As a result, he’s been in the region for the past two decades of growth and development, and has worked in hardware and construction for most of his professional career.
Now, Roy joins the team as a Purchaser, where he’s excited to put his experience to work bringing dream homes to life for Senderos clients.
“I really like the project here! It excites me to be part of a work team where we make the dreams of each of our clients come true, down to the finest detail.”
In his spare time, Roy enjoys two classic Guanacaste pastimes — surfing and fishing — and he’s a great person to ask for the local scoop about both!
Sebastian Ugalde
Sebastian is from Coronado, San José, and brings 8 years of experience to the Senderos team as a Resident Engineer. Sebastian specializes in engineering and project management (refined in commercial, residential, and remodeling projects), and is excited to put his skills to work as a part of the Senderos team.
“Each project is a new challenge and a new opportunity to create something wonderful, and I think that’s very exciting. Then you add in the fact that Tamarindo is such a magical place, a chance to live and work in a very beautiful town on the coast, and Senderos is an amazing next step to take!”
In his spare time, you can find Sebastian out in nature. Whether it’s hiking, mountain biking, surfing, or something else, Sebastian is always at home out exploring the wild world around us in Guanacaste.
Welcome to Senderos!
A big welcome from the whole team in Senderos to the newest members of our Homebuilding Services family. Looking forward to what we can all accomplish together this year!
Departure/Detour/Destination | The Tamarindo Almanac
Yesterday Tamarindo was a detour. Today, it is a destination. Tomorrow, it will be a place for departure, knowing that we will always come back.
Many paths lead to Tamarindo, for foot, pedal, or petrol. Many vessels too, be they from hardy and ocean-spanning voyagers or easygoing pangas ferrying the estuary. Travelers arrive by air — at the nearby airfield in numbers, at the airport in droves — and fill the town with language and culture and creed stretching to every continent humankind calls home.
It’s been like this since Tamarindo first rose from the ocean all those millennia ago. Well, not exactly. The travelers have changed, and their transport has too. But this place has always been one of comings and goings, of departure, detour, and destination.
When Tamarindo first emerged from the ocean as part of the Central American land bridge, it became a superhighway for flora and fauna. Plants and creatures began to migrate to these new lands nestled between continents and oceans, giving rise to the astounding biodiversity now present in Costa Rica.
Ancient humans were quick to follow, in waves of migrations that would give rise to the indigenous cultures of North, Central, and South America — some of whom remain in stories, tales, and histories, and some of whom have been lost to the mists of time.
The Nicoya peninsula — whose boundaries roughly form the Guanacaste that we know today — was shaped by the arrival of a group of the Mangue people, fleeing conquest in what is now known as coastal Mexico. The Mangue spread throughout much of modern-day Central America, splintering into groups in El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Nicoya.
In time, the Nicoyan Mangue became known as the Chorotega, a word which roughly translates to “those who fled”, and in time those Chorotega settled the majority of the Nicoyan peninsula. Tamarindo was a mere detour in these times, among vast lands settled by the Chorotega, and the Nicoyan capital city at the center of the region.
Nicoya, and the little beaches around Tamarindo, were turned to a destination once again when hundreds of years later the Spanish arrived in Central America, and the waves of conquistadors washed across the continent.
The political landscape of Central America as we know it today was shaped in great part by the arrival of the conquistadors, who formed many of the national boundaries we see today, but today the Pacific coast of Costa Rica is also known for one major type of departure, one that is echoed by hundreds of elite athletes from around the world each year.
In the early 1500s, expeditions surged out from the Pacific coast to explore the rugged, untamed terrain of Costa Rica en route to the Pacific. Collectively, the journey from the Pacific to the Caribbean has become known as the Ruta de Los Conquistadores, which was revived in 1993 as a brutal, 3-day stage race across Costa Ricas dramatic, mountainous terrain.
Today, the Ruta departs further south, in Jacó rather than from the Nicoyan peninsula, and just as the focus of those early conquistadors was drawn south, to lucrative Pacific ports near the Spanish capital of San José, so too were many of the ties that linked the Nicoyan peninsula to the Spanish colony that would become Costa Rica.
For 200 years, Nicoya was a distant detour from the richer Central Valley, and as such began to develop its own identity, distinct from the rest of what we’d now call Costa Rica. Nicoya’s independent spirit flourished to such a degree that upon Central America’s independence from Spain in 1821, there was uncertainty whether Nicoya would even join the newly created nation of Costa Rica.
A landmark vote resulted in the Anexión del Partido de Nicoya, a holiday now celebrated informally as ‘Guanacaste Day’. But Guanacaste and the surrounding regions had a bumpy road ahead, and it was the departure and arrivals of armies that shaped the first few decades of the new Costa Rican history, one that was fraught with conflict against neighboring Nicaragua.
In the next century, Costa Rica shifted to much of the national landscape we see today — a capital city surrounded by industry in the Central Valley and outer regions dotted by smaller towns among the other provinces. There was another major shift too, one towards a more peaceful way of life, and in the aftermath of a failed coup, Costa Rica elected to eliminate its military entirely in 1949, taking a bold stand in the face of advancement.
Tamarindo’s history — unique from Guanacaste, and from the Partido de Nicoya — is the story of Playa Tamarindo’s rediscovery first as a detour, and then as a destination, for the sport that brings so many of us together. Surfing. In the 1960s and 70s, Tamarindo was a small town like many others along the coast of Guanacaste, accessible only by mule, by foot, or via the water. Even the landscape itself was different, thanks to the mountainside that jutted out right onto the Tamarindo estuary.
But as surfers swept over the world like suntanned conquistadors, searching for the next secret break hiding along coves and cliffs, Tamarindo laid quiet, at least at first. Stories tell of the “Gringo Trail”, where surfers rented vans, jeeps, and campers outfitted for lives on the road in search of the perfect surf break, but rumors that Costa Rica was a land without waves kept all but the bravest north in La Libertad, El Salvador, commonly thought to the surfers’ last stop.
It was those few ambitious souls who made their way across Costa Rica to Tamarindo that discovered the perfect breaks of Playa Grande and Playa Tamarindo, and the small, peaceful town that huddled on its shores. Some remained for the rest of their lives, but like all good legends, eventually, the stories of the Tamarindo surf breaks raced beyond the mountains and the estuaries, drawing a small, but loyal population to Tamarindo time after time.
It was the first sign of Tamarindo transforming from an oft-avoided detour to a true destination, a transformation that figuratively — and literally — exploded under the vision of Adelita Zuniga. Named in honor of the Adelitas, bold female soldiers of the Mexican Revolution, Adelita had a vision of Tamarindo as a unique tourist destination and purchased land along the estuary with big intentions.
A great deal of dynamite later, the cliffside had been cleared along the estuary, and the first road into Tamarindo began construction, offering the first major access to the beach and the surrounding areas. The first hotels began to spring up, and the first restaurants and ice houses, and of course, the beachside bars frequented by so many of the surfers, and for the first time Tamarindo began to grow as something more than a destination.
People had always called Tamarindo home in one way or another, from the ancient people who lived in the region to the Chorotega to the Spanish to the Nicoyans to the travelers of the Gringo Trail, but the 70s brought a population boom of honest-to-god Tamarindo residents like nothing in Tamarindo’s many-millennia-long history.
Inspired by the outlaw spirit of the first surfers and travelers to make their way to Tamarindo’s pristine surf breaks, the first residents of the new Tamarindo were a collection of misfits. Developers shunned in the capital brought new visions to the coast, and the descendants of those first families still call the area home today.
Connection to the Pan American highway in the late 1960s, and the construction (and subsequent expansion) of Daniel Oduber Quiros International Airport in Liberia starting in 1975 further catalyzed the growth of the region, and Tamarindo thrived.
Over the past 2 decades, Costa Rica’s rise on the world stage has only continued, and through the diligent work of the locals, Tamarindo has emerged as one of the most desirable destinations on the Pacific coast — one that still maintains a rugged spirit of adventure but has advanced well beyond the town without running water and electricity that sat between ocean, estuary, and mountainside not half a century ago.
And in those two decades, Tamarindo has shown another side, a more permanent site — as a place to depart. A true gateway city is not just a place to visit, after all, it is a place from which you visit other places, before returning home. And in that regard, Tamarindo is in the midst of its evolution from destination city to departure city.
Over the course of a year, the vast majority of departures within Tamarindo are done by visitors. They depart on catamarans and fishing charters and pangas, on mountain bikes and surfboards and sailboats, on humvees and horseback and helicopters. These are journeys of adventure, but they are as beautiful as they are fleeting, and in time their travelers return home, to venture elsewhere.
But from the homes within Tamarindo, families go about their daily lives, attending school, work, grocery stores, activities. New nomads, the travelers of the 21st century, venture far and wide but always return to the roots that they’ve laid here. Seasoned professionals searching for somewhere new, parents intent on raising children in a more vibrant way of life, wanderers searching for places to call home — the presence of true Tamarindo residents continues to grow, and with them comes a new transformation of this town.
A home, after all, is a place that you leave, but always come back. It is a destination, sure, but a place can be just a destination, a place we will always one day leave. But no matter how many detours draw us far afield, home is the one place that will always be our departure point.
