“Living large in evil country...”

The road from Tamarindo to Mal Pais is rough, dusty, and hot. We traversed diagonally across the Nicoya Peninsula to the gulf coast at Playa Naranjo, and then straight across to the Pacific once again. There is a road that goes directly along the coast, south to Mal Pais, but is littered with numerous river crossings, ditches, large rock crawls, and is surely within the realm of 4 by 4 vehicles. We chose the better road made of rock and dust where the rivers are crossed with single lane bridges and the vegetation is a hue of orange-brown from being caked by so many passing cars. We are well within the dry season here and many of the trees are beginning to lose their leaves and everything looks thirsty, including the big snakes that take up a lane of the road.

Our journey zigzagging across the peninsula took just under 3 hours, leaving us with plenty of time to walk from hostel to hostel in search of a deal. Being a Wednesday, our hopes were high for lots of options and good bargaining power with our intention of staying for 2 weeks. The hippies are coming to town for the weekend, however, and we found ourselves rejected at every door. “Booked solid until after the weekend we’re afraid” appeared to be the town motto. This left us with a small number of overpriced unattractive rooms or dorm accommodations, forcing us to fraternize with the enemy hippies. One set of apartments we looked at was quite aged, but spacious. When we followed the lady back to the reception to figure out the deal involved for staying for 2 weeks, she got a phone call and found out a family member of hers had just died and burst into tears. This was awkward to say the least, even more so as she pulled out the calculator while sobbing to show us the price. Much too high for our tastes, so we left her with some words of well wishes and continued on.

We had almost settled on a $20 per night room with a bed, not much larger than a prison cell, with shared bathroom and kitchen. One shouldn’t have to pay so much for solitary confinement, and after a couple of very hot and sweaty hours of walking in the sun, we stumbled across a set of resort bungalows up the hill. The $90 per night asking price was much too high, but upon finding out we were staying for two weeks, the manager offered us a house half a block away. We weren’t too optimistic about being able to afford a house, but it was sitting empty until the 14 of February, so she offered us $250 per week. So now we are living large in our own recently painted 2 bedroom air conditioned house, complete with full kitchen, bathroom, hammock and living room. It’s the greatest thing ever.

After listing to the howler monkeys compete with the roosters for a few hours our first day in the new house, we got up at 8 am and went down to the beach for some surfing. The night before we had watched the surf at sunset and marvelled at the size of the waves. What at first appeared to be normal rollers coming in soon manifested into 10 footers when surfers gave them scale from so far out. This morning they had gotten even bigger. After struggling through the white water on the way out for what felt like forever, I sat and caught my breath while sets of 8 to 10 foot waves and occasionally bigger broke just beyond me. I thought I had conquered my fears of bigger waves while in Tamarindo, but these were a whole different level. My brain needed some serious convincing, especially since my arms felt like Jello after fighting so hard against the breaking waves on the way out. Three or four paddle strokes, then duck dive under the wave, get carried back a ways, and repeat ad nauseum. How was I going to attempt riding these monsters when I had barely even got out to them in the first place. Okay, huddle up brain. I know that all the senses being fed into you right now have allowed you to reach the decision to get the hell out of here, but just listen for a second. We can do this, it’s not so bad. Just turn your back on the monster and go with it, I promise it won’t bite. The sets are coming in clean and the waves look perfect. The strong offshore wind is forcing the face of the wave up steeper and holding it there for longer just to scare you. I go for a big one, with everything I’ve got. As I climb backwards up the face and approach the top my face is sprayed by the strong winds on the wave. Second thoughts coarse through my head as now I find myself 8ft above sea level and blinded by the spray. No problem however as the wave just passes by without me and doesn’t break for another 30 feet or so.

What had I done wrong? Every one of my senses told me that by turning my back on this monster that I was inviting certain doom upon myself as surely something so big and menacing was going to break on my head and send me into a wash cycle of death. I had become so good at judging where the waves would break up to this point. It’s the optical illusion of the big wave. The larger the wave gets, the more it looks like it’s going to break on your head, probably by some exponential function, but I haven’t done the math. It’s only when you sit and let the wave go by that you realize, looking down the line of the wave that it isn’t nearly steep enough to catch at this point. Your brain recoils in horror at the thought of paddling further inside to the very edge of the breaking point (of the wave, not of your brain). So I go for it, again and again I try, but I keep pulling back as I’m certain I’ve gone too far and won’t make the drop. My arms become tired and weak. It’s not until I come very close to catching one of these monsters that I truly understand where I have to be. And it’s not so scary. I sit at the precipice of the wave, starting to go forward with all of the monster’s energy, but I’m not quite there. I look down below and see that it’s not as scary as I thought.

It’s too late to bare any fruit from this enlightenment today, as the mind is willing but the body has now become too weak. All in for the session I manage to catch 2 head high waves, probably bigger than most that I’ve caught all trip. But these seem like nothing now having tasted the forbidden fruit. We return home for a well deserved breakfast of oatmeal in the kitchen. The house has the kitchen in a metal gate enclosure on the outside, separated by a door that locks from the inside of the house. The kitchen and bathroom area are together, but inaccessible from the outside. A gust of wind comes from the main door of the house, which is open, and slams the door closed on the kitchen, with both of us inside, and the keys conveniently on the table in the living room. We are now locked inside the kitchen with no way out. 20 minutes goes by before I’m able to call out to two women walking by our secluded road. Very suspiciously they come into the house and open the door from the inside, letting us back in. We have now set up a towel on the door system to prevent any further incarcerations.

That afternoon Denielle and I go surfboard shopping. I had intended on buying a short board for this trip once in Costa Rica, and now with the size of the swell, and inability to duck dive the giant floating fish that I’ve been riding for so long, we go about checking all the new and used surfboards in town. The town follows the beach in that it’s a narrow strip stretched out over a couple of kilometres. After surveying everything in town, I settle on a 6’6’’ rounded pin tail, 19 ½’’ by 2 5/8 ’’ epoxy board. Brand new, and a steal of a deal compared to all the other new and used offerings in town. It’s a Hot Lava board, shaped by some Australian that has shaped over 20,000 boards whom now lives in Costa Rica after falling in love with a local Tica woman. This board is incredibly light compared to my home made boards. I would guess 4 or 5 pounds. I’ll get to try it out in the morning as the traction pad on the back needed time for the glue to dry.

Denielle had a go at surfing the white water waves that afternoon, with me pushing her into them so she could practice getting up. Only the third time of the entire trip where she had gone in past her waist, she was beginning to become more comfortable with the ocean, but much practice is still needed. After she grew tired of not standing on the surfboard, I took a turn catching all the waves that reformed from the white water and had a very fun time. That was the end to an exhausting day.

Today we slept in and made the trip to Montezuma on the other side of the peninsula in the afternoon. This is where all the hippies go to die. Gypsies too. If you want to buy some kind of necklace or sarong, you’ve come to the right place. Denielle and I are in search of books and waterfalls however, so the hippies will have to wait. We picked out 4 books, included a large print version of Crime and Punishment that is about the size of a telephone book. We then dripped sweat all over the beach on a nice walk before venturing up to the waterfalls. A 50 foot high waterfall cascades down into a large deep pool. There are 3 places where one can fling their body off into the water. I took the leap from the two lower ledges, the 12 and the 15 footer, but left the 30 footer for the more testosterone fuelled. Apparently a number of people have been killed after slipping from the rocks on their way to the top. The calm cool waters were just what we needed, and after having nice lunch, we returned home just in time for a beach walk at sunset.

So far Mal Pais has been wonderful, and we are really enjoying ourselves here. The next couple of weeks will probably be filled with mainly surfing, and Denielle might take a yoga class or two. There’s some kind of hippy festival here on Saturday with some DJ’s from the burning man festival coming down, probably explaining why all the hostels are booked. We don’t have internet here, so updates will not be as frequent, but hopefully the next update will have some photo evidence of me on the big wave

“Overhead death bombs...of death...”

One minute I’m the only thing floating in the Pacific Ocean between Playa Grande and the Far East. A general sense of calm, of peacefulness, being one with the ocean and everything around it surrounds my very being. The next minute, like rats from a sinking ship, the ocean is swarmed with people of every shape and size, running to the water with long boards and short boards, fish shapes and fun shapes. I am now surrounded by 32 other people. Where did they all come from? Why have they taken my peaceful solo surfing experience away, and would I ever get it back? Not likely in Tamarindo, or Tamagringo as the guidebook would say.

It used to be that swimming across a river known to contain crocodiles, and walking for 45 minutes along a desolate beach would guarantee you some sort of tranquility. People are lazy, so if you’re not lazy, you reap the rewards of putting in a little effort. In this case the reward in question being a solo, or near solo surf session, unencumbered by beginners launching 10 foot fibreglass missiles towards your head. However, much of Costa Rica has changed, and this somewhat remote beach now has road access complete with luxury hotels and beachfront eateries. So the lazy people come, and I do not surf alone.

32 competitors for a finite resource is not so bad in the context of Tamarindo. Our first night here I estimated well over 200 surfers in the water at the main beach break in front of town. Numbers have died off since then for whatever esoteric reasons. That was a Wednesday. Today is Monday. Will the hordes return to the beach again? I cannot say, nor do I care, for this Wednesday we continue on south for greater things. Our time here has not all been bad, however. The last few days the swell has increased keeping all but the most foolish of beginners out of the water. Strong currents in the water have kept the lifeguards busy blowing whistles and waving flippers, occasionally having to go out far into the water to retrieve some swimmers or surfers on their way to Australia or perhaps Fiji.

Larger waves have given me the opportunity to conquer my fear of going for the big wave. Wave sizes are very subjective and depend greatly upon one’s point of view. A beginner surfer laying flat on their giant board in the water may look behind them, although likely not, and see a towering 2 foot wave approaching and lose nerve. An experienced waterman of many years may look at a 20 foot set peeling in with anticipation. For me, the fear point has always been head high. Anything lower than that and my body and brain know that the consequences are limited and there is no hesitation. Once that waves climbs to 6, 7, 8 feet or higher, my body goes into auto pilot and rejects my conscious efforts to catch that wave. I’ll still get into position and start to paddle, but as the wave carries you up, near vertical in your mind, so that you’re looking at the menacing flat water so far down below, there just isn’t enough gas in the engine to make the wave. It continues on without you and you breathe a sigh of relief, or yell some expletive if other surfers are within earshot to try and portray that actually did want to test fate.

These last few days I have managed to shut off that part of my brain and just go for it. Probably the best advice I’ve received in this respect came from Californian, 9 years ago at a beach just south of where we are at now. He said that you’re going to have to eat it a few times before you make it in the bigger waves, you just have to go for it. So I did. And I ate it. Hard. The thing that I have come to realize these last couple of days is that the difference between making a bigger wave and getting tossed head over heels by a big wave is a very small margin, probably best left to the world of quantum mechanics as surely Newtonian physics don’t apply. You look behind you and see what looks like it could be your last sight here on earth. Surely that big overhead wave is going to break well before it reaches you. It has to. Just look at it. But previous experience tells you that it will be okay, and if it doesn’t scare you by looking like it’s much too late, then you won’t catch it because it’s not ready. The wave gets very dark, and large, and looks like it will block out the sun, but in reality it’s only as tall as you are, maybe a little bigger. You now paddle as hard as you can, anything less and you will get thrown in front with the full fury of the wave landing on top of you, down onto the sand below with very little air in your lungs.

Your feet lift up first as you slide up the face of the wave, still paddling as though your life depended on it. You wait. Your peripheral vision sends panic messages to your brain because it sees what’s coming next to you. The wave beside you has already broken, and the other side looks so steep that there is no way you’re going to make it. But you don’t listen. You’ve convinced yourself that it’s all or nothing. So you paddle harder. And there it is. You start to pitch forward. Fast. In one fluid motion your hands go to your board and your feet swing up as you drop down the face of the wave. Your mind is still recoiling in horror as it braces for certain death when the elevator drop on this death bomb reaches ground floor. You accelerate straight down, almost weightless as you approach the bottom. A quick shift in weight and the fins tear into the wave as you pull up along the face. You have survived. Of course none of the big ones are caught on camera by Denielle on shore. She gets all of the little ones though so no one believes your great tales.

This is one of many of the overhead waves that I have tricked my brain into catching the last few days. The rides are short but exhilarating. Waves this steep on a beach break usually close out quite quickly, and this is no exception. I am slowly putting together all the pieces of the puzzle, and now only require the right conditions. It hasn’t all been about surfing though. Today we ventured to Playa Conchal, frequently cited as Costa Rica’s nicest beach. Armed with flippers and goggles, we made our way along the 2km beach from Brasilito over the point into a billion crushed seashells. To think of all the poor little crustaceans and gastropods that had to die so we could sit and relax next to the turquoise waters of Playa Conchal. I donned the flippers and swam over to the reef to see a myriad of colors, shapes and sizes of exotic fish. Big puffer fish with comical little fins and purple, yellow, and blue fish that looked like feathers darted around below me. Feeling hypoxic after a while due to no snorkel, I returned to the beach and regaled my tales of Jacques Cousteau’s deep blue to Denielle. A nice beach indeed, but to be amazing I believe the surrounding landscape needs to be just as dazzling, and the dry season in Guanacaste has left most of the trees leafless and dull. I think we can find better.

We’re heading south along the peninsula towards Mal Pais in hopes of waves that will hold up for some decent rides. There are a few places along the way that promise to be devoid of the throngs of people we have encountered here because they are not easy to get to and people are lazy. I might finally break out the fishing rod and try and catch some supper.

Tyler.

“Fishing for spiders...”

Technically tarantulas aren’t spiders. They have hairy bodies, lack lower mandibles and don’t produce silk or make webs. None of that is any comfort to Denielle. The other night we arrived in Santa Elena, just below the cloud forest and wasted no time signing up for a night walk through the forest to see some animals. We spotted our third species of toucan, the emerald toucan. Apparently toucans are nasty birds as they eat not just fruit as Toucan Sam would have you believe, but dine upon small birds and eggs, including those of other toucans. Soon thereafter our guide fetched a small stick and fished out a orange knee tarantula as big as my hand, and I have big hands. Denielle was not a fan, but I was very impressed and would remember the fishing technique for later.

Other animals on the night tour included two possum species, crickets, katydids that looked like rotting leaves, stick bugs, a rain frog, an emerald side striped viper, and sloths. Lots of people come to the rain forest hoping to see sloths, but most fail as they are very difficult to see. Staying in the high canopy most of the time would make it difficult enough, but sloths also sleep for up to 17 hours a day, and are active mainly in the night. We were fortunate enough to see three sloths. One was a mother with baby clinging to its belly, and the third was an aggressive male. While the group of night tourists stood and watched the sloths slothing about, the sloths began to fight.

Now, a sloth fight may sound like something fairly comedic in slow motion like “IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII’mmmmmmmmmmmmm gooooooooooooooooooiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnggggggggggggg toooooooooooooooooooooo gggggggggggggeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeetttttttttttttttttttttt yyoooooooooooooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!”, but this was very exciting. These sloths moved faster than I could have imagined, and it looked like the male was trying to get at the baby. The mother quickly climbed down a vine while swiping back at the male above. We lost contact as they all descended below towards the ground. This was the first time our guide had ever seen anything like that in over 11 years of leading tours, so we felt very fortunate.

The next day we awoke early and drove up towards the Santa Elena reserve. The road was something else, as not only was it rough, but constant rain and mist left the steep hills very slick. Having successfully navigated to the reserve, I had my own reserves as to whether the car would make it back out. The nice thing about Santa Elena, is that it is much less busy than Monteverde, seeing only 20,000 visitors per year compared to the 200,000 that Monteverde receives. We were only one of three cars in the parking lot, which left us unperturbed along our hike through the forest. While the wildlife was scarce, we were able to see many unique millipedes and beetles, and I was able to successfully fish out my own orange knee tarantula much to Denielle’s delight. This was a very creepy experience to have a tarantula the size of your hand chase a stick out of a hole that you are holding and standing very close to, all while trying not to move so as not to scare it away. I was able to get a couple of pictures while holding my fishing stick and Denielle breathed a sigh of relief once we moved on. A plethora of hummingbirds awaited our exit from the park at the many bird feeders, and we watched 5 different species battle for position.

That afternoon we then went to the ranarium, or froggery as I like to call it, and took a tour of all the different terrariums of frog species found in Costa Rica. I was hoping for an open exhibit like that which we visited in Fortuna, but these were all closed terrariums. Most of the frogs were sleeping while we were there, but our tickets allowed us to return in the evening when the frogs would be more active. We returned at night with cameras and headlamps in hand, and took many pictures of the bizarre and wonderful frogs. The most amazing were the glass frogs that have transparent skin so that you can see all of their internal organs and veins. As well, the ever incredible red eyed tree frogs were there in droves. Today we are relaxing and taking a free hike up the hill towards Monteverde to where the television towers are then it’s off to get the oil changed and back to the sun and surf. It will be a nice change getting out of the 18 degrees and rain and back to the 35 degrees and sun.

Tyler.

“Welcome to the apocalypse...”

One of the hazards that a volcano is capable of producing is a fireball. These fireballs are combinations of flaming gas and dust that roll down the side of the volcano at speeds of up to 100 km/hour. The best, or I should say, only way of surviving said fireballs, is to submerge yourself under water for at least 30 seconds to be sure that the fireball has passed. This tidbit of knowledge comes from my SAS survival handbook, and was among the top thoughts in my mind while Denielle and I hiked towards the giant ceiba tree in the Volcan Arenal National Park.

You see, we had been walking the trails of the national park, around the previous lava flows from 1968 and 1992, had watched the steam and smoke come off the lava flow as it crept down the hillside high above, and were now on our way through the dense forest to see the 50 meter high ceiba tree when we heard the crack of thunder. But this was much louder than thunder. A large explosion out of the top of the volcano reverberated throughout the valley, and soon followed the sounds of a landslide rolling down the hill. Imagine the loudest thunder that you have ever heard and multiply that by ten, and then add in the realization that this sound was coming closer and closer as the rocks tumbled down the hill. Now picture yourself deep in the forest with towering trees obstructing your view of the impending doom.

I’m sure we’re fine I thought, but as the noises approached for over a minute my certainty waned. My next thought was the other advice from the survival handbook, that almost everyone could outrun the speed of a lava flow. This advice didn’t factor in trying to run through dense primary rainforest. As you can probably guess, however, as I am writing this blog, that nothing happened. The landslide or whatever had come down the volcano had found a resting place and no longer threatened our happy national park experience.

That night we discovered where the world would truly end. The apocalypse will begin, in my own opinion, within a foot or two of the chocolate fountain at the Baldi Hot Springs buffet. Although we had found the free hot springs, we decided to treat ourselves on our last night in Fortuna by going to the Las Vegas inspired 20 pool hot springs complete with Myan pyramid, waterslides, and buffet. This is where I lost my faith in humanity once again. Observing the behaviour of those at the buffet, one would think that officials had kept a group of tourists caged for extended periods of time, unfed, and consistently teased. I’ve never seen so many people so rude, in such a hurry to cram their gullets with as much food as humanly possible before they beached themselves on the sides of the pools like bloated whales. But the experience was not all bad. We had a really nice meal and moved from pool to pool, all at different temperatures. The hottest pool measuring in at 152 degrees F or 67 Celsius received only a quick scalding visit from our legs, while the 109 pool got most of our attention. Big screen televisions in the swim up bar pools allowed me to watch the Indianapolis Colts defeat the Baltimore Ravens in the NFL playoffs.

The next day we drove the rough and rugged road to Santa Elena and Monte Verde to see the famed cloud forests and get a glimpse of the multitude of exotic flora and fauna. We will spend three nights here of adventure before returning to Liberia to get an oil change, and then off to the coast of the Nicoya Peninsula.

Tyler.