“Going feral...”

Bridges? We don’t need no stinking bridges. It took us just over an hour and a half to travel the 22 kilometres from Mal Pais to Playa Coyote. Webster’s dictionary may have a definition for what a road is, but I can assure you that the Costa Ricans on the southern end of the Nicoya Peninsula have never looked it up. Numerous steep hill climbs, rough roads, and no less than 4 river crossings sans bridges, each more perilous than the last, resulted in us arriving at what the Lonely Planet Guide refers to as one of the nicest yet least visited beaches in the country.

The river crossings have become somewhat of a badge of honour, Costa Rican rite of passage, adrenaline response, and test of mettle all wrapped into one. We have devised quite the routine as each crossing deserves its own careful undivided attention. Usually you can sense one approaching as you ease down a steep hill in first or second gear, all the while realizing that there is a definite bottom point to come as the hill in the foreground rises just as steeply away. Then the dry road becomes marked with wet tire tracks creeping around the corner that slowly drift into oblivion, swallowed up by the ever present dust from months with no rain. There is usually somewhere to pull off before full committal to the crossing, so we make use of these spots and exit the car for close inspection. Denielle is wearing sandals, so she volunteers to wade across and test both the depth and substrate composure while I stay on the edge, providing crocodile vigilance from above.

The first crossing was easy in comparison to what we would come across later in our trip. Though one of the longer crossings, this one was not very deep, and the Matrix rolled over the river stones below while Denielle captured photo evidence from the other bank. Each crossing after that became more complicated and required more careful planning for a good exit strategy. The second crossing was quite muddy at the entrance, but soon gave way to stable stones, while the third was the deepest by far at axle height, with a tricky steep exit up onto the road. After careful consideration and a growing want to arrive at our destination as the temperature climbed to a sweaty 39 degrees, we went for it. The crux of this particular third crossing was the deepening of the water for the last 20 feet. The car slowed considerably at this point, as opposed to my heart rate, but crawled through and up onto the other side like a true champion. Perhaps all the recalls happening in Canada and the US are simply cars that have become bored with the daily rigours of boring commuting, and, like a dog, if left alone with no entertainment, must make up its own games and get into its own trouble. If we keep providing the car with adventure, I’m sure it will be good to us and not jam the gas pedal in the full on position.

Once arriving at Playa Coyote, we quickly realize that what the Lonely Planet calls a wilderness beach is lined almost entirely with large private homes from one end to the other. We drive the length of the road until we reach the sandy end at the lagoon which separates this beach with Playa San Miguel. We get out of the car and walk around the scorching hot sand for suitable places to pitch our tent amongst the millionaires’ homes, but fail to find much in the way of shelter, and 39 degrees in a tent would prove unbearable for sure. So we get back in the car and head the other way down the road, pulling into a short beach access road half way down the beach. Not only are we looking for suitable camping areas, but also checking the condition of the surf. No reason to go feral if the waves are no good. Our second stop delivers us to a wonderful location in front of an empty lot, right on the beach, below a few mango trees with ample shade. The carcasses of large coconuts strewn everywhere forewarn of pitching a tent under the shade of one of the numerous palm trees for fear of a late night wakeup call of a ten pound coconut to the head. So we set up the tent, and the hammock, Denielle created a bathroom hole while I dug the fire pit and collected driftwood.

That night under the most amazing starry sky we enjoyed a fire on the beach right in front of our ocean view paradise. Prior to the lighting of the fire, I gave some of Playa Coyote’s finest mosquitoes and sand flies a taste of some true Canadian blood for which I am paying dearly for now in the urge to remove all the skin from my feet every two minutes. Later in the evening we witnessed two people walking down the beach with a flashlight that would stop every once and a while for no apparent reason. Once they had come closer we realized that one person was dazing crabs with the light, while the other would chase it down and kill it with a stick and put it in a bag for who knows what reason. Perhaps crab soup. While the fire was nice, unfortunately we had put up the fly on the tent when we had set up camp, which created an unbearably hot bedtime sauna. After 5 minutes of attempting to sleep while losing a tenth of my body weight to sweat, I got up and removed the fly. A lack of a good breeze however had us falling asleep much later once the temperature dipped down to a more enjoyable 30. I awoke much later in the night when the temperature had fallen to a chilly 25 to flip my sleeping bag over to the warmer plus 15 side, and woke up bright and early to a view of low tide and no waves. One nice thing about camping directly on the beach is that you’re able to check the surf from bed. But that could be traded in favour of a shower, or cold water to drink in the middle of the afternoon.

With no waves on the horizon I went for a walk to Playa San Miguel while Denielle stayed back to tackle her reading of her Crime and Punishment telephone book. The involved crossing the exit of the lagoon, which was only knee deep at low tide. Multitudes of fish scurried away as I thrashed my way ever so gracefully to the other side, weary of the possibility of crocodiles at any moment. I’m not sure if there are crocodiles here, but if I were a crocodile, this sure seems like a good place to be. 2 hours later I returned from the far end of the beach to some sizeable surf, so I suited up, put the fins on my surfboard, and went out to play in the waves. I’m not a statistician, but I would guess that about 1 in 50 of the waves here did not end in a powerful close out with nowhere to ride. That 1 in 50 would then give you a ride of between 3 to 5 seconds before the rest of the wave remembered that it was supposed to be closing out and crash all around you. After a couple of frustrating hours, I came back in and retired to the hammock for some reading. That evening we cooked a wonderful supper over the fire with a stick setup that I had gleaned from my survival handbook. After waiting for the food to cook for a very long time, I shifted the fire and put the pot directly on the coals, which delivered our food hot in only a couple of minutes.

The next day we woke up and had breakfast in front of the beach and got ready for the Speedo Surf Session. Seeing as there was absolutely no one in the water, I had told Denielle the night before that it would be funny to get some pictures of surfing in my Speedos. While we got some decent pictures, waiting in between close out sets resulted in my inadequate sunscreen application coming to complete fruition in the form of a lovely lobster red sunburn. The sunburn was worth it however for my very last wave. One of the rare waves that didn’t immediately close out, I paddled hard as the wave behind me steepened quickly. Surging forward I popped up and grabbed my rail as I headed left on my backside. As I’m sliding down the face of this crystal clear wave, a school of a dozen stingrays pass beneath me, each one the size of a large dinner plate, gracefully flying underwater in perfect formation. This is one of the coolest things I have seen while surfing. I ride down the face, pump a couple of times to try and race past the closing section, but I’m not fast enough and the ride is over. I go straight with the white water and drop down onto my belly to ride the wave into shore. Tired of the poor waves and lack of showers, we packed up camp and hit the road just after noon for Playa Ostional, home of thousands of nesting sea turtles every year.

We arrived around 3 pm after two of the deepest river crossings yet, and quickly checked the condition of the surf from the surface of the sun, I mean the black sand beach, before securing a place to stay. The waves were big, empty, and breaking with a nice clean shoulder on either side, so we walked across the street to one of the few places available to stay and picked up a suite for the week with kitchenette and private bathroom for only 20 dollars a night. While we were waiting for the room to be ready, we walked down to the end of the beach, which appeared to be littered with a cargo shipwreck full of broken ping pong balls. These ping pong balls were weird and squishy, and I soon realized that they were in fact sea turtle eggs. Everywhere. Perhaps one of these nights we’ll go out with the red cover on the head lamp and try and spot some nesting turtles. That brings us to now, where we are both clean, refreshed with cold water, and looking forward to a day in the overhead waves.

p.s. for those of you whom haven’t figured out yet, if you click on any of the pictures in the blog they’ll appear full size. That way you can appreciate the full beauty of the Speedos.

Tyler.