Dominical appears to be the epicentre for circus freaks as far as I can tell. All kinds of fire twirlers and baton jugglers peddle their wares up and down the beach while drums, dreadlocks, and dirty clothes abound. I don’t know what it is about the place that draws these people, but it makes for a very unique atmosphere. Last night was St. Patrick’s Day, and we were celebrating not only that event, but also a birthday amongst our ranks. Ryan, one of the guys from Nicole’s Spanish school had turned 34, so we had gone out for an evening of dinner and live music. It’s kind of amazing what sort of green paraphernalia tourists had decided to pack all the way down here with them as there were large leprechaun hats, green glasses, and all kinds of green shirts. No green beer was to be found, be we were given complimentary green tequila shots that I can assure you was not near as pleasant.
The band playing that night, Los Borrachos Brothers and Sister, well exceeded my expectations for a small bar band in a town of no more than 800 people. Apparently they have appeared on stage and played along with the likes of the Greatful Dead, Phish, and others. Consisting of 3 people, there was a man on a mandolin, which was quite suited to the day’s festivities, another man on a guitar whom was also the lead singer, and a lady on an electric violin, or fiddle I suppose, the way she was getting on with it. The lady had enjoyed a long career as a studio musician of sorts, and her husband whom resembles the late lead singer of the Greatful Dead, touted that she had appeared on over 300 million albums worldwide for all kinds of different bands. She definitely had talent, and I quite enjoyed the evening’s music as they put unique twists on old rock hits that would take a while to recognize due to their unique sounds.
Denielle has been visiting the local yoga studio which offers everything from the standard yoga classes to the more adventurous interpretive dance and other hippy-appealing affairs. She is progressing quite nicely and will soon be a yogi in her own right when we return back to Calgary, floating slightly above the floor in her lotus position while balancing her chi. Aside from that we have been enjoying the beach, which is just a few degrees cooler than the surface of the sun during midday, but tends to cool off slightly in the afternoons when the excessive humidity tends to block out the direct sunlight. Nicole is at her last day of Spanish lessons, and is probably looking forward to a change of scenery. The Spanish family that she had spent the first week with came complete with creepy young guy that never seems to go long away from her side, to the delight of everyone in the Spanish school. Gerardo is everywhere all the time despite Nicole’s best efforts to evade him.
The past week has gone by deceptively quick. When we found Nicole on Saturday after our tortuous trek through the southern peninsula, we made plans to visit the Manuel Antonio National Park the following day. So we left town by nine in the morning, and made the quick 40 minute drive north into the park. This was quite a different experience than the Corcovado Park we had been to the week before, as throngs of tourists clogged the trails and paths, talking loudly with apparently no real intentions of finding wildlife, but instead drawn towards the picturesque beaches found within. Having no real expectations of finding wildlife, we quickly were greeted by a big grey sloth directly beside the main road-wide path. We would see a total of 4 sloths that day, including a mother and its baby clinging close beside. Many people come to the country hoping to see nothing else but this slow, very deliberately moving ewok-esque creature, so we felt very lucky to see so many in only one day. We also saw the standard howler monkeys and white-faced capuchin monkeys, an anolis tree lizard, and some iguanas to round out the day. The beaches there, once we finally found them, were quite amazing with white sand and turquoise waters slightly cooler than bathwater. Having exhausted all of the trails in the park, we made our way towards the exit which consisted of getting in a small boat pushed through some questionable water a short distance to the beach in town where we had parked. The sole purpose of the 1000 colone boat ride was to keep from getting wet from having to wade through, but an ill-timed push from behind at the last minute by our boat-man resulted in Nicole getting splashed with the less than clean water.
Our walk back to the car through the stifling heat brought us upon a large brand new tour bus that was trying to pull out of a driveway. Upon doing so, the bus driver fully engaged the nose of the bus into the pavement with a sickening scrape. Had he continued on forward, he would have escaped with no more damage, but upon hearing the contact, he changed his mind and reversed, fully dropping the front wheels into a gutter that caused the nose of the bus to make even more intimate contact. We left before he figured out how to remove himself and his bus from the situation, but I’m fairly certain that bus will have a new driver next time around. We got back in the car and headed to Domincal with plenty of time for Denielle to Skype her sister all the way in Australia. The magic of the world-wide interweb has been wonderful for us to keep contact with everyone throughout our trip, and I’m not sure what we would do without it.
The surfing in Dominical has been a mixed bag of emotions for me. The week started out with very little swell reaching the mainland, compared to the wonderful conditions we had just left in the southern peninsula. I was not that eager to get into the water with waist high waves that were closing out everywhere instead of providing a nice shoulder that could be ridden. The other day, Nicole, Ryan, Denielle and I all went down in the afternoon to Dominicalito, a small town just south of Dominical proper, where the waves showed more promise for getting decent rides. The swell was picking up throughout the week in town, but still closing out, so the slightly smaller Dominicalito surf provided for some fun surfing, although some of the locals may need some etiquette refreshers with respect to wave riding. Denielle captured some great pictures as always from the beach, and everyone had a great time. Last night I went out to the surf here in town which had picked up substantially, with head-high sets coming through and the occasional overhead sets, there was plenty of power to go around assuming one could make it through all the white water to get into the lineup. Strong currents and bigger waves made it difficult to stay in the right spot, but I quickly caught two amazing head high waves, one left and one right, that lasted for a couple hundred meters and provided for lots of fun turns. The waves were holding up for the most part, although I caught a few that quickly closed out, leaving you nowhere to turn. Then, after a brief lull of fighting the currents and getting into position, I had a nice big overhead wave coming in my direction. I paddled hard to the side to get in just the right spot, and turned to face the beach for the last few power paddles. The wave quickly grew behind me, and just before getting pitched forward off the steep vertical face, I sprang up and made the drop in. I carved a hard bottom turn to take me to the right and pulled up partway along the face, trying to race down the wall of the wave before the next section pitched forward onto my head. I could see the big powerful lip heaving up in front of me and initially tried to duck, thinking I had the speed to race past it, but soon realized that I was going to take a lot of unpleasantness on the head, so dove forward away from the crashing lip to the standing water in front. Apparently my body was not ready for this decision, as instead of breaking my entry into the water with my hands first, like a proper dive, my arms tried to correct my balance and flailed to the side, leaving my head to break through on its own. Already travelling so fast from racing down the face, my head snapped backwards upon impact and I heard a crack as it happened. After going through the spin cycle of the overtaking wave for a few seconds, I swam to the surface and grabbed my board, only to find that my left arm was completely numb from the elbow down. This was no good, and I became quite scared, so I caught the next broken wave’s white water back into the shore. My fears of left arm paralysis quickly abated as feeling soon returned as though I had just been sitting on my arm for too long. Today my neck is a little stiff, but not painful, so I’ll be back out in the water again, in hopes that the conditions are just as good as they were last night when my great session was cut short.
Tomorrow we pack up and head across the country, in a very non-direct manner, to the Caribbean town of Puerto Viejo, just next to the Panama border. We’re taking Nicole with us for the weekend, and then she’ll be taking a bus back to Liberia on Monday to fly back to the chilly north, whereas we will be departing into Panama for a few weeks before making our long trip home. So make sure all the snow is gone by the time we get back.
Tyler.
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