Costa Rica Trip - New Years 2009

As a complete a total surprise to me Audrey purchased tickets to Costa Rica for us as a Christmas gift. I knew she had been planning some sort of trip but expected climbing in Las Vegas, surfing in Costa Rica was way off the charts! Audrey and I flew down to Costa Rica to escape the cold weather and snow of the Winter gripping the Pacific Northwest, to meet up with Jose, a friend from Seattle. Jose is originally from Costa Rica and his parents still live down there. This year Jose and his girlfriend Stephanie, along with Jose's two brothers all were down in Costa Rica for Christmas and New Years and Jose wanted us to come down as well. I think he just wanted to show off how beautiful Costa Rica is and school me in surfing. He accomplished them both.

We flew out of Seattle on a very cold morning wearing way too many clothes for the Costa Rican climate we flew into. We went from -10C to 28C in a matter of hours with highs the following day in the low 30s. I don't think I've ever experienced that drastic of a temperature change before. Jose was kind enough to meet us at the airport in Liberia, about an hour away from his parents house in Nicoya.

Our first day in Costa Rica had us headed to the beach. I got up early unable to sleep from the exitement of being able to surf. From Nicoya it is at least an hour drive to the beach but within 1.5 hours are tons of beaches to the north and south, all on the west side of the Nicoya Penninsula. On the first day we went to a beach called Playa Guiones, near the town of Nosara. It was a very popular touristy beach but probably the best location for me to pick up a used surfboard. I managed to get a 6'3" board that was pretty fat and buoyant. I had never surfed a board that short before but figured this was as good a time as any to try it out. By the time I actually got to the beach it was around 3pm. The beach was amazing. Long, sandy with lots of peaks to catch waves. It was really busy but not as bad as I've seen at other areas. I was out in the water for about 2 hours and honestly only got 3 or 4 good rides but I was having a great time surfing without a wetsuit and enjoying the warm water. Even in Mexico I got cold really fast when I wore board shorts and a rash guard but here it is much, much warmer. Jose and his brothers were surfing as well and they are better than me for sure. Hopefully I can learn from them this trip. Around 5pm the water got really busy as people got off work and went for an evening surf so I abandoned the water and watched the sunset before returning to Jose's parent's for dinner.

Despite plans to get up early and try to get some surfing before the wind kicked up we still didn't get up until pretty late. That was just fine for me. I was still really tired from the travel down here and the sound of the wildlife in the morning is pretty cool. Just outside of the Cardenas' house is a little river where lots of birds live and some howler monkeys that make tons of noise in the morning. Unfortunately one of the cars had a flat tire and the other one needed a new AC belt so it was awhile before we were on the road to the beach. Today we were headed to a non-touristy beach called Marbella. When we did get to the beach we parked in one of the few shady spots and started unloading the car. There was this really bad smell in the air, something had definitely died nearby. It took a little while to locate it but it turned out to be a Boa Constrictor that had been run over on the road. Not a pleasant sight, especially since we could tell it had eaten an Iguana not long before it died. Still pretty cool and terrifying to know there are Boa Constrictors roaming around. We ended up burning it on the side of the road to get rid of the smell. The waves today were pretty small but powerful and broke really fast and hard. It was busy in the water and for a smaller beach that can be a problem. Since I suck at surfing I separated myself from the crowd and tried to surf the shoulders. Now in surfing there is usually a reason why people congregate together. It usually means the waves break better there. So when I purposefully go where there are no people chances are I won't get as good of waves but at least I won't be getting hit by other surfers. I probably spent most of my time in the water just paddling around but I did get a few good rides, or course in my mind I was a superstar but Audrey said she didn't notice any good rides :). The sunset was spectacular and it's really nice to be in a warm climate. Tomorrow however we are going to rent a car and drive into the mountains where it is supposed to be pretty chilly.

So we have spent two days on the beaches and it has been great. The people are really friendly and Jose's family has been more than hospitable. Costa Rica is called a third world country but it doesn't feel much different than Mexico. Then again, is Mexico a third world country? The roads are bad, the local advise us not to leave anything in the cars but in this region of Costa Rica I don't see the poverty I would associate with third world. I would definitely refer to it as a developing country but I guess I don't really know what defines a third world country.

Although I would have been content to just sit on a beach, soak up the sun and surf every day of this trip Audrey wanted to explore Northern Costa Rica a little. We decided to rent a car and try to go see the rain forest of Santa Elena and Montaverde, and hopefully see the volcano, Mt. Arenal. Getting the rental car was a little bit of a hassle since there are really only small towns around us. I booked a rental car online only one day before we were hoping to pick it up. That might work in North America or Europe but apparently not in Costa Rica. They did manage to find us a car, the same type as we had ordered but it took a little while. We ended up renting a Suziki Jimmy, basically a compact 4x4 like a sidekick. We were told that we would want 4x4 where we were going but in my head I was thinking "Heck, I've taken rental cars on some pretty rough roads". In the end I was very, very glad we had the 4x4 even if it did look funny.

With the delays in picking up the car it turned out to be a much later departure than we wanted. We were told it would be 3-4 hours to get to Montaverde but without a good map we wanted a little extra time. We were also told the roads might be in bad condition so we'd have to go slower than normal. We found our way out of Nicoya, across the Nicoya inlet and the tempisque river then onto the "main" highway in Costa Rica; the pan american highway. This was the freeway in Costa Rica and was barely two lanes wide without proper lane markings and of course a high speed limit. I was driving pretty conservatively since I didn't want to get stopped and hassled by cops who are stationed all over the place. We turned off at the town of Las Juntas and started following signs to Montaverde. The paved roads ended as soon as we left Las Juntas and that was expected. After about half an hour of a decent dirt road we found ourselves at an unmarked Y in the road. Not knowing which way was Montaverde we elected to go to the left since it looked a little more traveled. Within a few minutes I was pretty sure we weren't on a road to a tourist destination. This road was rough! Big, loose rocks. Huge ruts and steep! I was glad we had the 4x4 and by the time we found somewhere to turn around I was in 4Low. So we went back down and took the other branch. This time however the road completely stopped where the road was blocked by a landslide. Unfortunately it was right after I had pretty much forced the vehicle down this steep hill, something I wasn't sure we would get back up. We executed a 200 point turn thankful for the smaller vehicle and started to climb back up. Now I've been hard on rental cars before. I've rallied cars through the forests of Fontainebleau, I've gotten air on back roads in Spain, I've driven them through rivers and I've more than doubled the occupancy limit but I have never put a car through as much abuse as I did this one. Don't ever buy a used rental car... ever. Fortunately we did make it back up and returned the the 'Y' in the road. A little farther back was a small restaurant and we stopped there. Even before I was out of the vehicle the guy who ran the restaurant was walking towards us holding a map. Somehow we had missed a turn in Los Juntas and ended up in Los Angeles!!! Seriously, that was the name of this tiny, umm... village... Los Angeles. As it turns out there was a shortcut from there to Santa Elena but it required a 4x4, so after relaxing with a cool coke we were on our way. The road the 'required' a 4x4 was way easier than the roads we had gotten lost on and we arrived in Santa Elena just after dark. We managed to find a nice quite cottage to stay in, had some dinner and then went to explore the Serpentarium. We say lots of lizards, poisonous snakes and deadly frogs. That's right - deadly frogs. The Dart Frog was this tiny frog with bright colours and I guess it was also quite deadly. We say Boa Constrictors and the dreaded Fer-de-Lance, a very poisonous snake. We returned to the cottage, checked for deadly frogs and went to bed.

The next morning we were hoping to wake up super early but it was cold in the mountains and we slept in a bit. We drove to the Santa Elena cloud forest to do some hiking. It's called a cloud forest, not a rain forest, because most of the percipitation is from the mist in the air, not from actual rain. It didn't look much different than the rain forests in the pacific northwest although more leaves and less pines. Here's a hint; if you are going to go for a hike in a rain forest don't go to a serpentarium and check out all the deadly creatures the night before. Every hanging vine was a Boa Constrictor and every step in the mud was covered by deadly frogs. Just a hint. We chose the long hike, the Cano Negro hike, hoping to get a view of Mt Arenal from one of the view points. Along the way we saw lots of birds and some white faced monkeys running through the trees but at each view point it was just too, ummm cloudy, to see anything so we ended up hiking almost every trail in Santa Elena hoping for a view. In the end we got a good workout but no view of Mt Arenal. Following the hike we decided to go on a tour of a coffee plantation. All I really knew about coffee was that it was grown in the mountains, carried by donkeys (according to tv commercials) and tastes damn good in the morning. We went to the Don Juan coffee plantation for the tour. We actually learned quite a bit. The coffee on the Don Juan is not yet organic but they are hoping to be. They had been without pesticides or chemicals for two years but needed five to be certified organic. Because it rains a lot in Santa Elena the plants can get over watered which causes a fungus to grow on their leaves and kills the plants. They used to use chemicals to treat the fungus but learned that sugar water can coat the leaves for a few weeks at a time. Now they grow sugarcane and spray the plants with sugar water every few weeks. They also grow several other kinds of fruit so that bugs and predators go to them rather than to the coffee berries. A ripe coffee berry is actually quite sweet and each coffee berry has two beans in it. Some have one, some have three but these are considered mutations and are not used. Apparently there are three classes to coffee beans. Most of the coffee in the world is from third class beans, beans that are not properly ripened and don't have as much flavour. Second class beans are just small beans while first class beans are the perfect bean. In Costa Rica they only roast and sell first class beans. They can't compete against other countries on a sheer volume scale so they compete on a quality scale. They use the second class beans for chocolate covered espresso beans but not in coffee. Pretty informative all in all and the coffee tasting at the end was awesome. In a rash decision we decided to leave Santa Elena and drive to La Fortuna, a small town at the base of Mt Arenal. We hoped to spend the night there and tour Mt Arenal the following day. This meant that we would skip the Montaverde rainforest but hopefully would allow us to see Mt Arenal. All we had for a map was the one from our rental car agency and we knew it didn't have all the roads, or towns apparently, on it. However it did show a road that took us east around the lake to La Fortuna. It looked simple enough so after gasing up from a mechanic with jerry cans we headed off. As I said, we didn't really have a map but we could see the lake and figured we would just head for it and go east. It was very spectacular scenery to be driving through. Small roads with lots of green fields and rolling hills. After a few wrong turns but nothing too bad we ended up at the lake but were headed west, with no option to go east. After a few minutes we stopped to ask for directions. I thought I understood the directions. I understood "Four or five corners then turn right". Seemed logical enough although I wasn't sure how we could turn right into the lake. Maybe we were in an inlet? Maybe there was a bridge? Well, twenty or thirty corners later we still hadn't found a place to turn right and eventually found ourselves at the west end of the lake where there was a restaurant called "Five Corners" where we would have to turn right to get to La Fortuna. Our map was crap. It was now dark and we still didn't know where we were and by the time we figured it out we decided to skip the extra 2-3 hours on dirt roads and just head back to Nicoya. Even that was a little adventurous driving in the dark with cows and other livestock on the road. We made it back to Jose's safe and sound with Jose's dad laughing at our map. Oh well.

Tomorrow we will head to a beach in the morning but it is Audrey's last full day and she wants to go tour the Tempisque river which should be fun. Apparently lots of wildlife and crocodiles!

I had no idea how close crocodiles and snakes were to where we are staying. I mean I know there is a jungle out there but coral snakes, boa constrictors and crocodiles!? Yup, apparently so.

For Audrey's last full day we went to a small beach between Nosara and Samara. I can't remember the name of the beach, Playa something or other. This beach is in a small bay with crystal clear, blue water. It is also apparently home to Mel Gibson's vacation home. No mom I didn't get to see Mel. The day we were there the beach was pretty empty and the waves were small but crashing really strong. Audrey and I walked along the beach to check out Mel's house then I went out surfing for a bit but didn't really get any good waves. Even with small waves they would form about a 5' face and crash in about 2' of water. We were worried about breaking boards and getting hurt so we didn't stay out too long. For a little fun I took a boogie board out and rode a few of the waves, just about getting killed a few times I swear! We only stayed at the beach a few hours before returning to Nicoya.

Jose Sr was generous enough to lead us on a tour of the Tempisque river. He had grown up in the area and had camped and hunted many times along the Tempisque. We drove up the river away from the tourist boat tours to a small little town where we found a local to take us out in his boat. The drive was about 45 minutes long on a rough dirt road. Initially I was doing 25-30km/hr and bouncing around but Jose Sr convinced me it was smoother to go 50km/hr and since it was a rental car I obliged. It was still bouncy and we hit a couple potholes hard!

At the Tempisque the current and wind were pretty strong and we stayed near the shores. It was gorgeous and it wasn't long before we say a few small crocodiles along the shores of the river. At one point we pulled up right next to a couple of huge crocodiles barely visible through the trees. Jose Sr somehow convinced the boat operator to get the boat really close and he tried to get out of the boat to touch the crocodile! I guess he's done that before. Fortunately the crocodile ran away and into the river. We then continued up the river to see a small island literally covered in birds. All kind of birds that I can't even begin to name. The funny thing was this was also an island where quite a few crocodiles lived. Obviously the crocodiles eat the birds occasionaly but apparently sometimes the birds will stand next to the crocodiles and clean the crocodiles teeth! We didn't see that but I sure wish we would have. We then started back up the river and stopped briefly on the shore to check out a Mongrove and some camping areas that the Cardenases stay at sometimes.

On the way back to Nicoya we made a small detour to visit some old hunting friends of Jose Sr. He told us before we got there that we simply had to check out this house. It was a typical Costa Rican house from about 100 years ago. It was basically a large single room with a few different sheds around the house and backed onto a small farm. When we got there it appeared noone was home but it turns out they were out on the farm picking coconuts. We walked down to where they were and they were loading some coconuts onto a rickety old wheelbarrow. It was hard to strap them on and in the end we just grabbed a bunch of coconuts each and carried them up. They were much, much heavier than I thought. Back at the house we were given a few coconuts for helping out and I had never had coconut water straight from a coconut before. They just chopped the flesh off the coconut, poked a hole in it and passed it over. I couldn't believe how much water was in each coconut. The water was quite sweet and delicious. When we finished the water they split the coconut and we ate the flesh inside that tasted, well, like coconut.

After that we returned to Nicoya, had dinner and prepared for a night hike on the grandparents farm. I wasn't really sure what to expect from this hike. Given that Jose Sr was leading it armed with a gun and one of Jose's brothers, Ruandar, also had a big pole with prongs on the end it seemed like we could be prepared for anything. So it was Jose Sr, Me, Audrey, Jose and Ruandar who went out. Audrey and I were hoping to see some wildlife and maybe some howler monkeys. One thing I did not expect was Boa Constrictors... Sure enough about five minutes into the hike Jose Sr jumped back and had spotted a Boa on our path. It wasn't huge but big enough. Maybe 5-6 feet in length. It was on this slope and was lifting its head and swinging around trying to get a feel for us. Eventually Jose Sr flung it away with the pole and after that we were much more observant of the trees above us and the ground ahead of us. Unfortunately we didn't see any howler monkeys, although we did hear them, and really we only saw a few owls, a couple rabbits and some hawks. Still it was a cool hike and seeing the Boa made it worthwhile for sure.

On Sunday Jose, Ruandar and I drove Audrey to the airport in Liberia for her flight home. She made it though security just fine and then we drove back. By the time we got back to Nicoya it was 2pm and no one was super motivated to get moving fast. In the end we headed to a beach just past Samara called Carillo. At the south end of Carillo was a small bridge over a little river. Apparently there were quite a few crocodiles in that river and you could tease them out by dangling meet from the bridge. Sure enough within a few seconds of dangling meet (I was told it could take a few minutes), this large crocodile just appeared below the bridge. No ripples in the water, it didn't swim up, it just appeared. Soon there was another smaller crocodile and eventually a third small one, plus I saw a baby one farther down the stream. The funny thing was there were about 20 people playing in the river about 50' away from the bridge where we were feeding the crocodiles. At the start it was just us on the bridge but soon enough there were probably 20 people on the bridge and another 10-15 under the bridge closer to the crocodiles. Crazy... We finished off the evening with a little sunset surf at Carillo but again the waves weren't that great. Still it was ok for a short day though. When we got back to the Cardenas' house we had dinner and starting prepping for the following day. All of a sudden there was a commotion out on the porch. Ruandar had spotted a small coral snake that was now scurrying around on the porch. Apparenlty it was a baby which meant there were more around... great...

So in the last two days I've seen more crocodiles and snakes than I had hoped, or cared, to see. Makes walking around here just a little more interesting. I now have four more days of beaches and surfing before I fly home. I only hope I can improve and get used to my board to really enjoy a few of those days.

Sigh... as with all good things they must come to an end sometime. This trip to Costa Rica was amazing and I think I'm going to have to make a pilgrimage here to soak up the sun and do some surfing. The great thing about here is that there are quite a few different beaches. It's like a huge climbing area with lots of variety. The last few days were amazing and I can't wait to come back.

On the Monday after Audrey's departure we somehow rallied the crew together to get out early. Well, as early as having a huge breakfast can get you. We were probabaly at Marbella by 9am which is when we usually leave the house so it was a good start. When we arrived at Marbella the waves were huge and powerful with a strong offshore wind. There were people getting tube rides left and right, clearly much, much better surfers than I. I stayed on the shore for awhile taking photos before finally braving it and paddling out. It was actually pretty busy in the water today and once again I tried to stay to the shoulders. Like I said, the waves were pretty big and I backed off a few waves before finally paddling into a few. I managed to get some rides but they were mostly closeouts and still terrifying. When the tide was fully out the waves kind of died and we took a break from surfing to go check out a nice swimming beach nearby. Finally as the tide came back in we decided to return to Marbella. In hindsight we probably should've gone somewhere else but since we were so close we just went back. When we got back the waves were even more powerful and breaking in very shallow water. Andres, Jose's brother, broke his leash at one point and I can't even count the number of times I tossed my board, dove to the bottom and hoped a wave wouldn't hurt me. On one wave in particular I was just about to stand up, realized I was too far in front of the wave and tried to jump back over the wave only to have it pull me down and ragdoll me for a few seconds. I survived... but barely. I went back on shore then ended up walking down the beach to the north end where the waves were much, much tamer and finally got some good rides. Wish I had seen that all along.

Unfortunately on Tuesday Jose's brothers needed to do some errands and were unable to come out surfing for their final day in Costa Rica. Jose, Stephanie and I went to Nosara for a day on the beach. The waves were pretty gentle, mushy almost but easy to catch and gave some nice short rides. I managed to get really tired and catch quite a few waves this day.

Wednesday we were slow moving in the morning. Jose and I went looking for, and found, some howler monkeys just outside their house. Then we went searching for some sunglasses Audrey lost but it was like the proverbial needle in a haystack and we didn't find them.

Finally we figured out what we wanted to do and headed pretty far south, down to Playa San Miguel just past Punta Islita. When we got there the waves looked small and choppy but since we had driven all that way Jose and I decided to get wet. It turns out the waves weren't too bad. There was a strong side chop from the north but in between that you could get some decent waves. We ended up spending a few hours out there playing around. Every so often you would paddle into a really cold section of water. I'm guessing the water was getting pushed up from the deeper ocean. This was a little scary because in the deeper ocear are some big fish. Actually there were pelicans feeding all around us which also let me to believe that if they were feeding from above, chances are something was feeding from down below.

After Playa San Miguel we drove north to Playa Camaronal where there is a turle refuge and information center. We were hoping to maybe see some turtles coming out of the ocean to lay some eggs but it was too early in the evening. They usually wait until well after dark. Sadly we did see some baby turle shells from turtles that hatched but didn't make it to the ocean. It was a nice beach but not as sandy as some of the other ones we had been to. We finished off the day watching the sunset at Playa Carillo then driving back to Nicoya.

Our final day on the beach had us back at Nosara, Playa Guiones. For Stephanie and I this was probably the best beach. The waves were pretty gentle and there are lots of different peaks so you can get away from people pretty easily. Jose's parents came with us for half the day and we brought the last of the coconuts from the Tempisque river to have at the beach. The waves today were perfect for me. No too mushy and forming with nice peaks make for long rides. It was not busy in the water and I spent most of the day in the best areas as opposed to just catching the shoulders. I can't believe how many waves I caught and this was probably one of my best surfing days ever. Quite a few times I would be paddling out only to turn, paddle a few strokes and catch another wave. It was exhuasting but fun and a perfect way to finish of this trip. I was only on the beach for a short time all day and was really tired by the time the sun set. We went back to Nicoya and went out to dinner with Jose's parents before calling it a night.

I had to get up at 4am to get to Liberia for my flight and was fortunate enough to have Jose drive me. What a trooper! All in all this was a fabulous trip and I am incredibly indebted to Jose and his family. I can't wait to go back and left my surfboard down there. It was a heavenly trip and I thank Audrey for organizing and getting the tickets to Liberia. What an amazing girlfriend!