Costa Rica 2005

March 29, 2005 (Tuesday): Finally, after months of planning and waiting the day had arrived for Kym and I to leave for our first trip to Costa Rica. We were flying out of Norfolk and had to leave our house for the airport at around 5:00am! On this rare occasion we had no trouble getting out of bed early, in fact we had such trouble sleeping the night before 5 am couldn't come soon enough. Thanks to our traveling companions Dickey and Tami we were flying first class for the first (and probably last) time in our lives. This came in real handy when we got to the airport and got to slip through the empty first class line, avoiding the mile long line that everyone else had to wait in. You know that no matter what, your always going to run into some trouble when traveling but our first bit came sooner than expected. Dickey had been told by an airline employee that it would cost $50 extra to bring my surfboard on the plane ride. Well grouchy-ticket-counter-guy apparently didn't get this info and didn't care, he charged me $80! I put up a small fight but knew I had no chance and was too excited to worry much about the extra money. It actually got worse when we went through the security checkpoint. Kym went through fine, but troublemaker that I am, I set off the metal detector. They got me to get rid of everything and try again. Wanting to be super cooperative I walked slowly through the metal detector the second time. Obviously, this is a big no-no because grouchy-security-lady went nuts saying "that's not going to work"! She aggressively approached me to direct me to the "pat down" area. Not off to a good start! Thankfully pat-down-guy was actually pretty friendly and let me go (after explaining that I had become a 4 star security threat) without any more humiliation.

     We arrive in Jaco and are taken to our rental house which had looked great on the internet, but you never know until you see it in person if it is for real. When we got to the house it was amazing! Below are some pictures of the outside, the inside was great too. I could go on and on about this place....

We unpacked some and set out pretty quickly to rent a surfboard for Dickey before the surf shops closed for the night. A little while later we went out for dinner and wound up at this really nice open air (all the restaurants in Jaco have ceilings but no walls) place where we all had the house special which was an all inclusive meal starring Filet Mignon and Lobster. This restaurant was cool as we sat at the back right at the edge of a tropical rock garden. While we ate we saw crabs, lizards and a possum that jumped from one palm tree to the next. The food, while a little different than US, was very good. This wound up being a nice day even though we spent most of it traveling. While we were sleeping that night the power went out several times, each time being marked with a loud beeping noise from the AC unit directly over our bed, I think I am the only one it bothered though. Looking forward to morning again!

Playa Hermosa

March 30,2005 (Wednesday): Now Dickey hadn't surfed in several years and not on a regular basis since he was in college down in Florida back in the early 90's. We grew up surfing together and he was pretty good, but he was 34 now and sporting a bit ( I am being nice) of a belly. I have been surfing most of my life on a regular basis and had been looking forward to this trip for some time. Despite all this, Dickey was up before me and ready to roll, waking me up at 5:00am!  

We got some stuff together and set out, music blaring, two not-so- young surfers heading a few miles south to Hermosa, one of the most consistent beachbreaks in the world. We parked a few hundred yards North of "the Tree" and went out into 4-6 ft. glassy, hollow, powerful waves. The beach at Hermosa is black sand giving the water a dark appearance, but when you were about to duckdive a wave you can see how clear the water is as the sun shines through the back of the wave just before you go through it. Dickey had rushed out ahead of me with his gung ho attitude ( the guy hasn't surfed in years and he's charging some hard waves- you gotta love that!) , but had met with hard reality trying to push his way through the big pounding beachbreak on a 7 1/2 foot board which was bigger than he had ever surfed before.  He

After Our First Surf At Hermosa

struggled for awhile, and as I eventually got to the water and

zipped right out on my 6'4", I was feeling pretty guilty. Dickey made it out, of course, and we had some fun that morning. As we were heading home from the beach we passed this tiny run down butcher shop and Dickey noticed that the guy inside was getting ready to cut up a pig. This would come into play later.

      Later that morning we took the ladies out for a nice breakfast at this little restaurant where we were served by a nice woman from Argentina. Got some good Costa Rican coffee and some food with a local flavor to it, pretty good. After this we walked around Jaco a little bit checking out the place. On the way back to the house we stopped at the "big" grocery store in town to get some food for the week.  Later that day we drove down to Esterillos to see if the surf was any good there. On the way down there we stopped at the top of the mountain at the south end of Jaco to check out the cliffs and look at a big wave spot called "Roca Loca". We took a bunch of pictures there as this place was very scenic.

Kym And I On The Cliff	Cliffs South Of Jaco	Dickey On Top Of The World

 The mornings in Jaco were always glassy with light winds, but the wind always came up during the day and by noon the surf was usually choppy. We found Esterillos and found some pretty lame surf and a lot of rocks so we headed back to Jaco. On the way back to the house Dickey insisted we stop at that little run down butcher shop to see about the pig. You had to have been there to know how funny this scene was. Dickey is a character, a big guy (6'4") with a strong South Carolina accent and always ready to shoot the bull. Going anywhere with Dickey is fun, but this was wild. Here you have Dickey, who doesn't know more than a few words of Spanish (which he butchers, by the way) all hyped up to get him some fresh meat, trying to communicate with this little Costa Rican man who spoke very little English. Dickey keeps yelling out the front door to Tami (who knows pretty good Spanish) for words he can use. Dickey's in there holding his arms apart saying "mucho, mucho, mucho grande! Big! Big!". Kym is laughing so hard you think she is going to hurt herself, Tami is shaking her head and I'm just enjoying the scene, Classic! Kym and I headed back into town as Dickey and Tami took an afternoon nap in their air conditioned bedroom at the house. We sent some postcards to our kids, had some lunch and looked in some more tourist shops.

Tami departing the "Big" Grocery Store

That afternoon we had arranged to go on a horseback ride up the mountain at the South end of Jaco. This was my first time on a horse, and it showed.! Kym, Dickey, and Tami were all good at this and here I am jerking all around like I am riding a wild bull or something! It was a fun time with the only negatives being the fact that the horses were so used to these trails that they walked right on the edge of the drop-offs which can get a little scary. The other negative was the blister I developed on my rear end (which I didn't realize I had until the second I jumped in the pool when we got back to the house) during the two hour ride. It didn't help that I got the feisty horse that tried to block any other horse from passing him! We saw a bunch of Toucans in the trees and some monkeys from a distance, along with several lizards, iguanas, and one snake. Kym loves riding horses and she really enjoyed this 2 1/2 hour trip. There was some confusion as we thought we had signed up for a ride on the mountain and the beach but only got the mountain. A great time though. Afterwards we went back to the house and had another dinner patio-side off the grill.

April 1, 2005 (Friday): I woke up early Friday morning to go check out some surf spots I had read about. Dickey had told me that he may not go in the morning so I didn't wake him up. I set out alone going North. I was looking for one or two spots that were left point breaks. I had sketchy details on how to get to them from a combination of web sites and surf guide books. I had seen the turn off of the main highway the day before on the trip to Boca Barranca so I decided to give it a go from that direction.

As I said before, the roads in Costa Rica are famous for being rough and these were some of the roughest I would encounter. After turning off of the main highway my confidence in what I was doing dropped immediately. It was hard to even figure out which way to go right off the highway. These were dirt roads, very bumpy, and crude or no signs to keep me going in the right direction. I drove for many minutes down this horrible trail of a road passing by some of the poorest places I have ever seen in my life. The funniest thing I saw on this little exploration was a school zone sign (they take their school zones very seriously in Costa Rica, most of them have two police officers standing beside their car during school times) on this extreme road. The sign informed me to avoid going above 25 KM per hour. What a joke! I had been going about 15 KM for the last twenty minutes anyways, there was no chance of even hitting 25 or else my car would've probably fallen apart!      I was starting to doubt I would find these spots, or even find the ocean in this area! I gave myself ten more minutes to find the shore at least, or turn around. I am famous for getting lost anyways, and with little directions and no way of knowing if I was headed in the right direction I thought I was about done. Just minutes before giving up, I finally made it to the beach! I got to a turn in the road as it went by a large hill and cliff that went down to the ocean. This place was called Bajamar. There was a house on top of the hill and flat beach off to the left. I parked my car and climbed the hill to have a good look up and down the coast to try and get an idea of where I was. Up and down this stretch of coast was a very large pounding shorebreak wave, no good for anything except breaking your neck! I could see the large headland to the South and I knew by the map that the break at Guacallilo had to be somewhere nearby.
	Some Traffic!
	Slow Down!!!!!

     That afternoon with the swell pumping and the wind howling Dickey and I (for some unknown reason) decided to go out in Hermosa at the Tree. The waves were a pounding 6-8 ft and bigger. I have never felt such power as I pushed through the waves paddling out. I felt like every wave I duckdived through was going to be the one that sucked me backwards over the falls, crushing me. Dickey got halfway out then I didn't see him anymore. I kept looking in for him, all the while ducking giant set waves. I soon noticed a couple on the beach picking a loose board out of the water. Then I finally saw Dickey, he walked out of the water got his board from the couple and just sat down on the beach. I stumbled my way in not even attempting to ride the out of control surf (Very few people surf at Hermosa in the middle of the day, it's usually the morning and the evening, which are more calm). When I got to Dickey he didn't say anything just sat there out of breath. He later told me how his leash broke halfway out and he thought he was going to drown, stuck in the impact zone without his board.

April 2, 2005 (Saturday): Fishing Trip today. Dickey had heard that there was great deep seas fishing in Costa Rica so we wanted to give that a try. We had chartered a boat in Jaco earlier in the trip and early this morning we met a cab driver who led us to the boat launch bay at Herradura Beach about 10 minutes North. Different kind of harbor. Beautiful bay (the resort Marriot is in this area) with small boats backing right onto the sand, with 2 ft. waves breaking on the beach. We hop in the boat and are motored out to our fishing boat which is just offshore in the harbor. Our boat went pretty far out. As we were on our way out, I was eager to get a look at the other side of the small island in the front of the bay. There is a surf spot called Playa Escondido that is a pretty good reef break, but they say you have to take a boat to get to it. I never saw it on the way out, and I still don't know exactly where it is. We went out pretty far and could barely see any land with the Peninsula being closer than the land we left behind.

As you can see the fish didn't jump on our hooks this day. It was a fun trip though, getting to see the coast, and some other sea life. While out there we saw Dolphins, Manta Rays, and a Sea Turtle. Kym who gets car sick real easy, slept for most of the fishing trip in the front of the boat. When we got back, we had lunch at one of the nice looking restaurants (open air of course) right off the beach at Herradura. Now I had been trying to land a Mountain Dew ever since I got to Costa Rica (me being an addict) and had yet to get one. Every place we had been to, on the trip so far had Coke products. As we entered this place I noticed the Pepsi sign on the side of their fridge! Mountain Dew perhaps! My hopes were soon dashed, as I asked the waiter if they had Mountain Dew. He gave a me a confused look that said: "not only do we not have it, but I have never heard of it"! Oh well.

Sea Turtle	View from boat	Kym enjoying fishing	Dolphin

     Later that day while everyone else took a nap at the house, I went to the bank and then the internet cafe down the street. The keyboard was in Spanish and had some different keys (no shift key) than the English version I'm used to, but I made due. The internet cafe was dirt cheap as mostly locals seemed to use it. Dickey and I had another surf at the North end of Jaco and later that evening we ate diner at the Aberdeen Angus wood grill. Diner was a little slow so they brought us some free appetizers, you wouldn't get that in America!

Costa Rica Farming	Questionable Bridges	Cliff view from the trails at Manuel Antonio

April 3, 2005 (Sunday): Today we headed south about an

hour to Quepos. The drive down was interesting with animal pastures and fields full of trees. The road down was fine except the bridges are a trip. Most of the bridges have long ago washed away and been replaced (long ago mind you) with steel ones. These steel bridges are literally falling apart with lots of patchwork like gravel and metal plates just laid down over the holes! We arrived at Manuel Antonio National Park and set out on the hiking trails. Lots of sweat and climbing through these cliff trails right on the coast. We saw Iguanas, lizards, hundreds of colorful crabs, and some Possums. My favorite part of this was when Kym and I were walking down the trail and a pack of Monkeys came right through the woods in front of us and stopped on the trail to look for food. We were being all quiet trying to get a close look and some pictures. After we got the pictures we started moving and talking again, not only did this not scare the Monkeys away, they didn't seem to care if we were there or not! The trails end down the beach a little in this beautiful cove. the water here was the most beautiful we saw while in CR. Nice tropical looking beaches in Quepos.

Dickey and Tammy on the walking trails	Jason & Kym on the beach at Manuel Anontio

We got back to Jaco worn out from all the hiking and sweating. We ate lunch and I had my first pizza in CR, pretty good. Kym, craving some Mexican food (the American kind we get at home) tried the "Super Burrito" or some such thing. She would pay for this later! We all went to Jaco beach again in the late afternoon near the middle of the bay. Tammy, Kym, and I surfed while Dickey took some pictures. Kym is entirely too brave out in the ocean, and paddled all the way out the back to where I was sitting. The problem came when she was paddling back in. Kym got pounded by a closeout set, and then her board hit her in the head when another wave came. She was hurting for a bit, but she's tough and shook it off pretty quickly. Both Tammy and Kym were picking up surfing pretty well on this trip. Jaco's a decent place to learn surfing. We didn't realize it until later that night, but while we were at the beach with our truck being parked just off the sand within sight, someone jimmied the back door lock and took Dickey and Tammy's camera bag. Costa Rica is a nice place, with very friendly people, and you feel safe while your there, but most of the people living there don't have allot so theft is a problem. Later we swam in the pool and ate diner.

April 4, 2005 (Monday): I was determined to surf Boca Barranca at least one more time so I got up at 4:50 in the morning. Dickey decided to sleep in so I set out alone at 5:25 to give it one more go. Waking up early was very easy for me in CR. Got to Barranca and found conditions almost identical to the previous Friday. Chest to head high glassy waves on a lower tide. This time I brought the 8'0" funboard we had rented and this board worked much better than my shortboard had here. The crowd was small again, maybe 6-10 people. This wave is soooo fun on the right board, I got a bunch of great waves. There were two shortboarders out, one of them was a young (maybe 18) local and he was sitting right at the main peak not catching anything, I felt bad for him. After awhile, during one of the better sets, I was next to him in the right spot and held off catching the wave, trying to let him get it. He missed the wave, so I tried to get it at the last second, but missed it too. One of a group of four longhaired guys who had come together in a van wasn't too happy with a good wave going right through the lineup unridden and started saying some stuff out loud (including curses) how he was going to catch everything now, he didn't care. I was ticked off for a minute or two and when the next set came I made sure I was the one on it. That wave was a great ride and as I was paddling back out I wound up right next that same guy who said "nice ride". That was sweet!

     I surfed about 2 1/2 hours and as the time came to leave I had a plan to ride one all the way to the end. I don't know exactly how far this is, but it has to be over 1/4 mile. I took off on a wave just off the sandbar (what I would call second peak) and cutback a bunch of times and struggled my way all the way through the bay as the wave shrunk to almost nothing. I finished the ride about 15 feet from the beach. I walked out of the water and grabbed a few rocks to remember the place with. When I looked back at where I had taken off on that wave (there was a kayaker sitting in the lineup there) I could barely see the takeoff spot! That was a long ride for sure. That was my final ride at Boca Barranca. I drove back home and when I got there found out that Kym was feeling ill in the stomach from the previous day's activity and possibly food (remember the "super burrito"?). Dickey and Tammy were hanging out in the pool. I was pretty beat after a week of running around so I crashed with Kym and took a nap. Late that afternoon we went to Jaco beach for the last time. Dickey and Tammy surfed while Kym and I laid down on the beach. I wasn't going to make Jaco closeouts my final surf in Costa Rica, after the morning session I had at Boca. I was worn out anyways. Another beautiful sunset........

      I had wanted all week to go back to this one restaurant where I had eaten this incredible Chicken lasagna. We went back and I had ran on and on about it so much, Dickey decided to order it too. The problem was, it came with either alfredo sauce or this great fresh marinara sauce that was what made the dish. I had forgotten about the choice of sauce and didn't specify to the waiter which one, so we both wound up with the Alfredo which made for a dry dish. Oh well, you can't win em all!

     I managed to lock the keys in the car after we got back to the house, so we called the man at Zuma who agreed to come out and unlock the car in the morning. Spent the evening packing our stuff for the trip home.

April 5, 2005 (Tuesday) : Time to go home. We left the house and stopped at the little place we had eaten breakfast the first day. As we were leaving the area we decided to stop at the bridge over the Tarcoles River since we had seen lots of people looking over the sides the whole week. I was beginning to think all the talk of Crocodiles and watching out for them at river mouths blah blah blah was a bunch of bull. None of us had seen a single croc on the entire trip yet and we were on our way to the airport! Anyways, there were a bunch of crocs hanging out around both sides of the bridge next to and in the river. Pretty cool.

     We got to the airport, gave back the car, paid the exit fee, went through customs and went to the terminal to wait for our flight. The departure side of the airport in San Jose is brand new and very nice. There is a food court full of American franchise junk food complete with high airport prices. The place was mobbed, as all the flights out seem to leave around the same time. We finally got on the plane and were on our way home. We had a little adventure in Charlotte involving slow baggage return (broken airport equipment) before the trip through customs after which you have to re-check your bags. This left us with just few minutes to get to our flight. We made it, but I didn't get a chance to get the Mountain Dew I had been craving for 8 days! We made it home, and as we drove home from the airport, for the first time I noticed the massive 5 lane perfectly paved highway that I drive on all the time. One of the things I always like about going different places is it makes you take a freash look at your place.I hadn't seen a road like this for a good while. I had no idea this would be the thing that would strike me the most about being back in the USA.  Nice to be home.