2.10.03
It was nightmarish being out in the snow today. I applied for my passport, drove/walked through the snow and tried to force the tropical vibe with Justin Hinds blaring on the car stereo and drinking a double shot of espresso aka café Cubano. The reality of going to Costa Rica is beginning to set in, and I would be unable to contain my excitement if it were more than 15 degrees outside....

3.7.03
What a winter. 3 sinus infections since Jan 1. The second greatest snowfall in Maryland history (55"), the coldest winter in at least 6 years. There is no sign of spring--water has been 38 degrees for 6 weeks and shows no sign of bumping up. Costa seems incomprehensible. Warmth, heat, warm water, boardshorts. I can't comprehend those things. Surfing in the 38 degree water has been horrible. It's so cold....

3.29.03
Three days and counting….1:00 AM and packing the gear….stoked!!! 

4.2.03
7:50AM. We're in the air. Can't believe I’ll be there in six hours. This airline is ghetto. The same guy who checked the board bag ran to the air gate and punched our tickets, then searched the “randomly selected” passengers for drugs or bombs or whatever. Oh well, the free drinks are nice. Wish Amy was here, she would appreciate ghetto-air 3000. this will be my second woman-free vacation since we met (Hatteras 1999, Hatteras 2002). It will be weird to experience all this alone.

4.2.03
10:00PM. Writing by moonlight….sort of! There is no power, and no phone. I am in a totally foreign place, and got stuck in a rip tide in the river mouth right at sunset because I didn’t look at a map before I surfed to see that the river mouth empties south-southwest, not due west. Oops.  How did I not figure that out immediately? Dumbass. Surf was 4-6’ and sectiony but really manageable, despite the ridiculous crowd and riptide, at Playa Tamarindo. It is dry, dusty, and windy. Who knows what tomorrow will bring. It’s weird to have a day like this and not to be able to tell anyone about it. I am jet lagged, in the dark, and got worked in a riptide 3 hours after arriving. Welcome to Costa! 

4.3.03
The trip is still insane (don’t know if that’s good or bad) and I still don’t believe we’re here, if that tells you anything. Neal and I woke up at 5:30 and hit Playa Tamarindo - the first surfers in the water anywhere in town. It was 4-6’ and sectiony but really rampy and fun. A crowd started to show (7:30) and the surf started closing out a little too much for my taste, so we walked in / paddled out at the next break over, Pico. We had been watching it, and it looked like an ideal point break on the outgoing tide. Hollow tube on the takeoff, nice long / slow shoulder, nice tube at the end of the ride as you try to get back away from the lava reef on the inside. Yeah well unfortunately the reef is also about 14” deep to 6” above water at low tide, so it is real sketchy. Rod eventually showed up and Neal and Rod went off. I only had one decent ride on a smaller wave and I eventually smacked my (new) board and donated some calf skin to the reef, and whimpered back over to Playa Tamarindo to at least catch one more big mushburger. Still have some serious jet lag but I am getting my head back together now. Breakfast at the hotel was amazing, but I’ll let the old guys spend their time describing it. The quality of the fresh fruit evades description anyway. 

We hit the road for points south and hopefully longer lines and slacker offshores. Avellanas was a really cool place, the beach break was pretty dead, but “Little Hawaii” was going NUTS, with about 12 guys out in 6-8’ wedgy surf - no shoulder, just tubing drop in and kick back over the lip to escape. The walk out to the beach is cool, through the mangrove/saltmarsh. The fish in the mangrove glow in the dark (their eyes). Had a drink and watched the howler monkeys outside Avellanas at Cabinas las Olas. 

Continued to head south to Playa Negra, which was the most insane break I’ve ever seen. About 20 guys out in 8-10’ surf with 12’ sets. Lots of board breaking, head-first O.t.f. action. Also some amazing surfing going on. A whole lotta guys out for such critical conditions and such a tiny take-off zone. No thank you. We went to another spot that was breaking semi-consistently 6-8’ with 10’ sets. Everybody’s wave count was pretty low but Rod and Neal had some luck picking off the bigger ones and making that 7-8’ drop over the lava reef. Getting caught on the inside during a set was one of the scariest things I have ever experienced.  I’ve never seen sets consisting of 5,6,7, 10 waves…..talk about spooky. That about did it for me today. Had to go drink.

4.4.03
Hit the dawn patrol at Playa Tamarindo and went nuts amongst a lineup full of weenies and surprisingly few locals. After yesterday’s session of spook, doing 4’ aerial drops in glassy groundswell seemed like a piece of cake. I started at the left closest to Pico and caught some waist-chest high winners over the lava/sand edge. Saw that a lot of stuff at the main Playa Tamarindo peak was going unridden, so I paddled over there and terrorized the crowd of confused beginners. I hope they were beginners, because no one out that morning could really do much of anything. Crowd eventually got too heavy, with some guys that could actually surf well, so I walked/paddled over to Pico and surfed the 4-5’ outgoing tide over the dry reef. Rod’s still maintaining his theory of “I have the right to call you off of any wave” so we eventually both almost died while taking the same wave. I went o.t.f. into a spin cycle above the reef - I don’t know how I didn’t slam into it. Anyway I eventually caught some fun rides with multiple turns, zooming over the clear water and reef right below. Paddled in through the s-shaped “safe channel” we found and had some breakfast.

What a morning session! Another delicious hotel breakfast---the unsweetened yogurt and fruit juices are a welcome change to sugar-saturated American fare. Delicious white pineapples, fresh melon juice---just hard to beat all around! Chilled out, then hit the road in search of bigger surf, as winds turned hard onshore around 1030AM (a trend that began repeating itself daily after this day). Finally saw Playa Grande - how beautiful. Nice little reef off the beach, cool tidal pools, the brightest and least damaged seashells I’ve seen since I arrived in Costa. Looks like a NW swell might wrap well around the point - but all we have is wsw right now. I’m sure we’ll return to grande for surf on another day. Hit a local dive “Bar Roxana” in Matopalo, about halfway b/w grande and Tamarindo, and having given up on decent surf for the midday, started drinking (1130am, oh yeah). The assortment of cheesy ‘80s music was really horrifying, as was the proprietor/bartender/dishwasher, Roberto. Apparently also a specialist in playing the air guitar with his tongue hanging out, waving around---pretty disturbing.  Had 4? 5? Beers, had some sketchy food (origin unknown). It was sweltering, even in the shade (no AC of course)….but we headed out eventually.

Swung by Langosta to confirm what we already knew - dying swell and onshore winds. Back to the hotel. We hit the hotel pool bar and before I knew it, the combination of all-day beers and guaro drinks had me passed out at 7pm. I missed dinner, but Neal and Pat continued to get wasted, and Neal was still going strong when they returned. I was sober and ready for more, so we hit the town.

It’s really hard to describe everything we saw that night, so here’s a bulleted list:

Anyway it was fun but by 3AM we had had enough…. Neal could barely stand and fell a couple times on the way back into the hotel/apartment. Smooth move, ex-lax. 

4.5.03
Somehow got up at 6AM. How? Surf. Costa. That’s how. Woke the boys up for some surf - light offshores and minimal swell (1-3’ with 4’ sets) at Playa Tamarindo.. not quite enough juice, so Neal & I paddled out at Pico instead. Low tide has been later in the morning every day, which has made surfing dawn patrol there everyday a little safer. One morning, Pat got his leash stuck on a rock. Another morning, Neal almost dropped in on top of the dry table rock that forms the wedging takeoff zone on higher tides. Another morning, Neal got caught on - as in “on top of” the rocks as a set rolled through. Not cool! Anyway, I finally got the spot wired, particularly the steep takeoff issue with my new shorter board. Have to paddle into the rocks, drop in straight toward the beach, and cut a legitimate bottom turn right and then trim high to pass the first (and hollowest) section. Had some great waves, one with 6 or 7 full turns and cutbacks. It was probably 4’, although there were some 5’ waves for sure. The water was much clearer today - you can watch the reef pass underneath you as you cut down the line. Neal and I basically killed it today - he on the outside with the sets and me on the shoulder with the chest high stuff. 

Feeling a lot better about my surfing now that I’ve surfed the same spots repeatedly. Just performing well -- absence of jet lag is helping. My Spanish is improving quickly, which is good, because my Spanish is horrible. Muy Parro. Hot-ass midday returns with onshore winds---I am chilling out with Pat, looking at the lava dings on my new board. Rod and Neal have headed south for bigger, more critical surf. Time for a siesta on the porch…..

Neal and Rod returned surfless (onshores). Neal wanted to knock the dust off, so I walked with him down to the river mouth and paddled across to grande for the offshore wind shift (usually 4pm-ish). Surfed the first two lefts on the beach (2-4’) - few guys out, and then surfed “El Estero” itself (3-5’), off the big rock seen in some of our Tamarindo bay pictures. Surf was mushy and consistent, amazing turquoise water in the ruby red sunset, sea turtles and puffer fish swimming around on the surface (probably because the reef was right below us and we didn’t know it -- ha ha ha. 

Had dinner at another typical joint and got my typical meal: pescado entero. It’s been red snapper everywhere we’ve been, so that’s cool. Muy bueno. The prostitutes and the crazy, sunken-eyed character we always see them with are running around the traffic circle at the end of town. I think that the “business” is done (when not “walking on the beach”) in the squalid shacks behind the downtown businesses. Sketchy! Walked behind some uber-cool Californians, one of whom was upset (He was totally serious, not joking) because “I could have spent that $10 t-shirt money on a whore.” Great attitude and stoke. Jackass.

Some of the chicks at the bar the night before had been talking about a beach bonfire, so we figured we would check that out, it had been made out to be the big event for the whole town. Yeah, it was like a high school bonfire. 20 west coast hippies sitting in a small circle, hanging out, refusing to talk or interact with people outside of their (literal) circle. I guess they were cool or something. Yawn. Cruised up to the super-hyped Vista Villas for a drink and found our worst nightmare: Americana. Overdone (in my humble opinion) Carribean/Tiki/Hawaiian themed bar, situated in a sterile, clean hotel. I guess that’s what most people love. Sounds like any hotel in any suburb of any city. Yay! What a long day….

4.6.03
Woke up and headed down for a surf at PlayaTam. Picked off some nice 3’ waves before the crowd and hard offshores became annoying. Paddled over to Pico, which was breaking 3-5’. Had some decent but not great rides. Whatever. I’m in Costa Rica. More onshore winds at 10am…..

Took a siesta until 2pm, and tripped up to Playa Grande: blown out, mushy, worthless. Back to Bar Roxana and Roberto (what were we thinking?), and ate the ribs of an unidentified animal, I assume monkey or dog. Semi-Seriously. Didn’t taste like pork - at all, way too small for beef. Okey dokey! A fiesta was going on, bull riding and all, so we decided to attend. We were the only non-locals there, and basically they let us know it. Really wanted to see the Ticos doing the technical horse riding, but oh well… headed south to Langosta - the next groundswell has arrived as predicted, but winds are still horribly onshore. At Pat’s urging, paddled out at a place that did NOT look worth the effort---appropriately called “Old Man’s,” in the cove at the southern end of Tamarindo. Holy crap! 2-3’ occ. 4’ loooooong rides---totally glassy/sheltered with beatable sections all over the place. Had a bunch of 100 yard + rides, some floaters, a backside coverup. A super fun session. Pat had the best session he’s had since we arrived, Rod chilled out because the small waves won’t float his 14” board. Watched the sunset over the point - how beautiful. Amy would love this. Went to Pat and Neal's favorite fish taco place and wolfed down some $1.50 tacos and $2.50 piña coladas. Very nice. 

Top smells of Costa Rica

Top sounds of Costa Rica

4.7.03
Got up early and walked down to Old Man’s with Pat. Small and glassy 2-3’. Isla Capitán is going off in the background, you can see the set waves hit the island’s reef, and then reform on the beach a few minutes later. Comb jellies started popping up in the water all around us. We didn’t know they were comb jellies at the time, so it was pretty sketchy. Surf was really fun, but there were long flat spells. Neal and Rod said the same thing about Pico. 

Pat and I went up to the canopy tour thing. It was fun but hot and dry - too close to midday too, when all the critters were taking a siesta. It’s all good. When the Tico guys from the canopy tour (young surfers) were driving us back to town, we got stuck in a “traffic jam” (2 cars), apparently caused by that sunken-eyed dude/pimp/or whoever he is, “negotiating” a deal with his head in a car in front of us.  I asked our driver, in my best horrible Spanish, “Who is he, we see him everywhere?” to which the driver responded, “You know “El Mono (transl: the monkey)?!!?! man, he doesn’t do nothing. But Everywhere you go, El Mono is there. No one knows what he does.” I asked “con las prostitutas?” and the driver really didn’t say, but added “We call him “El Mono” because he has the crazy look.” Ha ha! El Mono indeed!

Lunch and guaro at the pool---got out of hand---$50.00 tab. D’oh!!! Passed out at the pool and later surfed Old Man’s with Neal in 0-3’ inconsistent but clean and fun at dusk. What happened to the Promised Swell? Later, Neal and I hit the pizza/seafood place that I liked best, just a few doors down from where “El Mono” and his girls hang out looking for work. All of a sudden, Neal sees 3 Americans High-fiving El Monoo, and one says, “Hey dude, do you want some pizza?” El Mono got all worked up and started yelling “Pizzaaaaaa!” “Pizzzzzaaaaa!” and pumped his fists in victory.  About 3 minutes later, a girl came into the restaurant, said something to El Mono, and when I looked over again 30 seconds later, El Mono, the girl, and the Americans were all gone - never even got their pizza. Sketchy!  Went back and passed out---only one full day left, hopefully we take advantage of it. Pat is going fishing, kind of wished we were doing an Ollies Point trip with fishing added in, in the case of skunkage---but the overall consensus of the group is that the current lack of swell might make a $300 boat trip kind of not worth the risk. 

4.8.03
Woke up at 5am and walked down to the spot on the beach where the dinghies go out to the fishing boats. Rod tried his hardest to get us a ride out to Isla Capitán (which was firing), but we couldn’t get any love. I thought it was a half-cocked idea anyway - we knew nothing about the reef, currents, or anything, and we’re going to take a one-way boat trip out there, probably having to swim back (about 3 miles), and surf a 6-12’ hollow reef wave in a place that we’ve seen no other human beings? Am I retarded for thinking that it was a half-cocked idea? Nobody actually listened to me anyway, so whatever. We eventually gave up when I said, “Uhh, can we surf today?” and we drove down to Langosta. It was 6-8’ and a little inconsistent but nice shape. Wind was absolutely horrible by this time - strong sideshores. I paddled about ¾ mile south across the river mouth and found nothing super promising - crunching unmakeable barrels on the beach break. Got my butt kicked by a few of those and paddled the hell in. The nude bathers at the nearby Barcelo resort were all putting their clothes back on when they saw me, it’s like good god people, if you’re going to be naked, be naked. I mean, some chicks actually stopped walking down the beach because I was in the water, 200 yards out to sea. I couldn’t see their features if I wanted to. Silly Americans! Then again, the other extreme is the euros we’ve seen---unabashedly overweight men wearing tan and white speedos and thongs, in restaurants, shops, you name it. Dude, put that away! Can’t there be some middle ground? I passed out under a tree on the beach and tried to chill and not feel the negative energy (2 lame sessions in a row).

Eventually Neal and Rod paddled in when the wind switched full onshore and we found----that someone had broken into the truck and stolen our empty backpacks. Whatever. Bound to happen. That’s why I put the camera equipment in the room safe. I’m a little sick of being the baby in the group and having about zero say for surf spots. Man, I didn’t want to surf Langosta anyway, and now I’m minus a backpack, hat, and all of my sun lotion. The guys in the next apartment were talking about Grande being 4-6’ and consistent. After that, I basically grew up and made a decision to do my own thing and see who followed. I told everyone I was going to Grande, so surprisingly everyone loaded up and we went via truck. Wanted to surf Estero due to winds/tide, but since it required a long walk. Mr. Rod was not real interested in that. We ended up driving all over the coast at Grande, and finally I was like, “Whatever, drop me off. I’m going surfing.” Neal came too and we saw the guys from the hotel also getting ready to paddle out. It was definitely a steady 5-7’ and hollow/dumping, but closing out sometimes 300 yards at a time. Damnnnn! 20 guys out already at 4pm, with many more on the way. Figured eventually we’d find a peak that was lining up if we just, you know, exerted some effort and walked. Rod bagged the session and went back to the hotel. Haven’t seen Pat all day. Hmmm.

So eventually we get down to one of the northside El Estero breaks, and not surprisingly it was 3-4’, clean with some sections, and about 3 guys out. Got some fun rides to make up for the crappy day, and maybe Neal got some pics, especially of one wave that was 4’ on the dropin, with a huge walling bowl I had to skim past on kind of a high line, got into the flat for the next section----100 yard closeout. Oh well, it was fun. Watched the sunset again, peaceful. Paddled back across the river mouth to town. Chilled at the pool, what a long day. 

Pat returned after chartering a boat and slaying some yellow fin tuna. We had the hotel restaurant cook it up for us, turned out to be about 2 lbs of meat per person---total tab including drinks was $60 for 5 people. Sweet! Of course they prepared it European style - buttery and unseasoned. Tico style would have made a great day and a great meal PERFECT. Can’t have everything though. Very happy to have had what we had!!!

Ransacked Supermercado Tamarindo for coffee beans for all the peeps back home and bought an amazing ice cream bar, called “Magnum.” The logo pretty much looked like something you’d see on a condom. It was amazing - ate it on the walk back through town by myself. Good to get out alone. Haven’t done that enough. Next time, I’ll make a point of it - doing my own thing. Full moon tonight, light offshores, geckos clicking to each other - last night in Costa.

4.9.03
BRUTAL 4:30AM surf check. I knew what I wanted to do, and I didn’t want to sit around and discuss or drive to 30 different surf spots on my last morning. Neal and Rod paddled out at Pico, Pat at the left off of Pico at PlayaTam, and me at the PlayaTam main peak. After a slow start (pulling into backside closeout barrels, 3 in a row), I started killing it when I got dialed into the 4’ sets. Just me and a local kid. Me on my shortest stick and him on a potato chip. We were killing it. Killing it. If somehow my surfing hasn’t improved over the week, my style and my surfing thought process (getting dialed in) sure has. I’m squatting less, missing fewer dropins, fewer drop knees on the steep backside takeoffs. Fewer paddles for waves that are uncatchable. Nice. Just “Knowing” in your head that you’re going to beat the next 3 sections on a wave helps you keep the back arched and your head on a swivel, instead of totally intense and working for every foot of ride. I’m choosing my vertical lines a lot better, and a lot more, and fadeouts to floaters have become my standard when there’s not enough open face to try the off-the-lip. I am relaxed in the water and relaxed out of the water. Calm.

We had one last breakfast - watermelon juice today, and now all the unsweetened stuff (like yogurt) tastes really sweet---nice adjustment by the taste buds. Everyone was pretty quiet, with scattered talk of “El Mono”, “Sketchy Shotgun-in-a-bag gringo” (hopefully someone else will tell the story), Roberto from Bar Roxana, “Hammock Ho” and all the other crazy people we met from all over the world. I think I’m ready to go home, but I don’t want things to be the same. I’m done being stressed about work. Work is work. Whatever. I needed this adjustment. My body is tweaked from 6+ hours surfing every day, all the walking, the riding on nasty roads, and of course the drinking. 

On the plane and back to reality: the people next to me are fat, stinky, loud, old gringos from Staten Island. He is currently snoring, while she is watching the movie, and asking him (he doesn’t have the headphones anyway) all these stupid questions about the plot and story line and characters. Good god, woman, how is he supposed to know? Not only is he not watching the movie or listening to it, but he’s snoring out loud! He later tells me that he is a retired truck driver, and now owns a store called “Sexy Lingerie.” He proceeds to give a hot chick in the row behind me, a business card for “Sexy Lingerie.” I felt dirty after that. His wife has big hair, bad makeup, and too much gold, including a gold rosary. They repeatedly ask me to dispose of their trash, and when the flight attendants come around, they specifically ask, “Yeah, 2 cokes. And give us two whole cans.” Okay, enough. Can I go home now?

4.23.03
Been back for about 2 weeks. Have managed to maintain the Tico head and have only been stressed out at work once----yesterday. Combination of work factors and home factors (wife’s job stress, wife’s thesis, etc.). I went and had a huge coffee and felt better. Smelled it and remembered all the amazing coffee I had had in Costa. Thought about how much I want to return, and where we’ll start next time. Will it be next year? Will we start in Nosara maybe? Mal Pais? What kind of people will we meet? Will we destroy another Toyota land cruiser? Hopefully the summer in Delmarva will bring steady swells and low stress, and help me bide my time until I return to Costa Rica, in search of El Mono.