Costa Rica Early Afternoons

Early afternoons in Costa Rica. Well considering we were up so early most mornings, I am going to start afternoons at around 11am and then break them into early afternoons and later afternoon. Then will come sunset and then nights in Costa Rica. 

Oh lovely early afternoons… by the time the eating and starring out at nature was over, it was time for either a little walk around town (which happened like twice) or a trip down to the beach, which happened all the other days. So sometimes, because it was so hot and sunny we would pack up the big beach umbrella and a thick small sheet I brought from home down to the beach as a blanket, a towel (for a pillow) and often our books. But by the end of the trip, I kyboshed Jon’s novel from coming down the beach with us – it was this huge hard copy and like he would read like a page of two before needed to get in the water and it was heavy! Well, I guess considering he was the one carrying it, it didnt really matter to me... but anyway. We had a bottle of water most times, but weirdly I was not drinking tons of water down there…even though you can drink it right out of the tap, it was never cold enough for me and I was too lazy cheap to buy some at the store.

Prices in Costa Rica are EXPENSIVE. Nothing was cheap that is for sure. We scored with our accommodations, because of friends, still eating out for good food was about the same as Canada and yeah, other things were even more expensive. Anyways, whatever, who cares, vacation and we were cooking for ourselves most times anyway. We were happy. OH whoops, almost forgot beer (more to follow in Costa Rica nights), beer is cheap, so that was good.

The beach would be hot after 11am – hardly anyone would be in the water even. Us, of course, were not deterred and saw this as a perfect opportunity to catch more waves and hang in the sun. Jon had a visor out there with him. It had a shoelace ducktaped to this hat and then he looped the strap around his neck (yeah, perhaps not the smartest technique). I tried the visor once, but I hate distractions in the water - making the adjustment of putting it back on after being thrown around under water was no fun. It worked well for him though. I had a rash guard which was OK, not complete protection, but really I was super careful and had lots of sunscreen on.

Too much in fact! And after a few days down there I was crying about how brutal my eyes were doing, like totally scratchy and sore and finally on day 3 or 4 – after my friend Sue said something to the fact that it could be the sunscreen in my eyes, which I blew off - Jon looked at me and said “You aren't putting the sunscreen on your forehead are you????” like I was some crazy nut and I said “yea I am”. Well, SM (stupid me) I guess, eh? I was like "DUDE – I have been crying about my eyes being sore and rubbing them for days and all this time you didn’t clue in, until now to ask me this pretty critical detail and think about how it could have been the problem" something along those lines anyway and finished up with a big "…thanks a lot buddy"

Anyway, after I stopped applying sunscreen on my forehead it took about 24 hours, but my eyes chilled out and were much better.

So yeah, after digesting on the beach for a while I would get in and join Jon. Typically I would last an hour or so, maybe a lot longer if the waves were unreal, but that only happened 2 or 3 times. Usually in the afternoons, the winds pick up and would blow out the waves, or make the ocean choppy. If it was on shore winds, then it really sucked and there is not much point to be out. But we had lots of off shore wind days and the tides were actually at there best when I was there, midday so often in the afternoons we would get good waves and it was pretty sweet. I think my best session of 7 or 8 solid waves (solid = long ride, good turns and speed into the sections) happened in the early afternoon and I remember being pretty high off that session.

I would say that the transition was not too bad for me – by day 2 I was sticking my waves (staying on my board – adjusting to not having booties on that really do give you an extra grab) and that by the end I was catching some over head set waves pretty confidently.

Jon gave me some advice right at the get-go – he said “watch your fins baby”. And holy, was he right. My first session out in the ocean, fresh off the plane and after 15 hours of travelling I was in the water for a sunset surf in pretty descent sized high tide waves, and yeah, I felt my fin wrap around my leg losing my board on a duck dive and I was like – right – I got no armor! One thing about the wetsuit is that it is a protector. Makes you a lot less concerned about your extremities and you have more sticking power to your board.

But the liberation you feel in a bathing suit – sweet heaven! The paddling is like a dream – with no wetsuit on, and gloves, no matter how you may have the newest technical equipment, which we do, it does not make a hell of a lot of difference. Paddling in a wetsuit is HARD, period. Don’t get me wrong, it’s fine we are totally used to it, but holy – your arms are SORE by the end of 1.5 hours. Without a wetsuit, my arms do not get sore (not really anyway).

So yeah. My surfing in the afternoon was good. Since we are on the topic – Jon also had me working on my duck dive. One may think after 10 years of surfing, 7 pretty seriously, that I would have mastered this …well, nope. Not really at all. Don’t get me wrong, I can get me and my board under a wave, not very efficient and gracefully though. Doing the proper method of duck diving takes practice and I dare say I really progressed with it quite a bit on this trip. I am also currently using our 6’6 fish board that has more opportunity to duck dive properly…my other board is a 6’0 fish (same style but shorter and fatter at the top) not ideal for duck diving. I did OK with one in the past cause it has glassed in fins (2 of them) and I would wrap my legs around them (in my armor of course) and be cool.

Anyway, I am not going to get so into this duck diving thing, but just wanted to say that I really did learn a lot from being more open to letting Jon give me tips. There was a time where I would not hear of such things, either I thought it was better, or just as good or it would make me feel bad, but now I am more mature now and realize he is a way better surfer than me, always has been…even though I did introduce him to the sport goddamit. And he is just being helpful and I appreciate it.

Costa Rica held a lot of experiences in and out of the water for me to really just be at peace with myself and let things happen around me without being overly involved. And that was really ok. It was nice to be away and out of my element and learn new things and be with Jon, have a good time, and just relax.

Costa Rica Mornings

It has been a while since I posted and it is fortunate and unfortunate at the same time. I was on vacation and decided to be on vacation from computers too, which was the fortunate part. What a holiday it was, not to be checking emails and sitting and staring at a computer screen all day. Even though I had some good advice (from both Sarah Hamlin, and my Mom), to keep a journal during my trip and then transfer over my journal entries, I didn't (and that would be the unfortunate part).

But, I am hoping that my short term memory (jeeze, it was only a week ago, come on!) will prove itself and I can write about our time in Costa Rica clearly, from memory. I have decided to enter my Costa Rica entries in posts depending on the time of day and will start with the earliest time of day; mornings.

Mornings in Costa Rica were warm, but not hot, hence why the sheet on our bed would be pulled up to our necks most mornings. The fan would be on constantly on in our big open concept apartment and help with the morning chill that, yes, you can even have in the tropics. Jon would spoon me for a little, and then start with the "UP", "UP" that he likes to yell out in a loud voice to indicate that he is ready for me to wake up, which he knows pisses me off :)

A few mornings I was woken quite early by howler monkey's, there bark so loud and scary sounding, that it would make me quite alert. They sound like elephants in fact, but they are only the size of fat cats up in the trees. Although they are vicious little guy's supposedly. This sometimes was on my mind when we passed them up in the trees near the surf shop and restaurant, but mainly they were high up and cool to watch eat leaves and howl at eachother...but anyways back to the morning...

Jon would usually be the one to skip up to the kitchen and either pull out an almond bar protein ball from the fridge (which I picked up at the health food store before I left) or make us a smoothie with banana and pineapple. We would sit up in bed, eat and forecast what we thought the waves might be doing. Sometimes (especially when high tide) we could here the waves clearly from the house, but sometimes not so much.

After the little breaky Jon would head out of bed and get the boards outside ready for a morning wax. I would hit the washroom, brush my teeth and throw on my bikini top or a tank top and a skirt of some kind, and my flip flops. Then I put my damp rash guard and bottoms in a plastic bag and pretty much from there we would grab our boards and walk down to the beach.

Let me tell you, this was not a 5 minute walk to the beach - it was more like 12 minutes and doing it like 6 times a day would get a little sore on the legs (of course, that could have been the surfing or the tiredness that comes from walking in the shallow waters to get out past the beach break in low tide - but I will explain that in another post sometimes). The walk in the morning's was usually quite silent, we might talk a little about the people we would pass, which were not many...say hi to Juan at the surf shop and maybe Sue at the restaurant. Usually though, we wouldn't stop at all and try to make it to the beach and in the water as early as possible to avoid the morning crowds.

We would pass beautiful flowers on the morning walk. The most memorable were bright blue flowers on a vine along the road side and tons of yellow flowers on the beach side in the meadows. The flowers would be bright and plentiful, but disappear entirely after noon. Morning glory flowers, I suppose.

Most mornings we were in the warm water by 7am and the heat would start up (my chill would be gone), the sun would be bright and the surroundings would be stunning. I would feel energized and fresh and we would want to stay in the water until the crowds thickened and our stomachs growled. This would be around 8:30 or so. On our walk home from the beach we would discuss our best waves, talk about the folks we were surfing around ("uncle fucker", "Ben Kingsley on a longboard", and the "guy in the blue rashgaurd", as examples). Mostly on our walk though, we would plan our big breakfast and make sure we had what we needed. If not, we would come home, shower and quickly head out to the local store. We would pick up the missing ingredients and by then, starved, we would rush home and cook up our feast.

We would almost always have scrambled eggs cooked with onion, garlic, tomatoes and accompanied with black beans, white rice - which would usually be made into a "ginto pinto" (local Central American rice and bean dish, flavored with salsa and onions and garlic). We would serve this with warmed tortilla's from the frying pan, local salsa (hot sauce really), coffee and tea. This breakfast would make us very happy and afterwards we would sit around, digest, chat with Benny if he was around, and/or flip through our novels, magazines or local English newspaper of the area (made for the Americans living there).

Often after breakfast, sitting outside on one of the patio's where we would be eating (either our downstairs patio deck or Ben and Sue's upstairs patio deck) we would just stare out at the vegetation and point out to each other how big and different the tree's were, how beautiful the colours were on the flowers and plants (well, usually I was pointing that out to Jon, he is a lovely man, but not that perceptive:)) We watch the cool red squirrel's in the tree's or the Pisotto's (a funny looking half ant-eater, half raccoon looking thing) in the neighbors yard (they fed them, we think) or just watch the local Costa Rican butterflies cruise by.

Morning's in Costa Rica were very peaceful, somewhat surreal and extremely interesting to take in. They were by far, my most favourite time of day.