By the end of March, I was in desperate need of warmer weather after the last 7 months of the frigid Alaskan winter. Luckily, some coworkers and good friends were planning a trip to the equator for the very week that I would be transitioning from Alaska to New Jersey……how convenient!!! Six of us rented a beach house close to the surfer town of Jaco (pronounced Haco and with an accent mark over the a) and booked a couple of rental cars. We went to Costa Rica with no plans other than to spend time on the beach and figure it out as we go. I would have done it differently and traveled all over the country rather than stay mostly in one area, but the rest of the group was looking for a more relaxing visit to the beach.
Now for a little background on the country of Costa Rica….it is located in Central America not far from the equator so the temperatures stay fairly constant all year long and the sun and moon share equal time as the limelight. Costa Rica covers less than ½ a percent of the world’s land mass, but accounts for over 6% of the world’s biodiversity….translation…..Costa Rica is home to a ton of creepy crawlers, snakes, spiders, spider monkeys, big ass alligators, plants, trees, toucans like Mr. fruit loop himself, sloths, and other random creatures you’ve never heard of. It is actually quite an experience to walk through a rainforest and suddenly stumble upon the beach. The country also boasts the #6 Whitewater Rafting River in the world, the Paquare River, and some of the best surfing in the world….particularly Jaco. Tourism is a major part of the Costa Rican economy, and it will only get larger as many large investors from various countries are beginning to invest some serious cash into Costa Rica. Currently, the road system is awful, it literally took us 2 hours to go about 40 miles, and it is quite dangerous with winding roads through the mountains combined with crazy Costa Rican drivers flying around the bends. But, the roads are currently being upgraded, and once travel is easier, tourism should explode. Costa Rica is a very poor nation, but it is also one of the happiest….did you know that there is some study that rates the happiness index of countries??
Anyways, I suppose I can talk about the actual vacation now. Initially, we were worried that we would not make it out of Alaska because Mt Redoubt exploded about 50 billion times in the last couple of months and the ash from the eruption was causing problems with air travel. We arrived in the capital, San Jose, around noon, but we had to wait there for the last member of our group until about 8 that night. San Jose is actually quite a boring place for tourists.....so my buddy Ryan and I decided to test the Costa Rican blackjack tables to pass the time…..2 hours later, we had both lost 300 bucks (that’s 150,000 colones each), what a way to start a vacation!! Then we picked up our payload at the aeropuerte and headed back to the beach house on the dark, windy roads.
We spent most of the first day (Monday exploring the beach close to our house, planning a couple of excursions for the week, and then heading into Jaco for some dinner, drinks, and souvenir shopping. The second day we went canopy zip lining through the rainforest which was pretty exhilarating. One of the zip lines is half a mile long and allows you to get up to 60 miles per hour. And on the last zip line, we decided to hang upside down. After we finished the canopy tour, one of the guides told us of the time that he was bitten by the second most poisonous snake in the world while clearing some of the trails for the tour….he showed us the scar on his hand. He was lucky that the snake was fully grown instead of a bit younger and smaller…..otherwise he would have been paralyzed within 10 minutes of the bite and most likely died. After the canopy tour, we headed south about 2 hours to the Manuel Antonio National Parque. As we walked through the rainforest, we saw a couple of sloths in the trees, plenty of spider monkeys, a toucan, and a really cool bamboo tree. After about a half a mile in the rainforest, we arrived at the beach surrounded on 3 sides by rainforest. This area was highly populated with spider monkeys….I was tempted to throw fruit at a monkey to see if he would throw fruit…or something a bit more disgusting back….but the sign clearly stated not to feed the monkeys, and I didn’t want to end up in Costa Rican jail. We also saw a nice sized iguana at this beach. As the park closed, we headed back to the main beach and spent the last couple hours of sunlight playing in the big waves watching one of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen as a couple of kids surfed nearby. We drove back to Jaco, showered, and then headed out to enjoy the Tuesday night scene at a local club.
The next morning, Wednesday, we slept in and then headed out for another lazy day at the beach. We might have shot-gunned a beer or two, and then decided it was a good idea to go body surfing. I had a couple of successful runs, especially one in particular where I was able to ride a wave for about 100 yards. But then we learned that these waves were a bit too big to body surf. As my friend Ryan and I tried to catch a huge wave, we were swept under by the wave, and as the wave crashed by us, another large wave came directly behind us and pushed us under again before we resurfaced, we even crashed into each other at some point. We both swallowed a decent amount of salt water, and that was the last of the body surfing for the day. We considered getting surfing lessons, but decided to push it off until the next day. I did however rent a surf board for an hour. The first 30 minutes was quite a struggle as I tried to figure out the physics behind this sport, but during the last 30 minutes, I had a couple of successful runs that made me wish I had invested more time in surfing while I was in the surf capital of Costa Rica. Jaco is one of the best places to learn to surf since it provides a consistent dose of large, yet slow breaking waves.
The next morning, Thursday, a couple of my friends had to leave early because of a family issue. We were only 3 now. We decided to do a little ATV off-roading in the mountains before we had to leave. On top of one of the mountains, we stopped at a small outdoor diner made completely of wood and had a coca-cola in the classic bottle. Then we headed back down the mountain and back to San Juan to head back to the States after a great 5 days in the sunny, slow-paced, surfer town of Jaco.
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