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Published: October 3rd 2008
Tim Version:
* Surfed Pavones for a few days, blown away by the place and the waves.
The "I'll try not to dribble too much" version, as surfing in general and this place especially, I could talk about forever:
"Pavones". Man, that name has struck a happy excited cord with me since I saw videos of it, its incredible waves, and heard its crazy history. Mix the words excitement, joy, exhiliration, chilled, and purifying together and thats kinda what I was feeling when I got there. Reaching the place at night, Christoph and Clemens went off to find a place to stay while I stayed with the bags at the bus stop. So so close, but stuck at a bus stop! I was running up and down the hill over the road, doing chinups on the bus stop, even doing little jogs down the road just to burn energy and stay sane! It was a seriously dark night so no getting to see the waves tonight, but the taste I got on the bus ride in of how beautifully tropical and tranquil the place is had me itching to grab a torch and board and head out.
Never enough
I love this place =) Thats the morning breakfast view...We grabbed a room at Vila de la Vista, run by a surfer from the US called Blake. We had chat to Blake and found that he and his mates were leaving back for the US the following day. They gave us a good run down on the place and a few different surf spots, as well as just having a really good chin wag about Costa Rica, the Spanish language, education and other stuff. He's a seriously smart applied guy by the sounds of things, academically and just in general about life. However with them leaving the next day, and me low on sleep, and the guys even lower on sleep, thats exactly what we all did not too long after getting there. sleep.
A quick run down on the wave. Not the wikipedia version, but the how it was when I was there version. The whole place peels left, so its a goofy footer heaven. Still, for a regular, its a wicked long ride to practise things in reverse. Due to Scarborough copping lefts, it felt kinda normal to me. Now the main wave that takes the records for the longest rides starts way over to the
left from the soccer field which is near the beach and the wave. Looking out to sea you see it peel from the far left, beyond you left peripheral vision, all the way in front of you, and then into the little bay on the right past your right peripheral vision. It has 3 main breaks, usually with it closing out between the 3 breaks while we were there as the swell wasnt massive. This is good, as otherwise only very very few people would get a go. Its busy... really busy... a bit too busy unless you are very good I think. The chances of dropping in on someone are very high. So thats the main wave.
As for the area, well, every 5 minutes further you walk down the beach, you discover another long perfect break, often uninhabited and all yours. The whole time, any spot you pick, gives you a wide view of the bay and open ocean, with a thin slightly rocky but beautiful beach fringed with palm trees and lush undergrowth. Bits od dead palm tree and coconut husks float in the water near you. Waves often break on shallow rocks, but for these
Mi amigos en Pavones
Me, the Austrains, and the Brazilians rides you don't care. Hopefully the photos describe this stuff better than my words...
Day break hits and its board hunting time! I get a daylight glimpse of the place... tropical and surreal, but in the main area it is owned a lot by rich foreigners. While locals scoot past on old motorbikes and rusty trucks, foreign surfers whisk past in shiny new SUVs. Normally this stuff kills a place for me... but here, I just dont care at all, this place is too good for that to even matter! I found a board to hire, and finally, FINALLY Im back in the water again, freakin surfing again! Surprised my face didnt end up like The Jokers from Batman from smiling so much. That seriously chilled high that I get from it returned and the day was set. We surfed for maybe 5-6 hours until dark, mostly on breaks further down than Pavones to escape the crowds. Christoph and I ended up going seriously far down the beach, including a stop where some locals with a basic hut on the beach and their boat were fishing, to ask for directions... they ended up giving us some incredible tasting lemon
water combo as well as the directions, to which we were really thankful for both! The spots so far were Pavones with lots of people, the rock break that only Clemens was crazy enough to surf, the old mill where an American building his holiday home showed and surfed wth us, then finally the point I cant name... it was more hollow and fast, much more our short board style. about 5 locals and 2 Americans were there. A bit of a crowd, but a happy sharing crowd. We rode that thing till both my leg and arm were cramping up.. then we hitched back. The first was on a ute, and that was fine, The second thuogh, bad idea! It was on a bumpy as fuck delivery truck who life high speeds, with us in the back with the boards on metal bars. By the end both our boards were slightly damaged on the bottom where they bumped like hell on the truck, and my arse was feeling seriously tenderised (hold all the gay jokes). My coccyx, if that is how you spell it, was killing. Glad we got the lift though, we were seriously far from Pavones (which
Our Vila
Simple but perfect by the way, cant remember if I said, is both the name of the town and the name of the wave out the front of it). I was wreckked, and it was time for the some food then well earned sleep.
Day 2 we got rained on like crazy until after lunch, proper tropical rain, but it subsided and we were out again. Heading for the same spots, after a couple of hours surf a local kid pointed us to where a much better break was and we followed him to that and hell he was right, it was awesome! All arvo we cranked on that, Christoph and Clemens getting huge long rides all the way to the beach, me needing a bigger board. Heh some rides here were crazy though as it got seriously shallow... one wave that had a take off that looked just way to steep I pulled out of and went through the back of the wave... when the wave crashed, I was left standing in waist deep water standing on rocks. eep. Clemens had a tonne of rides the same, some ending with him stnading up in shin deep water! Unfortunately thats how he
lost the nose tip of his board. Nothing all too special happened that day besides the now usual wicked long rides and funny as hell crashes and finishes to some of them, and we again went home happy and wrecked and slept like logs. One standout part of that day was the really relaxing walk back... I left just before the guys, as my arm was starting to cramp up pretty bad, and walked solo the whole way home, something I love to do... I noticed the plants and animals so much more, stopped to appreciate the sunset, and then once it was dark saw fireflies dancing around peoples from yards. That wasnt something I had seen before but it was awesome. Cant capture it on film sorry though, wish I could... Also passed by the usual dogs, cats and horses that we keep meeting wandering the streets, but this time I stopped to say hi and see what was up. Despite all roaming pretty free, with some of the dogs being strays I would guess, they were all really docile and friendly. Something you dont often get from a random doh locked up behind a fence.
The 3rd
Pavones
It goes forever... day, my last *sob* surf day in Pavones. The swell was dropping tomorrow and I have other things I wanna see so its cool... we hit up the same spot, and the swell is a bit down, but to make even a lot swell day all the better, 2 Brazilians rock up! Heh we thought we were dreaming at first... we're on a break with noone else around, views of the surroundig mountains and beaches, watching thunder storms form, roll in and die... oh and did I mention 2 pods of whales spouting water and doing full aerial shows for us? The reason I knoew we couldt be dreaming is coz if we were then there would have been 3 =) How could we tell they were Brazilians you might wonder? Well combine some wicked tanned skin with some true Brazilian bikinis and thats how! They turned out to be a bit older than us, but they still had crazy fit bodies. Jen, you should like the photos more than anyone heh. They were good company and we surfed all arvo with them. After dinner we went over to their place (an incredible beach house they were borrowing from a
Centro Pavones
Directly behind this is the wave, this is the central soccer field and where a few shops and hostels are friend) and burned CDs of photos, gave them the photos we took from the day of them and us, then swapped a few stories... Thank you Lu as I now have another contact in Brazil near Salvador, and the best part is its a contact who surfs!!
Pavones... even thuogh I'm leaving, I know I'll be back. The place is too good not to, and safe and easy enough to even do with a family. I was on a serious life high leaving the place! Even the morning I left it provided a perfect scene, but I'll leave that for the next load of rambling from me... no time to double check this entry so I hope that all made sense...
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