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Published: July 14th 2014
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Our last few days have included minimal surf, meeting people (non from California), fishing and hanging with our hostel mates and hostel owner Jon.
We left dominical having scored great surf. However, we knew the swell was dying so we headed up (about 2 hours) to playa hermosa. This place is a legendary board breaking beast in Costa Rica. Unfortunately, the big swell seemed to have temporarily messed up the sand bars and the swell was dying. Since the town itself was relatively dead we decided to head up to Santa Teresa a couple days early.
To get to Santa Teresa, we had to drive to Puntarenas and then hop on a ferry to cross the gulf. It is about an hour and a half ferry ride and only costs about $1.75 each. The drive from the port to Santa Teresa is about an hour or so of hills with pothole filled roads. We were directed to stay at Don Jon's hostel by Parker's friend Patrick.
Some things you should know about Patrick:
- he's been on and off in Costa Rica for 4 years
- he originally sustained himself
by waiting tables and hustling surf lessons
- he now works as a web designer which allows him to work whenever and wherever
- he can speak the language and most the locals seem to know him
- he's living the dream
We are staying in one of Jon's dorm rooms. The room consists of 5 bunk beds and is 14$ a night. He has a nice hangout area in the front, and has some private house in the back. This results in everyone congregating in the front to hang out.
I had a friend ask me a couple days ago if I had met anyone yet. Truth was we really hadn't met really anyone. I hadn't realized it until she said it. That immediately changed once we got to Jon's. We met people from Switzerland, Utah, Mexico, Germany, Minnesota, Israel, London, Colombia, Quebec, Ireland and more. Our friend Ellie from Ireland worked in the coffee shop and actually served coffee to J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series. She would go in for hours a day and write her books on napkins in coffee shop. One of our
dorm mates, Felipe is from Colombia and I had actually met him at the first place we surfed.
Since the surf has been minimal we have been entertaining ourselves in other ways. We saw some locals have an epic contraption for a fishing rod, and Patrick helped us make one for ourselves. The fisherman were out of bait, but ended up giving Patrick a massive black tuna to use as bait for just 1000 colones (less than 2$). I caught my first fish since I was about 8 years old. Unfortunately it was too small to eat so we had to release it.
Speaking of food we have had the most epic discovery thanks to another one of Parker's friends JR. Turns our bananas are cheap. How cheap? They cost 30 colones which equates to just under 6 cents. So 1$ can get us 18 bananas. The bananas get us by throughout the day. It is currently 4 pm and Matt and I have both had 5 bananas each today. The soda down the street had a massive fish filet, rice and beans (best beans I've had), and a little salad for just under
5$. We have lately been averaging about $7 for food and water a day.
As I'm sure you all know, last night was the World Cup Final. The owner of the hostel,Jon, is a big Germany fan since he lived in Germany from ages 9-19. With a few beers into the game and a few during, it was safe to say Jon was ecstatic Germany won. He yelled free beers to celebrate so everyone hung out for a while as Jon cranked loud German punk electronic music as he danced on the tables. 830 came around and Jon was no where to be found. As everyone was winding down, we realized Jon had the ac remotes (no ac during the day, we only use it for sleep). After a few futile attempts to call Jon on the Walkie talkie, we thought we were out of luck for the ac. Then one of the new backpackers comes up and says he lost his key. The security guy guy go finds Jon asleep in his hammock and wakes him up. Luckily I was still awake for the off chance we could get our ac remotes. Jon opened up and
I was able to get the remote. Reality is, it is near impossible for us to sleep with no ac so we are stoked to here.
We will be hanging here for a few more days before heading up to meet some buddies from school in Tamarindo. Many thanks to Patrick and Jon, for making these past few days with small surf some of the most fun days we've had. Didn't know we could have fun without surfing.
Puravida,
Ben
p.s. Sorry photo quality is weak. We have a nice camera but haven't been able to put photos onto a computer. Hopefully we will soon.
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