SURFING COSTA RICCA

ON THE GULF OF NICOYA, Costa Rica—If the adage about the journey to a
destination being more enriching than the place itself needs an
exception, Costa Rica can be the first to apply.
For all its natural beauty, the so-called Switzerland of Central
America is still characterized by pot holes which in the wet season
double as children's swimming pools, drivers who use them to test
water speed records, road signs so vague as to be cryptic and street
addresses which are expressed in terms of "so many meters from such
and such a place."

The final barrier on the road to paradise is the propensity among
Ticos, as the Costa Ricans like to be known, to rely heavily on
hearsay and fantasy when offering advice for the road.

So it was thanks to curiosity more than good information that I found
myself sailing one of the three ferry routes accross the majestic
Golfo de Nicoya on my latest trip to revel in the warm and wild waves
of Costa Rica's 464km (287 mile) Pacific coastline.

Staff at the San Gildar hotel near San José, the capital, had assured
me the vehicular ferry from Puntarenas to Paquera, on the
south-eastern tip of the Nicoya Peninsular, no longer operated. A
pleasant 80-minute cruise, then, was made all the more delightful in
the knowledge that a 20km deviation from the main Nicoya route had
proved them wrong and yielded a scenic alternative.

Another half hour and I was happily ensconced in the beautiful
Tahitian style Tambor Tropical hotel, one of three upscale
accommodations around the tiny fishing village of Tambor, on the
shores of Bahia Ballena. With its grey muddy beach and still waters,
this is not vintage surfable Costa Rica. However, a smattering of
similarly funky villages offering a full range of
accommodations—including a Spanish-built golf resort—and deserted
white sand beaches further west have made this part of the country
popular among European and American hippies as well as better-heeled
sports fishermen and golfers.

It's at Cabo Blanco and Mal País, the dramatic wind-swept
south-western extreme of Nicoya, where the even Pacific swells begin
their transformation into the neat and tubular waves which draw
thousands of surfers from all over the world to Costa Rica every year.
Cabo Blanco is also home to the country's first natural reserve, a
1,172-hectare national park established in 1963 to protect the
north-west's rapidly dwindling populations of monkeys, ocelots, deer
and peccary. Today, the country, with about 25% of its total land mass
in some way protected, is considered a world leader in efforts to slow
the disappearance of global rain forests.

About 70km further north along the west coast of Nicoya is Tamarindo,
site of another reserve, this time for the endangered leatherback
turtles, and base camp for surfers looking to sample the waves of
nearby Playa Grande, Playa Negra, and Avellanas. The village itself
has been transformed in the last decade from a quiet fishing haven to
a decidedly European-flavoured resort for all tastes and budgets.
Here, visitors can dine in authentic Italian restaurants and stay in
Swiss-run boutique hotels, after sipping Piña Coladas in truly Tican
beachside bars to the hypnotic beat of Jamaican reggae.

A proliferation of surf shops and game fishing centers reflects the
area's appeal to mainly U.S. aficionados of both sports, with the
former chasing the hollow, consistent beach breaks of Playa Grande and
Avellanas and the crunching right-hand barrels of Playa Negra, and the
latter the sailfish, marlin, tuna dorado, wahoo, roosterfish and
snapper of the deep blue. Nearby Playa Flamingo, the country's only
marina, is considered the sports fishing center of Costa Rica.

However, reputation and facilities are all very well, but if Mother
Nature doesn't co-operate, the most carefully-planned surfari can fall
flat, or to about half a meter, as was the case this time around. Not
only was the swell tiny, but the northerly winds were blowing away any
chance of an improvement. Even Playa Grande, one of those special
"corner" locations where the sandbanks never budge and whose shape
acts as a scoop for all swell, was failing to live up to its name.

With my traveling library rapidly depleting and Hotel Capitan Suizo's
fabulous poolside bar running out of fresh cocktail ideas, I was
beginning to scheme an unscheduled journey south, from where a swell
appeared to be building.

By the end of the third day, however, a series of tropical storms from
the west was starting to push in the reluctant surge from the south.
There was a wave, hard to pick out amid the afternoon downpour, which
rose to a respectable meter and delivered me to shore and the
realization that surf is never far away in Costa Rica.

Two days later, while savouring low-tide Avellanas at close to 1.5m
(4.9 ft), I started chatting to a young Californian surfer taking
adavantage of the many "green season" specials offered by U.S. tour
operators.

It was his first visit to Costa Rica and his first few moments in its
famous waves.

"This is paradise," he gushed.

"You look at the map and you think ‘there's a wave..there's
another..and another'"

And so it is. From the beaches and reefs of Nicoya, to the long
left-breaking points of the central and southern Pacific coast, a
traveler with a board and a four-wheel drive is never far from another
deserted break, or at least an uncrowded one.

The legendary Roca Bruja, in the Santa Rosa National Park, is often
described as the most perfect beach break in the world. However, its
relative inaccessibility, particularly in the wet season, means it
rarely becomes crowded.

Even the Caribbean coast defies all logic, acting as a 120km-long
impact zone for every centimeter of swell which makes it through the
myriad islands and barrier reefs of the Caribbean Basin. Salsa Brava,
a death-defying reef break off the point at Puerto Viejo, not far from
the Panamanian border on the Caribbean coast, is rated among the top
big waves spots in the world.

I opted to wind up this trip in the beautiful Manuel Antonio National
Park, where sloths and howler monkeys are still abundant, and the
nearby town of Quepos provides a reminder of Costa Rica's colonial
past while rapidly converting to the second sports fishing center.

Bobbing alone in the surf in the city beach, I was soon joined by a
local who had just ended an early shift in one of the area's many
hotels. Wasn't he sick of having to deal with spoilt tourists' foibles
and impossible demands? No, he said, he felt sorry for them. They had
to return home. He lived there.