Costa Rica: Americanized or Cool Surfing Spot or Both? - Costa Rica

Costa Rica: Americanized or Cool Surfing Spot or Both?

Costa Rica

“It doesn’t look bad,” Alvaro said.

His voice was consoling, but the worry in his eyes revealed the obvious — my face was busted. I had just been wiped out by a wave and my fiberglass surfboard had hit me straight in the nose. It was my first day surfing in Jaco, Costa Rica. Actually, it was my first time surfing, period.

A month before, I would have never considered riding a wave or going to Costa Rica. The first reason being that I had just learned how to swim at the tender age of 29, and the second reason was that Costa Rica had never been one of my top travel destinations. This was a country I heard was very Americanized.

But when my friend Holly got a price break on a weeklong stay at a Costa Rican surf camp and asked me to join her, I said sure. All I had to do was pay my airfare from New York City. Everything else would be covered. It seemed like a good bargain.

My previous travels to Latin America included Mexico and Peru, countries with rich histories and indigenous cultures. Plus, I’m Mexican-American. Latino culture was something that surrounded me growing up. My grandmother, a Mexican-born woman, is to this day adamantly against “Yankee” culture invading Latin America. So perhaps I went into this trip with a little prejudice. But I like being proven wrong, so I tried to be open-minded about Costa Rica before making any judgments.

We flew into San Jose in the afternoon, hailed a cab and took a two-hour, scenic drive to Jaco, a small Pacific coast town where the Vista Guapa Surf Camp is located. One of the main reasons people travel to Costa Rica is the country’s beautiful landscape and ecosystem. And in the short drive to Jaco, its reputation was upheld. The countryside is full of lush, steep hills with intravenous creeks and small waterfalls.

Another nice thing about Costa Rica are its roads. Although not up to par by U.S. standards, they are much better than most developing countries. I would later learn that the Costa Rican government invested a great deal on its road infrastructure to build up its tourist industry. And it’s paid off. Many tourists rent cars, which is a great, inexpensive way to travel around the small country. Plus, there are also a lot of road signs in English - although I’m not sure that’s a good thing.

We arrived at the Vista Guapa Surf Camp, a cozy little place with six bungalows up in a hill. It was late in the afternoon and we had already missed the day’s surfing lesson. Holly and I decided to make most of what was left in our day and headed out to town to have dinner and a drink.

Jaco is a small little resort town with restaurants and clubs lining the main street, Avenida Pastor Diaz. Most, if not all, the tourists we came across that night were American. It’s also become a second home for many Americans in the last 10 years.

Most of the bars and clubs seemed to cater to American college-age students. Being 29, I didn’t want to be around that, so we kept walking along until we came across an open space sports bar with large TV screens. The crowd seemed to be a good mix so we walked in.

We ordered a couple of beers and sat at the bar. There were some cute men around, but there was something sleazy about them. The women there also seemed shady and wore tight, revealing clothing that showed a lot of cleavage.

“Is it me or are there a lot of hoochies in here?” I asked Holly.

She confirmed my suspicions. We finished our second beer and went back to the surf camp. The next morning we talked with the other surf camp guests about our night. Turns out the bar we were at was a brothel. That explained the hoochies.

Since our surf lessons didn’t start until 4 p.m., Holly and I went to the beach in the morning to lay out. While I was sunbathing, a woman selling pottery came up to me. She was trying to sell me two small jars for $25 U.S. dollars. I bargained with her and she lowered the price to $21. I didn’t have dollars on me so I paid her in colones, the Costa Rican currency.

Now, colones were a hard for me to understand at first. The going rate was 488 colones for the U.S. dollar. I didn’t realize until the woman had left that I had been jipped because she asked for more than $21 U.S. dollars-worth in colones. After that, I decided to pay in U.S. dollars. It made more sense, nearly every restaurant and shop we went to accepted American dollars.

I had enough sun for one day and went back to the camp to get ready for my first surf lesson. The head instructor at the camp was Alvaro Solano, a short, lean 30-year-old man with a boyish face who also happens to be the seven-time national surfing champ of Costa Rica. He and two other surf instructors drove us out to a cove that was about 20 minutes away from the main beach. Once we got off, everyone got a surfboard and I was left without one.

Alvaro apologized about the shortage and drove back to the camp to get another surfboard. While I waited on the beach, the other surf camp guests ran into the water with surfboards in tow. I then looked at how the waves seemed to roll out from the ocean, rising and crashing close to the shore. My palms started to sweat and I was having some serious second thoughts about the whole thing.

I should explain how only a month before I was a 29-year-old who couldn’t swim. When I was nine, I nearly drowned after being sucked by the undertow. Since then, I always stayed away from deep water. Growing up, I was the kid who would be hanging next to the rail at pool parties. The one who never swam in the middle.

That worked for about 20 years. I knew swimming was a necessity and a fear that I had to come to terms with, so I signed up for a six-week intensive course at my local gym. We practiced at a 5-foot-deep pool and by the fifth week I had the hang of it and could actually swim.

But standing in front of the Pacific Ocean scared the bejeezus out of me. After all, a 5-foot pool and a ferocious ocean are no comparison. Twenty nerve-wrecking minutes later, Alvaro came back with a white, fiberglass board.

“It’s brand new,” he said. “You’re the first one to use it.”

I tried to show some enthusiasm. We then headed out into the ocean. Passing the break - the section in which the waves crash down — is the hardest thing about surfing. Not only are you swimming against the current, but you’re also trying to stay afloat on a board and you’re constantly being tipped over by the crashing waves. Alvaro was behind me and he kept pushing my board against the waves. I finally got over the break and into the section where the ocean is calm and smooth.

Alvaro told me to rest for a bit and asked me if I was nervous.

“A bit,” I lied.

After resting for a couple of minutes, it was time to select a wave for me. I asked for something easy. I could see a small wave forming behind us and Alvaro told me to get ready.

Surfing consists of catching a wave by paddling along with it, knowing the right time to prop yourself up and riding the crest of the wave. Sounds easy. It isn’t.

On my first try, I was wiped out because I propped myself too far back, making the surfboard unbalanced. It sucked because I had to swim over the break again, and every time I paddled, my long arms would hit the sides of the board. On my second try, Alvaro told me to concentrate on propping myself in the middle of the board and then told me to get ready, a wave was coming.

“Paddle, Paddle, Paddle!” he yelled. So I did.

Once I felt I was on top of the wave, I propped myself up. I was up on the board for a good three seconds before I lost my balance and fell off. As I sunk deeply into the water, I could feel another wave crash on top of me. After it was gone, I came up to the surface, took a huge gulp of air, opened my eyes and saw was a huge white fiberglass board come straight at me, before hitting me right on the nose.

My nostrils swelled up. I started was having trouble breathing and quickly became conscious that I was in deep water and that my surfboard was a good yard away from me. I began to panic. Luckily, Alvaro was close to me.

“Tranquila, Tranquila,” stay calm, he was telling me in Spanish. He grabbed my surfboard and brought it my way. Once I got on it, I felt much better.

“Are you okay?”

“No, I hit my nose,” I said. “I want to get out of the water.”

When I got to the shore, Alvaro told me that every time you’re wiped out you’re suppose to come back to the surface with your hands above your head in order to get the board out of the way and avoid being hit by it.

Funny, I thought, that would have been great information to know BEFORE I got popped in the nose!!

He asked me if I wanted to go back in. I declined, telling him that was enough for one day. I sat on the shore for the next hour watching the rest of the group surf. My friend Holly managed to get up a few times and ride a wave. It seemed like fun.

Back at the surf camp, I got a bag of crushed ice for my nose. The other guests were very sympathetic about my mishap. Although some of the guys were like, “Dude, let me see.”

I still hadn’t seen the damage myself and went to the bathroom to take a look. The bridge on my nose was red and swollen on both sides. I looked like a seasoned boxer, but in a cool way, like the female version of young Marlon Brando.

That night Holly and I stayed at the surf camp with the other guests. They were all American or Canadian and pretty cool. We drank a couple of beers, smoked a joint, and called it a night.

The next morning, Holly wanted to go back to the beach. I wasn’t in a rush to head out to the water and decided to do a canopy tour instead.

For about $60, canopy tours take you to local parks where you travel 100 feet above the ground, from tree to tree, through a series of ropes lines that are connected to a harness they give you. It’s a lot of fun and a great way to see Costa Rica’s beautiful rain forest. A good canopy tour guide will give you a brief overview of the forests exotic plants and trees. One of the trees that stung my memory the most was the mangrove. It’s a tall tree with a light bark that is distinctively known because their roots grow outside of the earth, not in a horizontal spread, but upward like giant claws grasping the ground.

After the canopy tour, I headed back to the camp. It was 3 p.m., an hour away from my second surfing lesson. I was hesitant to give it a second try, but I didn’t want to go back to New York without riding a wave.

In addition to Alvaro, there were other surf instructors at the camp. Holly was being instructed by Ismael, a good-looking guy with caramel brown skin whom she had crush on. But that crush quickly dissipated when he told her she looked 30 (she’s 27).

One of the other guests had told me that Ismael was a really good teacher so before we jumped in the van and headed out to surf, I pulled him aside and asked him to teach me that day. Out in the water, I quickly learned why Ismael was so good at getting people up on the board. He didn’t ask you to paddle along with the wave. Instead, he had you concentrate on putting your hands right below your shoulders that way you could prop yourself up correctly.

A small wave began forming behind us. He asked me if I was ready. I placed my hands where he told me to, and as the wave carried me off, I heard him yell “Up, Up, Up.”

I quickly propped myself up, planting my feet in the center. The surfboard wiggled a bit. I planted my feet more firmly and balanced myself with my arms. I was concentrating so much on my posture and movements that it took me a couple of seconds to realize that I was riding a wave.

Underneath me, I could feel the surge of the wave as it rose to its full height. In front of me the beach was coming closer as the wave crashed and gently glided me towards the shore. The whole thing lasted about 15 seconds, and it has been by far, the most exhilarating thing I have ever done.

I surfed a few more waves after that and each time I finished riding one, I would quickly swim over the break to do it again. Now I understood why surfers dedicate their whole lives to this sport. It’s very addictive. Part of the reason why is because for a brief moment while your riding a wave, you not only in tune with nature, you feel like you have it under your command, like you can control and maneuver an ocean wave. And for someone who had been frightened of the ocean for so long, a power trip like that is pretty fucking euphoric.

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