bocas del toro-

-not too bad -

main street in bocas town

houseboat party for lorraine and maggie's neighbor's birthday, we went to starfish beach




(that's a starfish we're standing next to)

docks on isla carenero

beginning of a hike to wizard beach on isla bastimentos

middle of the hike, after the mud bogs and jungle trailblazing

out of the jungle onto wizard beach

march...

i spent the month of march at new dawn center taking a course in organic gardening, medicinal plants and permaculture and traveling on the weekends with the other students that were at new dawn.

i was doing a volunteer/work exchange type thing at new dawn, so in the morning we worked, i mean did "activities" as ed, the owner liked to call them. mainly we watered the garden, planted or transplanted from the greenhouse, and helped in preparing an herbal tea that they sell, made of a mix of ginger, tumeric and pao d'arco tree bark.

you can't go to costa rica and not use a machete! peeling pao d'arco bark for tea at new dawn.

thursday farmers market in san isidro, the city near new dawn

transplanting the new crop of lettuce at new dawn.

we spent one weekend in dominical. not my favorite beach in costa rica. but it felt good to get in the ocean again after a few weeks. but no surfing, just big, heavy closeouts and lots of rip currents.

march 13th dinner in dominical

we spent one weekend in the town of san gerardo, at the base of mt chirripo, the highest peak in costa rica. san gerardo is a tiny town strung along a dirt road, beside the rio chirripo, surrounded by green mountains, draped in clouds. originally we wanted to climb the mountain, but once when we got there we realized we didn't really have sleeping bags, or hiking boots or a cook stove, or warm clothes. the mountain is at about 13k feet, so it gets cold up there, and the rainy season was starting so the trails are muddy. so we decided to just day hike to the chirripo national park boundary. which is about 4km up the mountain. it was a beautiful hike, it started out hot and sunny, but by the time we made it to the boundary we were in the cloudforest, surrounded by fog and mist blowing through the trees, and pair of spider monkeys. we hiked down through the cloudbridge preserve, a private rainforest preserve next to the national park, full of waterfalls.

on the way to the chirripo trailhead, san gerardo, costa rica.

at the beginning of the trail up chirripo

waterfall in the cloudbridge preserve

into the cloudforest on the trail up chirripo

we made it to the chirripo national park border after about 6 km of hiking from our hostel, straight up the mountain.

the river behind new dawn center, my spot for afternoon swims with tucans and tadpoles.

some photos

Alas, I have left the Yoga Farm and am now in the land of pavement, cars and exhaust on my way to the New Dawn Center. But the upside is cheap, fast internet, so here are some photos from the last month.

Lunch in Pavones, burritos!

View from the yoga deck

The beach at the bottom of the hill

Sunset from the top of the hill over the Osa Peninsula and Golfo Dulce

On a 6 hour jungle-beach loop hike

Paradise is-

-not so nice right now. Thanks to some less than agile waterfall climbing and tidepool hopping, i now have some bruised ribs and a bruised foot. They are slowly improving, but no surfing and no yoga for pretty much the last week. For a few days all I could do was lay on the yoga deck and read. This might not sound so bad, but it was actually a little painful because my book was funny and everytime I laughed, it hurt. At night, I tried to read with my headlamp under my mosquito net. This is a bad idea because all the bugs are swarm to my light and frantically try to get through the net. So I spent most of the time flicking bugs off the net so they wouldn't crawl in through the two holes that are right above my head. Then I just gave up and went to sleep. Now my foot is feeling better, so I can walk down to the beach and read under the palms. This might not sound so bad either, except that the waves have been the best I´ve seen since I´ve been here. And I just have to sit and watch. But, there have been a few sharks hanging out around the waves the last few days, so the beach might not be that bad of a place to be.

something to ponder

what´s better than waking up at dawn, walking down the hill, paddling out and trading fun, perfect lefts with a few friends and a sea turtle? Doing all that and then coming in, sitting in the shade of the palms, picking a coconut right off the tree, cracking it open on a rock, drinking fresh coconut milk right out of the coconut, then cracking it open and eating out the delicious, crunchy coconutty meat. Then taking a nap on the beach. Add in some clear blue skies, sunshine, turquiose warm water and a few scarlet macaws flying by and it is a pretty good morning.

the singing wilderness

Well, I have been at Yoga Farm about 2 weeks now I think. The internet is super slow here, so I´m not posting any photos, but below here are some of the things I have been up to.

Friday, we had yoga at 630am for an hour and a half, we have yoga every day but Sunday. Then breakfast. Then I worked in the garden until lunch, preparing a new bed for some pumpkins. I had to pull and shovel out a bunch of weeds, then turn all the soil and mix in compost, then build a big teepee thing out of driftwood for the squash to climb up. While I was picking the driftwood out of our pile, I got attacked by army ants! It is the worst stinging pain that lasts for about 10 minutes, and the ants are impossible to kill they were all over my feet and even after I smashed them repeatedly, their heads were still embedded in by sock twitching away. I am recovered now though.

Then after lunch, a bunch of of us, the yoga farm owner, his austrian friend, two swiss travelers, a guy from alaska and me (they all spoke german), went on a long loop hike through the jungle in the mountains behind yoga farm then down along a river and out to the beach and back along the beach. We started in the heat of the day (because you have to time it with the tides otherwise you will get trapped on the a beach with only rock cliffs behind you), the first part of the hike is about 20 minutes straight uphill, in the sun, we were all soaked with sweat and exhausted at the very start! Then the rest of the hike was through rolling hills, passing through jungle and fields that have been cleared for cattle. The entire time there were views of the ocean below us, the Golfo Dulce and the Osa Peninsula. The jungle is so amazing, pulsing with sound and life, the insects and birds are so loud it is almost hard to hear other people talk. Klaus told us the jungle is a special place and made us hike in silence he also told us to watch out for the vipers that like to hang out along the narrow parts of the trail. After that I hiked with a stick in my hand. The forest was so amazing, we were surrounded by layers of green with shafts of sunlight filtering through. And the path was deep red clay worn down about three feet into the ground from years and years of travelers. The end of the hike was beautiful, walking back along the beach at sunset. Then to recover I jumped in one of the tidepools, the water feels like bathwater, and floated on my back watching the pink clounds drift across the sky.

Also, most days also include a trek down the hill to surf. The waves in from of Yoga Farm at Punta Banco are fun, there are a few reefs and a little beach break. Not ever really crowded either. There are a few locals, a a group of Dutch surfers that own a little hostel at the end of the beach. But everyone is super friendly. We surfed Pavones once last week because we had a swell. It was a really fun but challenging wave, lefts that peel for about a mile, but so fast it was all I could do to just keep up with the face, and you just fly along even on little waist high waves.

Otherwise, the days include yoga, eating and lots of reading in hammocks. The yoga deck, which is also the hammock deck when there is no yoga going on looks out across the jungle and down to the ocean. So all the time I am looking out at the horizon. There are people from all over staying here, right now, a few Americans, a German and a Canadian. But every few days new people will arrive and then leave. My volunteer work includes working in the garden and helping with the cooking once in a while. We eat lots of fresh fruit, pineapple, starfruit, the best bananas ever that we pick right from the property, papaya, veggies and of course rice and beans and rice and beans and rice and…

Ok, thats enough computer time for now. Hope all is well back home.

yoga farm

I made it to yoga farm. it is an amazing little place built into a hill above the ocean, surrounded by jungle. there are about 10 or so other people there, from all over, all staying for various amounts of time. on the way in i saw pavones peeling and peeling and peeling left. and then they told me its not even good right now. so, i have a feeling i might get a few waves down here too. phone and internet are a 1.5 hour walk away. so i´ll write a few times maybe, but otherwise i will be surfing, and doing yoga and hiking in the jungle behind our place. i hope all is well with everyone back home!

adios surf adventure

Well, our surf trip is now over. Tomorrow we travel to Montezuma, a town nearby that is supposed to be cool. It also has a waterfall that we can hike to. Then, Sunday we head back to San Jose. I will head south to Yoga Farm, and Lorraine goes farther south to Panama. The waves have been really really good in Santa Teresa, about shoulder high and they peel all the way to the beach, like 300 yards. I won´t write too much more than that. You can use your imagination. Here are a few more photos from the trip.

Expensive sushi dinner night. They were playing surf videos on the screen that my head is blocking.

500am waiting on the ¨curb¨ to catch the bus to Nicoya on our way to Santa Teresa.

Hammock time at Tranquilo Backpackers.

some photos

(View from our balcony at Tranquilo Backpackers in Santa Teresa)

(Lorraine at the bus stop in Nicoya at the beginning of our bus, taxi marathon to Santa Teresa)

(Lorraine and I on the path to the beach in Santa Teresa)

(On the beach at Santa Teresa)

(Main road of Santa Teresa, lined with sodas, restaurants and hostels. And gutters that smell like a sewer and have either grey or neon green water filled with trash, and empty right into the creek, that empties right into the beach where we surf. CA residents please call your local Regional Water Quality Control Board and thank them for all their hard work.)


(Pre-made rum and coke out of a can! Not so helpful for recovering from a 2 hour hike down the beach in the heat of the day.)

Well, we finally have a swell after a week of waist high surf in Nosara. Today the waves were about head high, peaky lefts and rights all over. I surfed for about 4 hours this morning, until there was no more wax left on my board and I could barely paddle. The surf was no good this evening, blown-out, but the sunset illuminated the whole sky and ocean with bright blue, gold and pink. Santa Teresa is a cool town, lots of European bohemian backpacker types. And mostly speaking lanuages other than English or Spanish. The hostel is cool, with lots of hammocks and a big kitchen that everyone cooks in. Basically the same routine as Nosara, surf, eat, hammock, surf, eat, sleep.

santa teresa!

we made it to santa teresa after getting up at 430 am and 12 hours of travel that included a walk in the dark, a bus, another bus, a taxi, another bus, and another taxi with some sitting and waiting on curbs mixed in. i am not in a blogging mood, but lorraine just wrote up the story, so check out her page. adios for now!

fire

What have we been doing?

A few photos curtesy of Jeff from Canada

Besides surfing, on Wednesday night we walked in the pitch black down the jungle path to the main strip of Guinoes to go to a boxing match at a place called the Enchanted Forest. I think it was a bar-boxing training center. Everything here has a bar in it no matter what it is. Anyway, it was the talk of the town that day, so we had to check it out. It was a match between a woman in a tiger print sports bra and skirt and tiger stripes tatooed all over her body against a guy that looked like he wasn´t trying. The match only lasted about 5 minutes, then they were like, hey everyone! go drink at our bar! Luckily, we got in without paying, and then took off to walk back to Kaya Sol under the full moon. Otherwise, lots of surfing, with howling offshore winds.

nosara continued

its a rough life in nosara. two sessions a day, my eyes are sunburned. the waves have been good, with offshores in the morning, and fun high tide backwashy in the evening. we will be here until saturday morning, when we will set off on another bus adventure to mal pais. lorraine has a blog too, so check 2009traveler.blogspot.com, she has some more photos. below is our feast. above, lorraine and i at the north end of playa guiones.

the beginning

21 years ago...

eat, sleep, surf

Here are some photos from our life in Nosara for the past few days. Generally it goes eat, surf, sit by the pool, eat lunch, sit in a hammock, go surf again for sunset, come back home, eat dinner, watch some music or sit in the bar, go to sleep.

Like good San Diegans, Lorraine and I made the trek to Casa Tucan (about 10 minutes away from our hotel) to eat pizza and watch the Chargers get kicked by the Steelers. It was strange to be in a palapa bar watching football en espanol. We were bummed they lost, but, we get to be in Costa Rica, so whatever...