Costa Rica - Pura Vida!

Let me start with a quick caveat: the purpose of my visit to Costa Rica was purely to give myself a week of unadultered beach & surf vacation. No stress, no grand plans to see every historical building, natural landmark, national park and exotic animal the country has to offer. My choice of location, Jaco, made a couple of days before flying in to Costa Rica, pretty much reflected these lofty ambitions. It's a small surf town, basically consisting of one street, surrounded by surf shops, restaurants, bars, internet cafes and tour operators (zip-lining, ATVs, jet skis, boat rides, shuttles...) along the length of some 15 blocks. You can walk from one end of Jaco to the other in 25 minutes without breaking too much of a sweat - that is, more of a sweat than you would sitting still under the sweltering sun.

My base of operations was Las Camas Hostel, run by a Hungarian couple, Edit and Csaba. They rented the building (then an empty warehouse) about 9 months ago, and basically built the hostel from the ground up. The place has a nice hippie vibe to it, with slogans such as "Pura Weeda" painted on the walls. All hostel visitors get photographed and small portraits hung on one wall. Other decorative elements include footprints, flower patterns, "Cheers" in every imaginable language, giant lit-up peace signs, a couple of swings, a mini basketball set... The rooftop terrace (with stairs that should not be attempted when drunk) has a hammock, a BBQ, and a stereo system housed in a cottage built entirely of Imperial beer cans. Las Camas has to be seen to be believed.

Thanks to American Airlines I arrived to Costa Rica 3 hours later than scheduled, landing in San Jose long after midnight and still having a 2-hour taxi ride to Jaco ahead of me. Thus, I arrived at Las Camas around 2:30 in the morning. Seth, a Texan dude staying at the hostel (and completely wasted at the time I arrived) let me in, and showed me where Edit and Csaba's apartment, also doubling as the reception, was. So, having just been woken up in the middle of the night and wearing just a towel, Edit handed me my keys and linens. Great introduction. Poor Seth spent the next hour locked outside on the balcony, as after letting me in he accidentally pulled the balcony door all the way shut, and none of us have keys...

Anyway, met a fun bunch of people at the hostel, including Seth's two buddies from Texas (one of whom took a tattoo in Jaco, to complement one he'd gotten in Peru), a Swedish post-doc lung researcher in Costa Rica for a month of surfing before his move to New York, two teenaged sisters from small-town Canada spending 6 months on the road, three Canadian guys who seemed to be cursed with bad luck (one got robbed of his watch and sprained his ankle, while another spent $30 on "weed" that turned out to be mud off the beach), three girls from Salt Lake City who definitely did not follow Mormon restrictions on alcohol consumption, and a long-haired Spaniard who was stretching his dime to the point where he would not order food in a $4 restaurant, as it was too expensive.

I spent most of my days sleeping late, enjoying a huge breakfast of "gallo pinto" (beans and rice), scrambled eggs, fresh fruit, and/or "batidos mixtos" (milkshakes of miscallaneous fruit juices), surfing for 3-4 hours in the afternoon (as the high tide came in), then sharing a few beers with the folks at the hostel. We had a couple of excellent dinners recommended by Edit and Csaba; Italian and burgers, so not very authentic Costa Rican, but hey, great food is great food.

We also had a couple of fun nights out on the town. On my first day, we headed out to Ganesh, a bar/dance club by the beach in Jaco with a great laid-back vibe. Laser lights sweeped the beach and the sea, and they also had a couple of bonfires on the beach. Girls drank for free all night, and various audience members of the fairer sex were picked to participate in a "fashion show", which meant they got to strut through a space cleared on the dance floor in their underwear - the whole thing was very cheesy, and over in 5 minutes :-) I also spotted a few people very openly snorting cocaine on the dance floor, not even making the effort to hit the restrooms. A bouncer spotted one of the incidents, and politely asked that the patrons do their coke in the backyard parking lot, out of plain sight. Drugs (including cannabis) are definitely illegal in Costa Rica, but it appears the law is not very enthusiastically enforced - I was approached on the street several times with offers to sell weed, coke, etc., in broad daylight (a couple of times even when I was coming back from surfing, in wet boardshorts and splash top, and obviously had no money on me).

Easily the best party of the week was at Dolce Luna, a hotel just outside Jaco, celebrating Quiksilver's release of a major surf video. Being an upscale resort, Dolce Luna had a couple of pools, and an extensive garden for us revellers to use. The organizers had a bunch of tents up, live bands and DJs on three stages, fire-jugglers, trapeze-artists (of sorts... they basically climbed up and down wide strands of silk cloth suspended from trees), big screens showing the surf footage, and of course once again free booze for the ladies - which was great, since I was hanging out with the three girls from Utah and was offered generous "tasters" of their drinks :-)

I really only spent one day outside Jaco, when the Spaniard, the Utah girls and me headed out to Manuel Antonio National Park. It meant a brutal 5:15 wake up, but we did get to see a waterfall, some cute monkeys, a three-toed sloth (we were lucky enough to see it climb to the ground and back-up, a ritual the sloths undergo about once a week to, uh, clear their bowels), and a beautiful white sand beach much nicer than the one in Jaco. Apparently this is the beach where the movie "Blue Lagoon" was shot. Thieving raccoons kept beachgoers on their toes, but we had a great time and I finally got the sun tan that would get people to believe I just spent 6 weeks in South and Central America.

The low point of the week was definitely the night we got a surprise visit in our hostel. I was woken up around 4:30am by the girls in my dorm (I was the only guy in the room on that particular night) excitedly discussing something... As I shook off the sleepiness, I gathered that Lindsay (one of the Utah trio) had woken up to see someone standing at our dorm's door, staring into the dark room. The figure had quietly closed the door, then proceeded to crawl across the floor to check out our luggage. At this point Lindsay had loudly asked "Hey, what are you doing?" or something to that effect, waking up one of the Canadian girls who turned on the light. The burglar had stood up, apologized ("Sorry, sorry, I'll pay") and retreated from the room. The excitement wasn't quite over, however. As the only guy in the room, I got the thankless task of following the creep to make sure he had actually left the building. I threw on my shorts and T-shirt and walked upstairs (we slept on the ground floor, but the thief had gone toward the second floor where the balcony - his most likely entry point - was).

I switched on the lights to the living room on the second floor, and noticed the balcony door was wide open. The contents of a purse and a backpack had been spread over the living room sofa. From the open door, I assumed the thief had escaped through the balcony, and went over to see if I could still spot him on the street (although at this stage I hadn't actually seen the thief, so had no idea what he looked like). At this point, Coral (the Canadian girl who had turned on the lights, and who had followed me upstairs) gasped something like "He's here!". The thief, instead of escaping through the balcony, had gone to one of the upstair dorms, and now of course had spotted the lights I turned on. I found myself staring at a skinny, nervous looking kid, maybe 19 years old. His wildly darting eyes and body language suggested he was probably drugged and definitely very scared. I found myself wondering whether he would be armed, and cursing myself for not grabbing something for use as a weapon in case this came to a fight. I challenged the guy with something like "Hey amigo, can I help you? What are you doing here?". The thief mumbled something, then sprinted for the balcony and jumped down, grabbing the backpack in the living room on his way out. Momentarily after this, Coral came back with Csaba, whom she had found in his apartment upstairs. Csaba looks like he's spent some time at the gym, and would definitely be a good guy to have on your side in a fight - but of course it was a little late now.

Edit and Csaba spent part of the night cruising around on their ATV, hoping to catch a glimpse of either the thief or maybe finding the backpack (assuming the thief would dump it after taking any valuables), but had no luck. In the meanwhile, everyone in my dorm (none of the other guests had woken up) tried to go back to bed, despite being shaken by the incident. However, not long after this, Lindsay snapped up again. She thought she saw someone on the street trying to get in.

I got up to check on it, and sure enough, there was a group of three guys standing outside our locked gate. One of them had a pair of sneakers in his hand - not the most likely accessory on a 4:30am stroll through town. At this stage I remembered the thief had been bare-footed; so these were his buddies here waiting for him to emerge with the stolen goods. They looked pretty surprised to see me instead! I asked what they wanted, and the guy with the sneakers made some lame excuse about noticing our gate was open (the outer gate does not lock; the inner one was securely locked). He then spotted a lighter left on the porch and asked if it was mine and whether he could have it. A friggin' lighter! I replied that yes, it was mine (it wasn't), and no, he couldn't have it. He went on whining that he needed a lighter, and asked if he could borrow it to use it on the street, then bring it back - I said no. At this stage it was getting hard to keep a straight face; what did he think the lighter was worth, 20 cents? Anyway, I had no way to get anything out of these guys, and they shortly made their excuses and left - but not before offering to sell me some dope. The nerve! I almost went out to follow them to see if they would lead me to the thief, but got a wave of protests from the dorm when I started unlocking the gate and so didn't - probably a good thing, as I would potentially have put myself in a situation where I'm alone against four guys. Instead, I went back to bed and eventually got back to sleep, after the adrenaline wore off (in about an hour).

Later that morning, Edit and Csaba caught up with the same group of three guys (but not the thief), but were also unable to get anything out of them. Once everyone woke up, we found out the stolen backpack belonged to an Australian guy who had just checked in the day before. He was a little shocked, but surprisingly cool about the whole thing. He filed a report with the police, and apparently was able to recover the value of the lost goods from his travel insurance. The whole experience was a rude reminder of the poverty and drug problems still rampant in Costa Rica, though - even simple backpackers seem incredibly wealthy, and thus attractive targets, for the poorest segment of society.

Despite this little incident, (and giving my surfboard a little kiss at high speed, which lead to a few bruises on both my face and my ego), I had a great time in Costa Rica. The relaxed pace of life, the all-encompassing "pura vida" attitude, the fresh fruit, the eagle rays jumping out of the water around my surfboard... yeah, could definitely get used to this. However, one week is enough for now, and it's time to head on over to Italy and Switzerland for a Christmas and New Year with Ulla, my folks, and my brother - can't wait!