CR photos in the Face!

It's a raining today in La Fortuna, a town in the central region of Costa Rica which is known for its large active volcano, and for some hot springs. As everything here is lava-centric, there is absolutely nothing to do (or see- with the fog I can't even really confirm whether there is a volcano nearby, but I guess I'll take its dangerous proximity on faith).

But anyhoo, the upside is that this is the first place we've been at for weeks with an internet connection that can handle pics. We've been taking photos with our regular digital cam, but are having technical difficulties loading them, so everything here comes from our iphone ( aka- The Precious). As the Precious does not go to the beach, the collection is, well, frankly its pretty weak. But so it goes. Here's two from, let's call it the surf board collection.

Both pics were taken in Mal Pais where we had an awesome time getting walloped by the "easy" waves. My board length is currently 7/7 which means its huge and that in the teeming waist-deep wash of MP, we were more enemies than friends- though we did have some good times together. Bruises are already gone!



And behold, a monkey type, banana-seeky.

We saw more animalitos at our hotel in Montezuma than we did the entire time we were at the cloud forest eco-preserves of Monteverde (that was yesterday). We even took a night hike and ended up in the absurd situation of trying to find, with flashlights, some small bug to FEED TO A TARANTULA. I feel like large spiders should not require my assistance.

And we were tickled to find an Eat Me! tribute in CR, because we keep the faith that Eat Me! is in fact going to go MAD GLOBAL!

Waves of Mutilation

Two days ago we left Samara and took the cheap-o public trans journey down to Mal País at the southern tip of the peninsula. It ended up taking twelve hours. Four buses and two ferries will do that, but that we ended up on a 2.4 mile trek to our hostel while carrying all of our gear was an unnecessary cosmic jousting. But hey, every day can't be a winner.

What's up in Mal País? Surfing, that's what. Yesterday we rented some boards and went out at low tide, which is about the only time that the waves on the long gorgeous beach are even potentially harness-able for us green gills (at Samara, we would surf on either side of the high tide, and those waves were smallies). Even at low tide, the waves are large and relentless. There's no floating on the board, chilling, waiting to select an attractive curl. This is mostly because there's no way we can get out past the main break due to the ceaseless passage of monster waves. So we thrash about in the waist deep water of the secondary breaks while the real surfers lace up and down the squalls in front of us, doing tricks, catching air, and at times, eating it spectacularly.

The great part is that we're actually surfing. The tough part is that the surfing comes with a price. Just getting into position to catch a wave means jumping over seven others while hoisting your board above the white water (very tiring), and the tumult of the waves means that when you fall, you often get rolled underwater like socks in a washing machine. But catching a wave is fabulous and undeniably addictive, and surely today's future bruises will match nicely with yesterday's. Surfing is fun, but it ain't no picnic.

Will post some pics later and maybe even some video...