Take three cars, two dogs, six paddleboards, twelve people, one seven months pregnant, mix them together and turn them out at the mouth of a Cayman infested river on a remote beach on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. It sounds like a recipe for disaster, but it actually turned out to be a pretty awesome weekend and honestly pretty standard fare for my time down here. Six months ago when I set out on this trip fresh out of my second college degree with nothing but the contents of my 70 L hiking pack, a vague idea of the general location of the rural surf town I was looking for and hopes of catching a few waves, I made a promise to myself that I would not say ´No´ to any opportunity that crossed my path unless it was clearly going to result in loss of life, limb, or general physical or mental health: no small goal for someone coming from the well planned, straight and narrow that has often been my life.
From
the moment I touched down in San Jose the unexpected has become the
norm. A routine trip from the airport to the bus station became a two
day tour of wilds of Costa Rica after some poor directions landed me
lost in the middle of the red-light district and too late to make my
bus. A local man in town visiting his mother happened to find me and,
stressing the fact that a small white girl with broken spanish could not
stay there overnight, invited me to stay with his family and visit some
properties he was buying. Over the next 48 hours I visited my first
open air butcher shop, met several CIA agents, swam in a volcanic river,
toured a teak mill, fished for tilapia, dove off a 25-foot cliff with
kids from the local village, picked mango, starfruit, and pipa straight
from the trees, and politely turned down my host’s marriage proposal
before catching the bus to the coast.
I
arrived in Santa Teresa six hours, two buses and one ferry later to
discover an incredible, rough and tumble surf village full of monkeys,
iguanas, and people from around the world chasing waves. In true Costa
Rican form, my first week´s simple mission to find a surfboard ended up
being an adventure that set the stage for months to come. Although I
didn't know it at the time, I managed to meet my roommate, find an
apartment, and stumble up the woman who would eventually end up
employing me as a surf instructor and the surfboard shaper who would
take me on as an apprentice at his shop. A day that started with plans
to wander around a few local surf shops found me watching the sunset
from a pool at the top of the hills overlooking the ocean after a crazy
motorcycle ride through the jungle. The only thing that did not happen
was finding a board.
I
eventually did find a board and proceeded to spend hours every day
paddling, getting thrashed, and occasionally getting a glorious few
seconds on a turquoise blue curl. After a few weeks of hostel life,
having decided I was in no hurry to move on, my French-Canadien surfing
buddy and I moved to a tiny one room place that we rented from a local
guy and shared with his eight dogs. Over the next few months I started
teaching surf lessons and guiding stand-up paddleboard river tours,
discovered several climbable boulders along the coast, spent nights
around bonfires and dancing to local bands, and convinced the local
board shaper to teach me leading to an offer to stay for a year
repairing boards and apprenticing at his shop.When my roommate returned
to Canada, a friend of the shaper asked me to take care of his hotel
while he went on a trip back to Italy. Besides a minor incident of an
exploding water heater and minor burns, I got an awesome place to stay
just in time for my best friend from the States to visit and spend a few
days trading surf and motorcycle lessons and introducing him my new
friends and favorite places.
Life
here is a lot like the surfing; you might pick your wave, but after
that all you can do is ride it. Around here they call it Pura Vida,
which translates to ‘Pure Life’ or ‘Life is Good’. You might set out to
pick up supplies in the next town over and end up jumping off a 50 foot
waterfall with the taxi driver instead. A weekend out might involve
falling off a paddle board into a river full of Cayman crocodiles while
trying to help the 7 months pregnant woman who fell off ahead of you and
then doing SUP yoga with her a quarter mile down river. A weekday might
mean pushing students into waves, teaching long division, or helping a
supermodel and her NFL player husband get their surfboards repaired.
Every day is an adventure and what started as a personal challenge to
my personal challenge. It is a different way of living and now that I
am here I can’t imagine wanting it any other way. What started as a
personal challenge to say yes to whatever came up on my quick trip to
Central America has somehow become a fresh start and a new lifestyle for
me. It doesn’t get much more unexpected than that.