The end draws near :(

Well, it has been a great trip so far, probably a little better for me than for Shell.  She got sick with what we think was the flu and couldn't surf for almost 3 days.  She is feeling much better now though, but she missed out on our boat trip on Tues and she was really bummed about that.  The first night that her apatite came back, we went to our favorite restaurant that we have found here.  Its called the Sushi Club.

Like most other places here its open air, but this place is so tiny, there are only 4 tables in the whole place!  It sits cozily a few hundred yards from the beach in a little cove of trees right next to a little pool.  I had almost as much fun watching the sushi chef as i did eating it.

The surf has been ok, still not great.  Actually the best surf we had was probably the very first day when it was pouring down rain and the ocean was pure mud.

The competition for waves got pretty heated some times, but being a good husband, i let Shell win :)

Other than that, the only real good surf I have gotten was on our boat trip, and as fate would have it, Shell was sick that day so she did not get to enjoy it.  However, the trip out was so bad, im not sure it would have been worth it for her anyway.  The day started out at 5am with a 1.5 hr cramped car ride, then loaded up onto a small boat and left for another 1.5 hr soaking wet boat ride in pretty rough seas.

Then we FINALLY got some surf with a little size to it and the next 3 hrs were a blast!

That spot was called Ollie's Point.  We left there and went to Witches Rock, but it was so windy that we couldn't even surf there, so our trip was cut short and we began our 1.5 hr ride back.  After 3 hrs of surfing, you really just wanna be back home, taking a little nap, not riding on a tiny boat in a really choppy ocean getting constantly soaked by the wind spray.

We had some other little 'tours' included in our surf package, the first was the atv, and for our last we chose horseback riding.  Some girls we met in our tour told us they had a blast... I did not.  We must have had different tour guides because they said they were along the beach most of the way and even got to run the horses all the way back.  We never got to run the horses, just plotted along through the mosquito infested jungle, and then for a short jaunt along the beach.  Shell seamed to enjoy it a bit more though.

Although, it was probably better for my poor little horse to not have to run while carrying this giant bald gringo that was barely smaller than he was.

Its raining again here too, at least we got a few days of sunshine.  The cool thing was, that last night, we got the strangest sunset.  It started our just really yellow, but by the end of the sunset, the entire sky was blood red!

 Tomorrow is our last day of surf here before we begin our journey back to the states :(

Pigs on the beach

The last 3 days we have been surfing at Playa Avellanas, which is a beach a few miles south of Tamarindo.  The surf has been fun, nothing special though.

The beach however is beautiful and there is a little hotel/restaurant that is amazing!  It's called Lola's, and apparently was named after the owners recently deceased massive pet pig that would walk out to the ocean and just lay in the edge of the surf and let the waves wash him back up.  There is a new Lola now, but i never saw this little piggy playing in the ocean.

 Anyway, this place is amazing, its the kind of simple little food joint that you come would travel all the way to Costa Rica for.  Its all hardwood (teak) chairs and tables which is crazy in itself, no roof, just sitting out among the palm trees.   There is nothing within sight in either direction on the beach, so its kinda like a little 'food oasis'.  The food is amazing (not cheap unfortunately), and its without a doubt the most perfect spot in the world to just chill and get some food post-surf that shell and I have ever been too.  Also, one of our favorite restaurants ever.  Its hard not to like this place.    

Right now our tour group consists of us, and a group from New Jersey.  Everyone's really cool and we all get along great.

Like always,,, hoping and praying for sunshine and better surf :)

Sun and Surf... Finally!

Well, haven't posted much in the last few days because we have FINALLY been getting some decent weather.  Thursday, Friday, and today have all been getting successively better and today was the first day since we arrived that we did not get ANY rains, just a few clouds :)  The beach in Tamarindo is the most protected surf spot in the area (and the most crowded) and now that the storms are calming a bit we get to head out in the Defender's and find some other surf.

  Friday evening we set out for a leisurely beach stroll which ended up lasting two hours and several miles of rocky pacific coastline.  We were pretty happy as you can see from the pics Im sure.

One of the most entertaining things to me is the millions of crabs that are all over the place.  Shelli hates them, but i think their kinda cute.  Apparently they are actually some kind of mountain crab, and only come to the sea to lay their eggs.  They are those 'side-walking' crabs.  If you look at them the wrong way, or move toward them, the stick their little pinchers up at you as if to say "Hey buddy, you better just keep walking the other way or else..."  This method works great on Shelli, but not so well with cars and thats exactly the same method of defense they use when they are crossing the road and a truck or something is coming at them.  They just throw up those claws, and then 'CRUNCH'.

Then today, we got two surf sessions in and NO RAIN!!!  We still aren't getting anything special as far as the surf is concerned, about the same as we surfed in Cali, just a little less crowded here.  Hopefully that will change soon though.  We have been eating at some amazing places while we've been here though.  So much for all those months of P90X workouts i guess.  Every restaurant we have eaten at has been open air, which makes for some great evening ambiance, but bad for bug control.

If the weather and surf keep improving, we will really have some great stories to tell.  Miss you all.

Rednecks in Paradise

It would seem that the rains have let up a bit,,, finally!  I realize that in my last post i may have seemed a bit enamored with the rains, but that was before it began cutting into my fun time!  Now, im over it!

The forecast still has plenty of rain in store, but as long as its light enough to get out and do stuff, i think we will be ok with it.  The surf today was rough, really rough.  The storm last night not only reddened the color of the water, but kept the ocean extremely irregular and choppy.  Normally we wouldn't surf in those conditions, but since we are only here a limited time, and have already paid for it... we went out anyway.

The highlight of the trip so far was our afternoon adventure.  We went on an ATV tour with one of our surf guides Steven.

After 20 min of these guys watching us drive in a circle until they felt comfortable we wouldn't crash them into a tree, we headed out into the rain forest, and appropriately, it was raining.  I don't think these guys get a lot of rednecks in their tour though, cause Shelli and I were WAY better riders than our little surf guide.  The tour started out overly unexciting as Steven, our inexperienced guide (seriously nice guy, but the way he drove the quad, i think it had to of been his firs tour or something) would stop and say "look at this tree, or that vine, it can be used for bla bla bla".  However, about 15 min in it started to get interesting.  I don't think they take many tours out when there has been this much rain.  Steven got stuck on some ridiculously tiny mud hill.  Shelli and I didn't :)

 I think that event got to Steven cause the next obstacle we came to was a flooded river, and after walking up to his stomach to check it out, he says, "yeah, you can do it".  So, alright, here we go I guess.  Straight away, the water got way deeper than the quad could handle, and I had to jump off and push it while keeping the throttle up enough so water wouldn't flow up the submerged tailpipe.  Im sure you'll all enjoy Shell's narration.

No real worry about hurting them for us though, Steven told us to, and they weren't our quads :)  Anyway, we all get through it (Shelli would like me to add in, that even though Steven and I helped her push her quad through the swollen river, she would have been fine without our help :) and kept on moving.  We crossed more waist deep mud puddles than I can count and another river that we had to cross in pretty swift current.





All this time, Steven has been checking out all of the water spots before we go and this 'tour' has taken way longer than its supposed to.  Its almost getting dark, but we are supposed to be almost home.  Then, we come around a corner and there is a freakin tree in the path.  No way under it, no way to move it, jungle on both sides.

Only one real option, turn around.  So thats what we did.  Back though it all, in the dark, with lots of creepy, crawly, flying animal encounters.  While crossing one of the giant mud puddles I saw a snake and turtle trying to swim away me as fast as possible,,, still, it scared me a bit.  Shelli freaked a bit when i told her what i had just seen.  Anyway, we got back ok.  Safe and sound, just a little wet, muddy and cold.  Steven made us promise not to show any pics or vids to anyone else in our tour company,,, but you guys aren't in our tour company :)  He seemed very relieved that Shell and I weren't upset, but stoked on our added adventure.

So, even though it was a complete stoke of luck that we got Steven, and he let us keep going, we finally got some adventure in!

Well, we made it!!! 

 Its Tues and we are here along the intensely green Northwest coast of Costa Rica in the town of Tamarindo.  

At this very moment Shelli is passed out in our room and I am sitting outside on our little balcony listening to one of my favorite sounds.  One which I have almost forgotten as it has been so long since I last heard it.  No, its not the sound of the ocean, even though it is not very far from our room.  Its the sound torrential rainfall. 

 This morning we went out for our first surf session and one of our guides told us that he had never heard it rain as hard as it did last night.  Lana, a girl we surfed with, told us that yesterday the surf was 2ft bigger and the water was clear and blue.  Even though Im not a big fan of the verbal "kick to the crotch", I'm reallly not complaining.  To be honest, I wouldn't have cared if the water was jet black or flaming pink, it was just good to get back into the water and be on a board again.  Its hard to tell from the photo, but the water perfectly matches the color of the brick tiles on the roof in front of us :) 

 Poor Shelli already had a little accident today.  Her leg got smashed a bit by her board and she’s going to have a nice little lump there for a day or so.  Other than that, things are great.  Hopefully we will have some amazing pics to put up in the next few days.

Thanks again to everyone who was there for our wedding weekend, and those of you who just drove down for the Sunday.  The entire experience was pretty darn close to perfect for us.  We love you all.  

Last day,,, or so I thought

We woke up and got packed, got some breakfast and took Dave J. to the airport since he had to leave on an earlier flight. Then Steve, Dave and I headed out to drive the last part of the coastline we hadn't done yet. The amazing thing about the Hawaiian island is that since it has a windward (wetter) and a leeward (drier) side, you can find almost any climate! Every part of this island has been awesome, and this area was no different. Not quite as lush, but still gorgeous. This side had had some sweet rocky beaches, and at one point, we saw a mtn side filled with waterfalls all the way down. After bit of driving, we got a little hungry so we stopped at a little shack that advertised coffee and fruit drinks. This shack had no electricity, only a propane fridge, and... a bike. If YOU wanted a blended drink, YOU had to peddle! It sure was good though. After that, we went to the Seven Sacred Pools, hiked around a bit and headed out. We made it around to Hana and just kept on truckin. We drove the whole east side of the island, finishing up the drive as the sun went down. We got some food and headed to the airport. When I went to check in, the lady behind the counter said, 'im sorry, but i don't see your reservation", WHAT THE FREAK! ! ! Turns out,,, I booked my ticket for the wrong date. My flight wasn't untill the following night, which would put me back into SoCal too late to make it back in time to see my first few patients! She said that the flight was overbooked with no chance of getting on, my only chance to make it back in time to get to school was to show up the next morning, be the first one in line, and try to get on a standby flight on Mon morning. So, thats what i had to do. I spent a smelly night in the cheap hotel, got up, showered and was there an hr before they opened, the first one in line then the spent all day waiting in the airport. Booooooo. But, I did make it back safe and sound. And, so ended my wonderfully short little stay in paradise. Here is a little map or some of our journeys