I'm in the Jungle, Baby!

What are the odds that the best cheeseburger I've ever had in my life would be found at a thai restaurant/shack in a small latin-caribbean beach town on the east side of costa rica? Pretty low, actually, and it turned out to be terrible. But it felt like it was going to be great, coming on the heels of my first central american surf session. And what a session it was, just at the outer limits of my skill level, leaving me more exhausted, thirsty and famished than I'd been when I finally arrived here only an hour before.

The day began where I'd finally crashed the previous night (naturally): the tiny Liberia, home to little more than a burger king, a subway and a shop with the sole purpose of renting out back-hoes (no kidding).

I hate to use the word 'crash,' given the journey i was about to undertake: to wit, my first ever experience in a propeller plane (see pic). Good old Elwin picked me up at 6am to hustle me to the airport, where I had reserved a spot on the local domestic carrier, Sansa Air. The guy behind the counter seemed surprised that I'd booked in advance, and moreso when he saw that I meant to travel with my coffin-like 7'8" surf bag. "It might fit," he told me, with the look of someone trying to understand a rubik's cube, "but I don't think so."

Fast forward to the airstrip, where he, another airline clerk, the pilot, copilot and I stroke our chins to solve the riddle of how to fit the bag (in my defense, the Sansa web side claims they can handle up to 9 feet of surfboard). The answer turned out to be this: pull both painstakingly-packed boards out of their stable, cushioned existence and squeeze them one by one into cramped metal luggage compartments under the plane. I winced as a saw them go in, nose first, fins up, but the alternative was a 5-1/2 hour busride, followed by the 4-1/2 hour bus ride I'd already anticipated. Plus, no refunds other than the twenty dollar excess baggage fee.

Of course, I made it, and moments later I got my first, arial view of this country I've come here to admire. Mossy grass flowing over hills and mountains into dense tree cover, waterfalls shooting out of spots where there seemed to be no river, as if the leaves had simple sucked the heavy moisture out of the air and funneled it into a torrent that spits out of the mountainside. pretty sweet. In minutes I caught my first glimpse of the ocean I'd come to surf (eventually--this was the pacific).

The plane picked up more passengers in coastal mainstay Tamarindo, presumably the last stop on my circuitous oddyssey. I've included a picture of this landing strip to give you an idea just how terrifying it was coming in, the threadbare landing gear finally bouncing us onto safe ground. Then, off we went again, over more rain forest, more mountains, clouds and rough going. Even as the character in the novel I was reading (The Kite Runner- fantastic if you haven't read it yet) suffered motion sickness, my stomach lurched and groaned and I wryly noted that this cramped seat was the first I'd even occupied on a plane that didn't come equipped with barf bags. However, the cute one-year-old in the seat next to me refused to vomit, and I wasn't about to let her show me up. Finally, after nearly an hour, we settled in for another bumpy landing in San Jose.

My stay in this capital city would not be long; just enough to taxi over to a bus terminal and board my new ride. This journey was relatively comfortable, with even more lush mountain landscapes, steam rising from the canopy like thick smoke to join clouds that cling to the tree-coated ridges. Fellow travelers were friendly and chatty, marvelling at my solar-powered backpack and sharing tales of other parts of this country, and latin america on the whole. In seemingly no time we arrived in Puerto Viejo de Talamanca, my home for the next week and a half.

I checked in to a wi-fi equipped room and had just enough time to unpack before my hosts' 16-yr-old son stepped by to ask if I wanted to go surfing. He moved here as a pale gringo from rural new mexico four years ago, and has grown into a lithe, tanned, sunblonde shredder (aka good surfer), possessing a thick local accent thsat falls somewhere between jamaican patois and tico spanish.

With the youngster leading the way (I don't htink he's realized yet I'm twice his age), we pedaled a mile or so south to a beach break that was uncharacteristically going off. Nine foot faces coming in at breakneck speeds, one after the other, and curling into tight barrels. Admittedly, the two days of travel didn't do me well, and I caught four rides on the afternoon. However, I was stoked to be in the mix, and happy to be serving the purpose of my time here at last, a mere thirty hours after I disembarked from my parents' driveway. From now until the middle of the month, if you'd like to imagine where I am, just picture me riding a bike down a muddy, potholed road, dense jungle on both sides, a surfboard tucked under my arm and a satisfied smile on my face. Pura vida, baby.