Old Neighbors, New Friends in Turkey Town

Canadian Tally: 21

After surviving Dominical, Roy and I boarded a morning bus for what would be the most challenging stage of our journey, the circuitous roads down to Pavones, which literally translataes to ‘Turkeys,’ apparently named for the wild turkeys that once roamed the area.

Pavones is way south on Costa Rica’s Pacific coast, only a few miles, in fact, from Panama. It’s also very disconnected from the real world, lacking so much as a phone line, let alone a bank or internet connection. What was our purpose for going so far south and out of the way? The world famous left-breaking wave there, known to offer kilometer long, two-and-a-half minute rides.

Our bus took us as far as Rio Claro, where a well-timed second bus backtracked a bit to drop us in Golfito, so named for its position on a small inlet of the Golfo Dulce, or Sweet Gulf, which is a beautiful blue body of water surrounded by the thick jungle and pal cliffs of the Oso Penninsula, described by National geographic as the “most biologically intense place on Earth.”

In Golfito, we tried to catch the day’s only remaining bus to Pavones, and would have, except it was particularly packed, leaving no room for the 7’6” coffin of a surfboard bag we dragged behind us. Although we would run low on funds for two days in ATM-free Pavones, we wound up hiring a taxi for the 2 hour drive through the jungle over bumpy roads and a short ferry ride. Our driver, Uriel, was up to the task, and we got there in an hour and a half.

It was already dark by now, or trip from Dominical lasting about 7 hours, and so we grabbed a cheap meal at one of the 6 or 7 businesses in the entire town. Upon returning to our duplex cabina, we ran into our north Carolina neighbors from Dominical, staying next door to us once again. We laughed about the coincidence then sat down to a few sixpacks and a hearty round of Spades. As it happens, Costa Rican beer is pretty tasty.

Charles, the upright bass playing husband and father, woke me up early the next morning to hit the waves, and more than three hours later we finally hiked our way back to the pad, where, later that night, we would once again settle in for drinks and cards.

The following afternoon, after a few rounds of ping pong (Roy once again dominated), we said goodbye to our new friends and hopped the bus back to Golfito, where we caught an afternoon flight to San Jose. The tiny airstrip, manned only by a one-armed baggage handler, would be easy to miss from the road, surrounded on three sides by densely vegetated hills.

Somehow, our plane managed to take off without problem. I say “our plane” because it might as well have been a charter; just the two pilots and ourselves. The plan climbed above the clouds in time to see the sunset, and as Roy brought out his camera to take some pictures (forthcoming here, I promise), I nudged him, reminding him the pilots asked for no personal electronics devices to be used until we hit cruising altitude. Roy just nudge me back, and pointed out that the pilots also had a camera out, and were clearly the more avid shutterbugs on this particular flight. If you get a chance to fly without the hassle of fellow passengers, I’d highly recommend it.