Pavones day 1

beach at pavones, low tide

beach at pavones, low tide

beach at pavones, low tide. notice the |ROCKS.

justin making a crab bite his nose

a rousing game of uno at carols

our room at cabinas carol

our room at cabinas carol

our room at cabinas carol

our room at cabinas carol

our room at cabinas carol





So






































cat on bus.


we took a bus from san jose at 630am to golfito, which is on the pacific coast to meet up with another guy bryce. Grant thought golfito was supposed to be awesome, but all tour books we consulted said there is nothing there and people leave as fast as possible. so, we got off the bus 7 hours later there, saw bryce immediately, and decided that the town was awful and figured out which bus to take to Pavones. Pavones is a super world renowned surf location, but hard to get to so not very popular except for determined people. We took a school bus with almost all locals to pavones, 2.5 hours and $3. it rained, a lady had a cat on the bus, and two people who were going to work on a yoga farm in pavones from our first bus were on it as well. we wandered around pavones for a few minutes until we found a place to stay, carol's cabinas. 6 dudes in room with not enough beds, but $50 total so its a steal. including a dinner made by carol last night and free fruit from surrounding areas. daniel is a tico who works at the hostel, and grant and i decided on surf lessons from him for $15 including a board for "a few hours" wednesday morning. bed.

grant and i got up early, went to the panaderia (bakery) and had a couple pastries for breakfast, which were delicious. we met daniel around 715 at carols, and went out to the beach. he'd already been out surfing for 2 hours that morning. we learned the basics about stance and paddling on the beach for 10 minutes and headed to the water. after paddling out, we worked on timing and reading the wave/catching the wave out there, starting with laying on the board and paddling, getting a boost of a push from daniel. first things first, surfing is sweet. even laying on the board, in front of the wave, you are going so fast but its very calm when you stay in front of the wave. after paddling out and doing the lay down manuever a bunch of times, we started trying to stand up and ride it. my first attempt i blanked out and got to my knees and fell over, but after that i wasnt nearly as horrible as i expected. i had a few 1 - 2 second stand up periods, but they didnt really count as rides. my arms and shoulders were exhausted, as well as my chest being sore from laying on the board, so after 3 hours our lesson ended and we took a break on the beach. the rest of our group had joined us in the ocean in the meantime, so we all took a break at approximately the same time. we all trickled back in the ocean, with some of the group going out farther (where there were no waves, didnt work out for them) and a couple of us staying where we had orinigally started. after sitting out there in the ocean for 10 min, waiting for a good wave, i tried to get one on my own. bad timing and i missed 2 or 3 waves, and some of the group started heading to shore. i wanted to catch one last ride before i quit for lunch, and somehow i magically timed it and officially "got up" on a wave for about 5 seconds. i felt like a champ. standing for longer than a half second or a second was great, it was the coolest feeling. now ive got some diversity in my vacation destination choices! we had some lunch, walked around town and found a grocery store. i just realized that i am incredibly sunburned, even though it was never sunny and i had sunscreen on. im going to stay in the shade for the afternoon and go back out tomorrow morning.