Instructor Blog – Panama and Costa Rica Trip #2

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Hey All, Since our last blog a lot has happened! Tommy and I have traveled some serious miles and logged a whole bunch of bus time. We stayed in Santa Catalina a few more days before making a journey north to Pavones. It was an especially long travel day. The stretch of the Pan-American highway between Santiago, Panama and the border was under construction. This turned an average four hour bus ride into a six hour ride (without air conditioning). Once we finally arrived at the border we somehow managed to walk all the way into Costa Rica without encountering any sort of border regulations or patrol! Upon seeing the “welcome to Costa Rica” sign we realized we had made a minor error. We backtracked back into Panama to find the correct customs office. Needless to say, as relaxed as the border is, it was a bit stressful. Once we had received the necessary stamps and filled out the correct paper work, we hopped in a taxi and began the beautiful two hour journey to Pavones.

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We arrived in pavones to an unbelievable hostel equipped with an awesome kitchen and private rooms. We were stoked to say the least. We spent our days surfing the world’s second longest left and chilling with our new five year old buddy – Wadel. Wadel’s mom worked at the hostel so whenever we came back from a surf, Wadel was down to chill with us. He would entertain us by singing along to spanish Dancehall music.

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We scored epic waves in Pavones but we only able to stay three nights. On the morning of June 2nd we began our final day of travel at 1:40 AM. We got a taxi to a random country-side bus stop to catch a ride to San Jose. The bus arrived promptly at 3 AM and we proceeded to board and catch some much needed zzz’s on the long bus ride north. However, 45 minutes later we were awoken by angry locals pointing at our seats and their tickets. Apparently we were the only people on the bus without an assigned seat. As it was a monday morning, a lot of people were making to commute into the city. As soon as we had gotten comfortable and prepared for the eight hour bus ride north, we were rudely displaced from our seats. Tommy was moved to a tiny back of the bus seat and I was moved to the wheelchair accessible staircase. I spent about two and half hours sleeping on the floor of the bus until I convinced Tommy to switchwith me. Once we arrived in the coastal town of Jaco we decided to call an audible and get off the bus. We took a taxi with a fellow traveler from Venezuela (whom we had previously met in Panama and randomly ran into on the bus) to a ferry port in Puntarened. Here we hopped on the ferry to the Guanacaste Peninsula. The ferry ride was a nice break from the hot and cramped buses.

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Long story short, after a series of buses we arrived in the southern Guanacaste and finally met up with honorary Sacred Surf member, Elliot. Two taxis, three buses, one ferry, one car ride, and sixteen hours later, we arrived in the small town of Avellanas on the northern Guanacaste peninsula. Almost the all past and current Sacred Surf instructors have visited Elliot’s at least once. So naturally, this was a necessary stop on the trip. Avellanas is the perfect setup with endless waves and beautiful surroundings. We even have our own little Casitas with two bedrooms and a kitchen!

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We have been hanging out with Elliot, the other residents of the Casitas and surfing our brains out for the past week. With only a few more days left in the trip we are sad to leave but super excited to get to Cape Cod!

See everyone soon and get pumped summer 2014!

Pura Vida,

Zach