It’s the kind of hot that makes your head swell and temples throb, that makes you sweat from parts of your body you normally don’t think about, like your upper lip, the back of your knees and between your toes.
We mountain town folk who fancy ourselves surfers and want to escape the dreary, cold days of mud season migrate to the tropics, a fact I easily confirmed when every American I met in Costa Rica was from a Colorado mountain town. (“No way, you’re from Aspen? … We’re here with 15 of our best friends from Telluride!”)
It doesn’t matter to us that April is the hottest time of year in Central America, the tail end of their summer. It’s low season when everyone leaves until things cool off in June, after May rain revitalizes the parched, brown landscape like hair in desperate need of a deep conditioning treatment. You know it’s hot when the land around you looks as thirsty as you and every local you meet tells you: “It’s great to meet you, but I’m leaving tomorrow. Going back to Canada/France/Israel until June.”
Regardless of the heat, Costa Rica’s allure has to do with cheap, safe travel, beautiful beaches, warm water, excellent surf, succulent tropical fruit, fresh seafood and the warm, friendly Costa Rican people (also known as “Ticos”). After spending three weeks there in December, my brother loved it so much he sold everything he owned in Breckenridge and moved to Nosara, a little town on the northwest coast, to surf and do real estate development (though more of the former than the latter). When my parents told him he was crazy, he told them they need to visit to understand the true meaning of the “Pura Vida,” the Costa Rican greeting that means “pure life.” They just rolled their eyes and said they would think about coming down next Christmas.
What people don’t realize about Costa Rica is it’s rural in a way that makes small Colorado towns like Alma seem like a booming metropolis. Once you leave the capital city of San Jose and head for the coast, the narrow, bumpy, red dirt roads look more like mountain bike trails in Moab than something you should drive a car on.
River crossings, ruts, rocks, and steep, loose hills and ravines make a simple thing like sitting in the passenger’s seat sort of like riding a mechanical bull. During high tide and rainy season, the more “direct” coastal routes are not always passable, forcing you into a maze of inland trails that lazily meander their way through the jungle.
“Wouldn’t that be funny if this road just like, ended?” my brother asked after we had driven for over two hours on a road that seemed to be going in circles.
“I’m sure it ends up somewhere, eventually,” he continued, crumpling up the map and throwing it in the backseat. Our friend John chimed in, “Do they have something against bridges in this country?” after our sixth or 10th sketchy river crossing. We got where we were going in the end, but it took us almost five hours to travel 80 miles.
We hit a bunch of popular surf spots on the Northwest Coast, starting in Jaco/Playa Hermosa, and then making our way through Mal Pais, Montezuma, and finally to my brother’s new home in Nosara. We stayed in modest cabanas for $40-$60 a night (air conditioning being the biggest luxury), and stuffed ourselves silly with gallo pinto, a traditional Costa Rican dish of seasoned black beans and rice and washed it down with plenty of Imperials (one of two local beers) for less than $10.
I withstood the heat to lie around all day on the beach to read, sleep, tan and surf. The waves were huge – too big for me even though I lived in San Diego for seven years and do know how to surf. I basically snowplowed my way down double-black diamonds as one wave after another landed on top of me and filled my sinuses like sponge that gets too moldy and needs to be thrown out.
When I landed in Denver last Wednesday it was 28 degrees and snowing, and all I could think when I stepped outside and breathed the cool, mountain air was, “Thank God Colorado has free air conditioning.”
Freelance columnist Alison Berkley can be reached at alison@berkleymedia.com.
