Warning: This is going to be a very long post, because it was a gorgeous weekend, and I'm feeling very wordy right now.
This weekend was another ISA pre-planned excursion weekend (this time to Arenal Volcano), which I decided to forego in favor of hitting up another beach town (don't worry, I'll make it to one or more volcanoes eventually...I just felt like some more fun in the sun instead of another weekend in the chilly mountains).
This weekend there were four of us traveling together: Wendy, Walker, our friend Kelly, and me. We took a bus out of San Jose at 11:30 on Friday morning. It was nice getting on the road earlier than usual, especially since we didn't know exactly how long the whole trip was going to take, but man oh man...that bus. The seats were cushy, and the bus itself was nice, but the seats were so close to the seats in front of them that even I could hardly squeeze my legs in, and then to make matters worse, the woman in front of Wendy decided to recline her seat practically all the way down onto Wendy's lap, and then she shut the window, cutting off any source of fresh air. I consider myself to be a fairly flexible traveler, but three or so hours in that bus resulted in me having mega claustrophobia, which is not usually something that afflicts me. Needless to say, it was a relief to finally get off that bus in San Isidro, which is where we were supposed to wait an hour and a half for another bus, which would bring us all the way to Dominical.
Instead, we were approached by a friendly driver named Frank, who convinced us (not that it took much, after that bus ride) to let him drive us to Dominical for $30 for all of us, which was about $7.50 each. Pricier than the bus, but it ended up being totally worth it, because he had a van, which meant that each of us got our own seat, and we didn't have to make any stops to drop people off/pick people up like the public bus does. We got to Dominical in less than an hour, which is record time.
During the drive, I was once again wowed by how quick and easy it is to go from climate zone to climate zone in this country. First we were in mildly hot San Jose, and in less than an hour we were climbing into the mountains, where the air cooled off considerably, and in less than an hour after that, we were driving through the misty clouds and it felt like autumn in the Midwest. The air is also so much fresher up in the mountains; such a nice escape from the smog of the capital. Then, after a couple of hours of driving through the chilliness, there is a quick descent down to sea level and the coast, where it is incredibly humid and muggy (perfection). All in 4 to 5 hours! I guess the different climate zones are comparable to daily life in the Midwest during spring, summer, and autumn, where the temperature and weather can vary insanely from day to day.
So anyway, we arrived in Dominical, and instantly fell in love with it. It was a partly cloudy day, but the sun still periodically broke through the clouds, where its light was filtered down through the many trees and onto the dirt roads below. Dominical is truly different than any other place I've been to yet. It is a lot more rural, first of all. It's not at all as touristy as Tamarindo. It has no paved roads, and there are huge potholes everywhere that are always muddy and full of water because of how much it rains. It's also right in the middle of the rainforest; the mountains behind it are green mounds of foliage and nothing else, and all of the streets are sheltered by massive trees, which is a welcome relief from the heat of the sun after sitting on the beach. The setup of the town is really nice, too, because most of the hostels are literally yards away from the beach itself. All that separates them is a dirt road and a short stretch of trees, which is where all of the surfers park their cars:
The white behind the trees is where the beach begins
We found the hostel we wanted to stay at fairly quickly, checked in, and then Walker and Kelly practically sprinted down to the beach to go surfing. Wendy and I checked out the beach, which was beautiful, but the waves were a bit intimidating...definitely much larger than any I've seen so far (someone said they were about 10 feet, which isn't actually that large, especially since the norm for that area is 15-16 feet). Consequently, we opted not to go surfing that weekend, and instead decided to go for a nice swim/hang out on the sand for awhile. Here's an idea of how big the waves were, though they got bigger than this at times:
Sufer riding the waves (Walker took this one)
A shot of the beach the day we got there
Eventually, it started to sprinkle, and then rain pretty hard. It was fun for us to be in the ocean and have it be raining at the same time, because you're already so wet that it doesn't matter, and it makes the water feel extra warm because the rain is nice and cool. Very relaxing.
We got out of the water, rinsed off, got dressed, and asked the guy behind the desk which place would be the best for eating. He told us that the bar and grill associated with the hostel was the best place to go (of course), and that he could have someone from their drive to pick us up, since it was absolutely downpouring at this point. We agreed, and ended up sitting around for more than an half an hour waiting, even though the restaurant was only five minutes away, if that (yet another example of Tico time). While we were waiting, we discovered that the hostel had a very interesting mascota (pet): a little baby raccoon named Molly. Super cute, but also super weird and crazy; the next day, it jumped on Walker's head and kept trying to attack Wendy and Kelly's legs.
The ceiling of the restaurant was covered with boards that had been broken in Dominical...yet another reason Wendy and I decided it was a much better idea for us to spend the weekend in the shallows and not on a board
We decided to walk back to the hotel, where we promptly crashed on our beds, laid around in the dark for an hour or so talking, and then fell asleep at the wee hour of 10:30pm. Quite the party animals.
Here's a picture of our room from that first night. Wendy was a bit iffy because the air conditioner spit dirt onto our bed, and the walls were very worn out, and the floor was kinda grimy...but we decided to stick it out anyway to see if we liked it:
The next morning we woke up, wish we had a communal kitchen to cook in, and decided to switch hostels. First, Walker and Kelly wanted to catch the morning surf, so they did so while Wendy and I slept in.
I don't really remember the order of this day, because we did so many things, but it included all of the following activities:
1. Switching to another hostel that had a communal hang out area, kitchen, and tents for us to sleep in under this gigantic roof up on a deck on the second floor above some other rooms.
This was the name of our new hostel, taken from their little half basketball court
The common area
The deck our tent was on (notice the wonderful hammock chair)
Our tent for the weekend
The communal kitchen
2. Swimming around in the ocean like little kids for hours on end.
3. Going to the supermarket for food to cook dinner, and being stopped by am American surfer man who resembled Jude Law, and had the following conversation:
-Jude Law Man: Are you going to the waterfall?
-Us: No, we're going to the supermarket.
-JLM: Did you know there is a waterfall behind the supermarket?
-Us: No way!!!
So then we went behind the supermarket, and lo and behold, there was this giant natural waterfall fairy tale land just hanging out in the middle of the rainforest:
In order to get down to the actual water we had to go down this incredibly steep path down the side of the mountain, but it was totally worth it. We played around in that waterfall for a very long time. The water was fresh and cold, and it was a welcome change from the salt water of the ocean and the heat of the day. We couldn't get over how places like this are just existing all over the place in Costa Rica, free and natural, if you only know where to look (or have the right locals telling you where to go =]).
We eventually noticed the sun was starting to sink a little lower through the trees, and we decided we wanted to see the sunset, so we quickly packed up our stuff, tried to find a shortcut that didn't involve going back up the steep path (the road was right there, on the other side of a barbed wire fence), but to no avail, so we eventually backtracked and went back up the path, ran down the path back to the supermarket, and then full out sprinted for about half a mile, through the pot-holed roads of Dominical and back to the beach, with locals yelling things at us and whistling the whole way. I can't even imagine how we looked, three gringas (white girls) running full out through the town, with our swim suits and flip flops on, soaking wet. And I also forgot to mention that Wendy and I had started out the morning by doing some jogging followed by this workout thing (not sure what it's called) that involves doing rounds consisting of 10 jumping jacks, 10 squats, 10 push ups, 10 mountain climbers, and 5 "burpees". We tried to do 5 rounds of that, but only got to 4...and had to stop because we were so lightheaded. I was super tired out from that already (because, as we all know, I am definitely not going to be winning any awards any time soon for how in shape I am), and that sprint pretty much did it for me.
Then we were able to just relax and watch the rest of the sunset, as well as the remaining surfers who are stubborn enough to surf until it is almost pitch black. There were more people on the beach than I expected. I didn't even think that were that many people in the town, but the rain had kept most of them inside our first night there, so it was nice to see the population and tourists out and about and enjoying the natural beauty around them.
We tried to find a place to go out that night, and we found a place with good music...it was actually kind of like a rave, with tons of that fake smoke stuff and bright lights, but with salsa music instead...but the fake smoke proved to be too much for my lungs, and Wendy and I weren't really feeling it, so we took a cab back and went to sleep. I think it's safe to say that night was probably the most uncomfortable night of sleep I have had in Costa Rica, because while we had mats to sleep on, we had no sheets or pillows, and since it was so humid out, the plastic on the mats stuck to our skin, and there was sand absolutely everywhere, no matter how much we tried to brush it off. Then, in the middle of the night, we woke up freezing cold, and my clothes were locked in the safe downstairs, so I had to wear Walker's giant t-shirt and pants (just in case you can't tell from the pictures, Walker is about 6'5" and incredibly skinny), and Wendy wore her rain jacket and put her dress around her legs. And then again when we woke up in the morning sweating buckets. It was quite the experience.
Sunday (which is the day we are now on) was basically another day of beach and lounging. Horrible life, right? I was still pretty tired from that lack of sleep the night before, so I decided to read/watch television in the hammock for a couple of hours before heading out to the beach. Wendy and I were also incredibly achy from all of the exercise the night before; I was achy to the extent that it was an effort to do anything with my legs, from standing to walking to climbing stairs to getting in and out of the tent...anything. Eventually we peeled ourselves off of our seats, and moaned our way to the beach, which was actually the perfect cure for the pain. When we got there the tide was super low, which means that the beach basically tripled in size (the differences between high and low tides here, at least on the Pacific side of the country, is insane), and there was a lot of sand that was covered in a thin layer of water, hot from the sun, so we decided to just lay down on that section and let our muscles relax. It was the perfect temperature, with just a little breeze flowing to keep us cool, and the hot water was just what our legs needed. We also swam around in the ocean, which was nice and cool on our muscles.
A note about the high and low tides in Dominical: besides the ridiculous differences in how high or low the water actually gets, during low tide there are incredibly strong currents flowing all over the place. Even during high tide the currents are pretty strong, but when low tide hits, it's like trying to walk against a river current about 3 times the strength of the St. Croix/Mississippi. Some places the current is pushing one direction, and then ten feet later you'll be in a patch where it starts pulling you the other way. Any adult can handle it, because the water is really shallow, but I would never bring any kids any more than a few feet into it, because they could easily get swept away. There was also the current pulling out towards the ocean and the current pulling in as the waves come and go. For us, it was super fun to crawl around on our hands and knees like little kids, and let the current pull us (most of the time we were going parallel to the shore). We spent a long time both days doing this.
We also decided to cover ourselves in the black sand to "exfoliate our skin", and run into the ocean to wash it off. Like I said, little kids and a day at the beach.
We went out to dinner with our two new friends from Canada, Selenya and Sari, drank some delicious smoothies (fresh fruit, everywhere...it's amazing), and then hung out at the hostel playing cards and learning magic tricks before heading off to bed.
Monday we slept in a little bit, and Wendy and I went out to the beach with Selenya and Sari and did some yoga sun salutations, followed by a few other poses and learning how to try to do headstands. Wendy was pretty good at it...I definitely need some more practice. Then we had to pack up and check out of the hostel, because we decided to catch a 1pm bus back to San Jose since everyone but me had homework to do. We said good bye to our new friends and took off on the bus...the ride wasn't too bad. The public bus from Dominical to San Isidro was nice and spacious, and on the bus from San Isidro to San Jose we snagged the seats in the very back, which meant we had tons of leg room and large windows with lots of air flow. It ended up being a pretty funny ride, because the bus driver was a typical crazy Costa Rican driver, and since we were at the very rear it was kind of like being in the last car of a roller coaster, getting whipped around from left to right. Once again, it was a gorgeous drive through the mountains, and we were freezing cold by the time we descended down into the valley because of how fresh and chilly the wind was coming through the windows. Here are some shots of the end of the weekend, and of the view on the way home, which simply do NOT do it justice...absolute breathtaking beauty.
That's about it! At some point in this trip I am going to try to start posting shorter, more daily posts, but these weekend ones are going to continue to be long, because I have no time to do any posting while I'm at the beach (big surprise, right?). Until next time! Peace.