Seventeen days without food or fresh water. Brad’s gone totally native, eating boll weevils and bark and drinking the blood of monkeys. The Tica’s call him El Fantasma Blanco for reasons we haven’t deciphered…

The locals seem to pride themselves on having a place like no other, but there’s a weird vibe to the underbelly. There are many surfers, stoners etc who have dropped out and landed here. It seems like they can no longer afford to really live here and yet it feels a bit like a Never Never Land where there are no adults. Last night we saw a bunch of crack heads that seemed to be sizing us up. We lock our camera equipment in the owner’s unit upstairs at our hotel. Unlike Todos Santos, there appears to be less integration of the two cultures although diversity among the international gringo crowd. Many (but certainly not all) locals don’t respond when you wish them a good day. I get the impression that there’s some tension with the gringos due to the fact that they are really squatting on the Tica’s land.

Of course there are also many incredibly endearing locals. We took a long walk down a beach just south of Nosara and were invited in to a shanty by a toothless local with a blind father to sit with his family. It looked like they had about 3-5 people living in a small shack with a single bed, sand floor, television and a million dollar view. Everyone was watching soccer on a 12 inch TV while he cooked some rice. He offered to sell us a necklace made of shark’s vertebrae. Later we saw him carrying fishing poles for a gringo on vacation. Contrast that against Rocky, a former Canadian member of the equivalent of special forces. He moved here in November of 2006 to oversee the security needs of a wealthy ex-pat. He started a dog farm here at which he breeds and trains primarily Dutch Shephards as security dogs. Pretty hard core after stints in Iraq. His dogs are trained to tear people apart that look at their master the wrong way. He feels safe here.

The place feels a lot like Jurassic Park. It rains almost daily but we’ve been fortunate that it’s never been for more than a couple of hours. The trees grow 30 plus feet in 3 years with the regions 60-80 plus inches of annual rainfall and rich soil. The insects are equally vigilant and it’s easy to get chewed alive if you’re not careful. The monkeys can be heard (and seen) howling in the canyons all morning. One feels very removed from society here and a sense of lawlessness. However, there’s no escaping the dichotomy brought on by the amenities that tourism brings, including trash cans that advertise Tica’s Massage, the longest “zip line” in the country, river rafting, fishing, bird watching, monkey forests, etc. Costa Rica receives over 25 percent of its revenues from eco-tourism and it’s easy to see why. I’d suggest anyone coming here be very comfortable driving on rough road conditions. The Daihatsu and Hyundai 4×4s are remarkably resilient and their performance far exceeds their reputation.

All in all, Nosara is difficult to capture. We’re here in the low season so our perception may be a bit off. My understanding is that it originated when an American development company bought tens of thousands of acres in the late ’60s, subdivided it and created an association with CCRs. The prices as recently as 2002 for non-oceanfront were $60 M2 in the association and $20 M2 just outside the association. The prices have since at least doubled (ocean front is north of $500M2 in some areas) but have reportedly flattened out in recent months. Reportedly Tim Robbins bought some land here recently. It feels a bit like the primary pursuit of the big guns in town is slashing the land and building non-descript architecture. While I can see what appeals to many, there’s some element of Nosara that makes me sad, especially the cleared pieces of rainforest and the trash washed up on the beach.

Off to meet Dave and Monika Crook in Tamarindo.

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We arrived into San Jose, Costa Rica late the night of June 21st. We stayed near the airport at perhaps the nicest Marriott at which I have ever stayed. Unfortunately, we merely needed a bed and left early the next day for a 5-7 hour drive to Nosara to meet up with Brad Thompson. We opted for the scenic route which included a 1.5 hour ferry ride after sitting for the first two hours in stop and go traffic getting out of San Jose. The number of trucks and bellowing black smoke they discharged in the fluorescent green surroundings was disturbing. We rented a 4×4; however, we went with the low end Hyundai. It´s too early to tell if this was a mistake, but suffice it to say we´re pushing it on the dirt and potholed roads to its limits. Dinner included beers and pizzas at Cafe Luna. I was surprised by the number of young gringos that live here, all of which Brad has befriended (including one that´s far too young one I should add). Woke up to some monkeys getting some action just off our deck, had a cup of coffee overlooking the ocean, rented a long board from Coconut Harry´s (a former telecom exec and got a few hours of perfect 3-5 foot waves in offshore conditions.

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We flew into PV early on the 19th through Guadalajara on a twin prop plane. Rented a car and drove about an hour north of Punta Mita (where I stayed a few year’s ago) and Sayulita in Nayarit, Mexico. We pulled over to San Francisco, another sleepy little town with about 1700 residents. We stayed Tu and Wed at the Costa Azul resort on the beach. Again, a little tourist feel for us but ocean view rooms, nice people and good food.

I undertook my annual head shaving festival (this year with time lapsed photos) and, after an afternoon swim in the quite hot ocean, Ellie and I ate at the Cafe del Mar at the recommendation of a local friend, Bonnie. The restaurant was owned by a Belgium woman and her Venezuelan husband and the atmosphere and menu was amazing. We had carrot and ginger soup, freshly caught red snapper sashimi, a goat cheese salad and a fresh arugula pasta. Ellie surprised me with a birthday candle and the white elephant gift one of you gave us that now we keep giving each other. Can you guess what it is?

We spent June 20th looking at real estate with Bonnie, penetrating deep into the jungle. I was struck by the the strangling fig tree that envelopes and kills the palm before taking over its place and creating a trunk enveloped in a think vine. Very beautiful result. Of course her car overheated in the middle of the jungle but now I am experienced at radiators so we managed push on. There’s some out of this world views, including from Peter Anton’s friend Parker’s (the Villa Violetta). Real estate ranged from about $20M2 to $300M2 for raw land. By late afternoon we were hot and exhausted and headed back to the hotel.

A little more about San Francisco: It was a pet project of a later found corrupt Mexican president in the ’70s (Echeverdia?). He ensured there were cobblestone streets and a hospital before he was removed from office. The streets have names like Egypt, China, Africa etc. You can feel the resort pressure here but it’s far enough removed to feel removed. There’s about 10 year round gringos here according to Bonnie. There’s 3 manufacturing plants in town for furniture, dried papayas and mangos and ??? There’s no bar in town after recently having closed. There’s a local effort to save the endangered turtles, including the leatherback and the gridley, as well as jaguars. There’s even a polo field. The mango and papaya trees are open to all, even if they are behind fences and we saw families picking them for their homes. I was very impressed with how clean the town was. High season is October (when the festival of San Pancho kicks off the season) through May.

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We were scheduled to fly out of La Paz to Puerto Vallarta at 6:30 am on the morning of June 19. Opting for an extra hour of sleep, we decided to spend the night in La Paz. La Paz used to be a sleepy fishing town famous for its pearls. Unfortunately, now, like much of Baja, the town is increasingly surrendering to the pressure of tourism and industry. Frankly, in our limited exposure, Ellie and I have never been too enamored with the town. Admittedly, however, we haven’t really seen much of La Paz. In fact, we have only spent the night at the iconic Los Arcos (on the malecon) when we needed to fly out early after a weekend in Todos Santos. We had both heard there are some nice developments (oxymoron?) that were being constructed north of town. So, this time we decided to venture to the new Marina district 5 minutes north of town. After some limited haggling, we secured a mountain view room at the Fiesta Inn. As far as large branded hotels go, it was a nice “business class” hotel. But, we stayed there only after being assured we’d have internet access in our room (and being offered an off-season rate). Ultimately I ended up sitting in the lobby until 1am to access the internet since the coverage was limited.
http://www.turista.com.mx/fiesta+inn+la+paz-hotel-155-english.html

We did manage to salvage the afternoon exploring the beaches even further north. We drove past Playa Pichelingue (fairly crowded beach for low season but had amenities). Just when we were about to give up, we found Playa Balandra, home of La Paz’ famous Diamond Rock. It was pristine and fairly empty (although the local polka music could be heard for at least a mile). You can walk almost a mile in the shallow bay and it offered a perfect anchorage for sailing. I even emulated Patrick Davenport’s tradition to embrace nature by a long swim in the suit of my birth. I swam about a mile out to two sailboats. The water was crystalline and incredibly tepid. There’s some old school brick grills on the beach if you wanted to cook. I was surprised as the sun went down that due to the geography, it set over the bay even though we were on the west coast. http://thoos.com/fishing/places/Playa+Balandra.

We finished the night with a very average lobster dinner for two at El Bismarck in the town of La Paz. The restaurant was named after a the German battleship as evidenced by some poor frescoes on the walls.

While we’ll certainly give La Paz another chance, next time we’ll ensure we arrange for some boating and/or diving as well as try a new place to stay and restaurant.

Possibly Related Posts:

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Started the morning with what could have been a disaster. We were scheduled to leave Monday morning. It was Sunday and the entire town was gearing up for fiestas for father’s day and pretty much shut down. Unfortunately the Big Red Burb had sprang a leak in the cooling system. Brian and I struggled to find a mechanic in a town in which everyone is a mechanic. We did manage to find the Torteria where they make the tortillas for most of the town (next to the mechanic’s shop). While waiting for the mechanic we removed the air filter and found what looked like a $.99 problem with no solution in site. A broken plastic T where 3-hoses connected. I found an entrepreneurial young man who promised to return in 20 minutes. A little over an hour later in the hot sun when we were just about to give up he returned with a tool kit and a copper pipe he appeared to have cut from his sink and some sandpaper. Not ideal but it did the job, we gave him $20 and we were back in business. It was a great learning experience for both of us and we met about half of the town in the process.

I headed towards Las Tunas a few hours later to watch the mini-Baja 1000 (not the big one yet) with Brandon. As I was pulling up the dirt road towards our property I got drastically waved to the side. Just as I was pulling over, one of the trucks came flying directly at me. We parked the car and watched the race go by for a couple of hours while we gathered in the local culture. One of the celebratory fathers had a little too much to drink and started walking across the road. He nearly got his and a bunch of locals carried him to the other side. I’ll post some photos.

Sunday night we rented 5 horses for a sunset ride from Kaya, one of the local photographers we had met before. I road Victoria again into the sunset. Aside from the dolphin carcass that spooked my horse, it was absolutely spectacular. Again, photos to come.

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