Surfing, Day One

Got up this morning and talked with Estella on Skype, which was really nice.  Then I packed up and moved out of the mosquito city that my hostel turned out to be and moved in up the road.  Made some grilled cheese sandwiches with Brian before we headed out to surf.  The tide was way high, made our 10 min walk to the sand break a little tougher.   Low tide was supposed to mean better conditions and boy did it made a huge difference. High tide felt like getting hit by a train.  We tried going out but it was just way too washed out, so we did what any 20-year-old would do on the beach: built sand castles.  Mine was really legit, with underground tunnels and everything that went under Brian's dumb castle and sank it.  But a little black lab puppy came romping down the beach and though my tunnels were the best thing ever, and ended up totally annihilating everything. He was hilarious. Today I was riding a 7'7" board, made catching waves really easy.  I got up maybe 10-12 times and was catching nearly everything towards end of the day.  It was a good, exhausting day in the ocean.

I'm finding it pretty ironic that I've seen more wildlife here than on the $15 hike into the cloud forest, where all the animals were supposed to be.  In the past 2 days I've seen (and definitely heard) howler monkeys, iguanas, crabs, and the extremely rare Costa Rican street dog.  Oh, and apparently Santa Teresa at dusk is the hermit crab capital of the world.  Thousands of them littered the beach on the walk back.

Went to another soda place for dinner, had arroz con mariscos. The seafood may not have been such a great idea for my stomach but I took some tummy meds just in case (thanks Christa).  Some friends told us to come hang out at the Iguana Bar up the road, but we went in the entirely wrong direction and pretty much walked out of town without finding the place.  A quick check online back at the room led us to it, but only after that wasted 20min of walking.  There was a live band playing reggae-rock which was pretty cool.  Going out again tomorrow morning for more surfing, hopefully I get better and better with each ride.