EXTREME ROAD TRIP!!!

Get out the Mountain Dew, Doritos and Taco Bell - it´s time for EXTREME ROAD TRIP!

Craig and Shona from Toronto were staying at the same hotel as us in Samara.  They offered us a drive with them in their rental to the village of Mal Pais at the bottom of the Nicoya Peninsula.  This had all the elements of a college road trip like getting lost and empties in the backseat.  Shane even puked.  There were winding switchbacks inland through hills, viewpoints of the Pacific from the road cut into the mountain´s edge, bumpy dirt roads, getting lost and asking for directions from an Amish looking farmer who was barely coherent.  His beard was so long and nasty that he had a woman´s hair clip in it.  Like the inbred version of Captain Lou Albano. 

We had to make a few river crossings that were only possible at low tide and we had to drive on the beach for a while where there was no road.  Definitely a TOP 5 travel moment.

Arriving in Mal Pais was a surreal experience.

Ali and I had visited it 12 years ago and there were only two places to stay.  Both booked.  So we camped out on the beach.  Flash forward to today and it doesn´t even feel or look the same.  Frank´s place hotel now has a liquor store and grocery store built in front of it and there are "no camping" signs posted on the beach.  This is Hollywood surf central. There is a large Miami style outdoor shopping centre and the beach doesn´t even look the same. One thing the same is that the waves consistently break.  There was a decent swell the day we arrived with lines of corduroy on the Pacific.  Very nice.  Quite a challenge as well.  We settled into a decent hotel with pool, and working wi-fi FINALLY - the first time in a LONG time. We plan on sticking around here for a Christmas rendez-vous.  Most places are completely booked up for xmas here and places double the prices, so we are pretty happy to have that taken care of before the rush started.

 

Logan hanging out with members of the Forbes 100 list.

There is no church here - a sign that it is in fact not a "real" town and an example of how quickly everything was slapped together to accommodate for increasing tourism.  The beach scene is filled with surfers, organic farmers selling veggies on weekends, bongo drum sessions, fire jugglers at night, quite typical really.  The beauty of the abundant waves here is that they end up being generally uncrowded.