Waves and wildlife in Costa Rica
Long beach in remote jungle location a good place to learn surfing
It’s not every day you step out from a sunset surf-session straight into a jungle habitat of howler monkeys dangling in leafy guarumo trees, cicadas conducting a symphony and a pair of white-nosed coati — raccoon-like animals with striped tails and masks — strolling across a dirt road, sending geckos darting out of their path. It is so enchanting I even forget to swat at the mosquitoes hovering about, getting ready to divebomb my legs.
Such is the charm of Nosara, a small village in the Nicoya Peninsula, on the northwest Pacific coast of Costa Rica. This hamlet’s remoteness has long kept the crowds away, but surfers in the know, such as the big-wave legend Richard Schmidt, have been making the pilgrimage for years. Now, aspiring waveriders far from the world tour are heading here for the handful of surf schools that have popped up around town, and for the undeveloped jungle beauty, small hotels and yoga culture.
The star attraction is Playa Guiones, a white-sand beach of more than 6 kilometres that catches most swells yearround, which has a gradual topography that keeps waves from getting too big. The result is some of the most reliable surf in the world, typically ranging from knee-high to double-overhead, with gentle white-water waves closer to the beach that are ideal for beginners.
Guiones is at the southern end of coastal wildlife refuge of more than 15 kilometres that encompasses Playa Ostional, a black-sand beach famous for the monthly arribada, when thousands of olive ridley turtles come ashore to lay eggs, and a beach called Playa Nosara.
In the conservation zone, development is prohibited about 200 metres from the high-tide line. There is a conspicuous, blissful absence of beach bars and chain hotels; the backdrop is jungle as far as the eye can see.
During a surf trip I made there in late March, locals told me that the only ugly thing about Nosara is the road in. Most people fly into the capital, San Jose (a five-hour drive), or Liberia (2.5 hours away), but everyone leaves the highway to brave the last 15 miles of unpaved, dust-choked track from Samara to Nosara. In truth, the bumpy ride, often ob- structed by meandering cattle and herders on horseback, helps keep paradise intact a little longer.
My taxi driver, Eduardo Araya, entertained me in Spanish during the drive from Liberia . A resident of Nosara, he told me that the number of tourists hasn’t yet reached the critical mass to merit a paved road, but he believes it won’t be long before one is built. A new bridge to the Nicoya Peninsula from the Costa Rican mainland, plus a brandnew airport in Liberia, have already brought better access to the region.
Visitors can cuddle with rescued capuchins at the Sibu Monkey Sanctuary, attend a yoga retreat, or head to the Reserva Biologica Nosara, where the jungle runs right up to the beach and makes for rich bird-watching in mangrove wetlands.
In truth, in a place that sees reliably good waves and weather from November to August, surfing’s the thing.
It draws people such as Ru Hill, a selfdescribed surf geek from Bristol, England, who runs Surf Simply, a resort that brings a technical, sports-coach philosophy to its week-long surfing camps.
“I got a map of the world, put a line through the cold places and all the places where there was a war going on, and ended up here,” says Hill, 34.
Looking for an ideal setting for his surf project, he first came to Nosara in 2007. He saw the long stretch of warm, jadegreen waters, rolling waves and whitesand bottom at Guiones made it the ideal place for surfers of all different levels to play together nicely.
There were a few established surf schools at the time, including the first, Corky Carroll’s, which opened in the mid-’90s, but the scene has evolved over the past five years, with more schools to meet the growing number of visitors. And locals are opening up their own surf-related businesses; a few years ago, Hill offered guidance and training to a pair of Nosara surfers, Esteban Lopez Paniagua and Luis Montiel, to help them set up Nosara Tico Surf School.
Hill has gained a fan base for his approach: His goal is to get people to understand all aspects of surfing, from tide charts to board design, and to take what he calls the mystical voodoo out of it.
During a week in Nosara surfing with Hill and his crew, I became a bit of a surf nerd, learning the finer points of angled takeoffs and riding the rails of my surfboard more effectively, and sat in on theory classes on meteorology and how to judge a surf contest.
Thanks to twice-daily surf sessions that were followed by video feedback, I could watch myself ride a double-overhead bomb of a wave to its finish, and analyze what I had done right to make it possible. I also saw, in painful slow motion, the spectacular wipeouts that came along with attempting such waves.
Visitors should know that Nosara probably isn’t the place for a deep cultural view of Costa Rica. Although there are ample attractions nearby, so many North American expats live and work in the little community that, at times, the streets surrounding Guiones feel like an English-speaking island.
Andrew Jaspersohn came to Costa Rica with his wife, Lindsay Antolino, from Canaan, New Hampshire. They spent a few days in San Jose, then drove the five hours to Nosara.
“I came here to become a better surfer,” says Jaspersohn, a teacher. “San Jose was much more cultural; the shops and markets in the city were great, and we ate a lot of traditional food, and Lindsay practiced her Spanish. Nosara is different. It’s geared toward expats, in that you can walk down the main street and get a bikini, a surfboard and a fish taco in eight minutes. It’s not bad; it’s just different.”
The town of Nosara is actually about 6.5 kilometres away from the beach; it’s occupied mostly by Ticos. Araya, the taxi driver, told me that only rarely does the occasional tourist find his way up into the village.
There are places that attract both locals and tourists. One of these, says Araya, is La Boca, the river mouth in the jungle where Rio Nosara and Rio Montana converge, leading out to Playa Nosara. It is one of the most exquisite spots in the area for natural beauty, and is frequented by local fishermen, great blue herons and egrets, and it leads into the Reserva Biologica Nosara.
One evening at sunset, we headed over to the Lagarta Lodge, perched high on a cliff overlooking La Boca, for mojitos and dinner. The air was the same blissful temperature as my skin, and the late-afternoon rays lighted everything, from the clear blue sky overhead to the brilliant fuchsia sprays of hibiscus and verdant jungle canopy below.
Just three surfers bobbed in the water, with miles of glassy swell behind them all the way to the horizon.
That dirt track might help keep Nosara under wraps, but not for long.