PURA VIDA – COSTA RICA

Pura vida – The Costa Rican lifestyle!

Simply translated it means “simple life” or “pure life”. But in Costa Rica it is more than just a saying – its a way of life! Costa Ricans (Ticos) use this term to say hello, to say goodbye, to say everything´s great, to say everything´s cool! Costa Rica has been named one of the happiest countries in the world, mostly because its inhabitants don’t stress about things most foreigners do. They have a very relaxed, simple way of looking at life. No worries, no fuss, no stress – Pura Vida -be thankful for what you have and not dwell on the negative! Pura Vida – it´s an emotion, it´s an attitude, its happiness and its a way of life! No wonder Costa Ricans live long lives!

Landing at the airport in San Jose, Costa Ricas capital, we were taken to the Europcar office to pick up the 4WD we had rented (or as it said in the contract “Rav4 or similar”)… We ended up with a brand new, 7 seater, 1l Suzuki Ertiga, low set with really small tires – supposedly a 4WD(well, it had 4 wheels, and all of them were rolling round and round, but even to my limited car knowledge, this does not own up to a 4WD status). The grownups being overheated, the children hungry and cranky, we decided to give the car a go, despite knowing from research in advance what we really were going to need was a 4WD.. The traveltime ahead was 4-5 hrs in the pitch-black Costa Rican evening/night going out of San Jose at rush hour. To be able to pass other cars/bikes/motorbikes, we needed downhills and everyone in the car leaning fwd, to sum up in short (and definitely to be continued later…).

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However, we got to Playa Negra in the Guancaste province, Santa Cruz alive, and were able to settle into our hotel – our own bungalow with thatched roof, squeaking geckos inside and roaring monkeys in the distance – our own spot of heaven for the following 2 weeks!

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Playa Negra is home to surf breaks known worldwide(since being featured in Bruce Browns “endless summer II”). By many surfers its considered to be one of the top surf spots in Costa Rica. It has a rock reef bottom, and with good righthand barrels and a well defined channel for paddling out. A good tip is to check out the tide before you plan on going out, as high tide changes by a fair amount of time day by day! Theres a strong rip current that takes the surfers back through the impact zone. The 2012 Costa Rican earthquake lifted up the entire plate which caused the wave to have better form on higher tides in combination with smaller swells. The spot is definitely not for beginners – you need to know your rocks and the tide… Besides, its the local surfguys/chicks spot, so you don’t just show up and mess up their ride…. Which Erik of course had no clue about before going out the first day, when he got smacked in the face by his own surfboard and told by a local guy that he should probably head back in….

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Well; “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again!” And so it went – with some local advice, a little practice at “kinder”, neighbouring Sandy Beach, Erik waited for the weekdays with less people in the sea so he got to catch a fair amount of really good waves on Playa Negra beach, rode in to shore and didn’t get injured by rocks or get in the way of the other surfers – him being thrilled to bits because of catching good waves, me just glad he was still alive and kicking(and of course happy for his wave conquering)! Sandy beach offers great body/boogieboardsurfing, so that’s how Noah, Mille and I spent our days. The last few days, however, Noah got on the board, and got Eriks knickers in a bit of a twist, when he mastered the wave surfing most elegantly almost right away….

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Costa Rica has so much to offer – beautiful smiling friendly people, slow pace, nice food, GREAT STRONG COFFEE, wildlife beyond your imagination. Everyone has beautiful and friendly dogs and cats that come and sneak cuddles(meaning all my frightening the children in advance with “no petting animals allowed – remember rabies vaccines doesn’t mean you’re completely safe” rapidly crumbled away as they befriended tenfolds of dogs and cats on the beach, the beach visitors dogs, the dogs and cats in every restaurant we went to and the dogs and cats that live at the hotel-owners pets and guests pets!). If you try the little Spanish that you know when talking to the Ticos, well then you receive a great big smile in return. A cat called “Tequila” sort of moved to stay by our Bungalow while we were there, living outside- (and a littlebit inside) – our entire stay. (The last night we did understand why the cat kept following the kids around when Erik got the scraps of Doritos left by the kids out, the cat came shooting out of nowhere to join in our little doritofeast). At night our own house skunk came out to hunt – being more than mildly fascinated (Ive never seen a real skunk anywhere but in Donald Duck comic books) I tried several times to take his picture, but he was shy, and then rude and turned his bottom at me, at which point I seemed to remember that that’s their “lock and load” positioning…

Wild life: Iguanas crawl around us in all sizes, shapes and colors. They sometimes sit and nod their heads, as if just re-confirming that “yes, you are in fact in paradise”, and Wild horses run on the beach whilst pelicans hunt along the crashing waves.

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Footprints in the sand have always fascinated me, how they in perfectly constituted sand make a perfect print of the foot just in the next moment to be washed away. However, even more fascinating, are perfect horse hoof prints in the sand, next to a little boys footprints.

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Ceviche, fresh fruits and juices are served everywhere – on the side of the road (small roads or motorway alike), in nice little hidden away beach shacks and in hotels of high end restaurants. And its actually in the little beachside-in-the-middle-of-nowhere-shacks we’ve had the best fish ceviche we ever tasted! (haven’t tried the roadside ceviche-in-a-plastic-bag yet, but we do have a fair amount of Costa Rican road to cover before we go on, so there’s plenty of chance still)!

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Playa Negra hotell deserves a little space of their own here. The owner, Lito, is a friendly very likable man who checks up on all his guests every day to see if there’s anything he can do to make their stay better. He has lunch and dinner in the hotel restaurant with his family and is a huge Real Madrid fan. So of course with soccer being the common denominator, he and Noah got along very well. Noah wanted to play soccer, and since his ball went missing in Miami, he was wondering if Lito had one in the hotel. He didn’t, but as a soccer fan, he wouldn’t be known as the hotel without a soccer ball, so the next morning that was fixed :O) The hotel grounds are spread out bungalows, small and a little bigger ones (without and with A/C). The space around the bungalows is big enough so even though the hotell might be fully booked, it doesn’t feel crowded at all. Nice food, roomcleaning every day, inside bathroom with shower, outside bamboo shower and short walk or drive to several good eating spots, beaches and 20 minute drive to the closest bigger town (Tamarindo).

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Playa negra is a great place to wave surf, boogie board and bodysurf, or just swim and play in the waves. The black sand (volcanic grounds) becomes burning hot like nowhere else in the day, so flip-flop or fast running down to the sea are a must. Playing in the pool or doing yoga is also great here. Yoga down by the sea on a pavilion of the hotel with the light seabreeze kissing your cheek is just a magnificent experience, the yoga teacher John will ask you at the beginning of the class “so, how do you feel today, do you feel like working in, or do you feel like working out” – and then customize the class from there. Other gorgeous beaches are a (very bumpy, maybe through riverbeds) car ride away, so you can check out different waves(Playa Junquillal – endless stretches of beach with hardly anyone else, playa Avellana with Lolas restaurant where you get Costa Ricas best French fries and so on).

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Making new friends –

Noah is a good mix of his two parents; his talkativeness is probably inherited down from his mothers side of the family and his socialization skills most probably from his dad. This is apparently a good combo when you add a big smile, English language and an American football in a pool. This is how we (well actually Noah) met Jeff and Ray from California. They saw Noah in the pool with his American football and started talking. It being a short time since Super bowl, the conversation naturally turned that way, and Noah couldn´t resist telling the two guys about his dads agony with not having been able to go see the Super Bowl at the stadium when he actually was in Miami. To make a long story short; turns out that Jeff is a former pro football player, and that he’s played for 2 different teams in 2 Super Bowls. Noah was completely starstruck. And it didn’t end there. We were invited out with Jeff, his Lorri and his friend Ray to dinner, and Noah got a signed team photo from Jeff from the Super Bowl final, Washington Redskins vs Miami dolphins 1972 and next day got to try on his super bowl ring! The two of them wandered off at the bbq the next night to play bongo drums with some locals, turns out Jeff is also a musician! With the curfew and quiet-time being 9pm at playa negra hotel, we (Lorri and I) had to wrench the two boys away from the gathering to get them to bed 🙂 Jeffs ancestors are from Norway, so connections are made, and hopefully we’ll see them in Norway already this coming summer! We got a few more days with Ray before we had to leave, and we`re hoping that he will join in on the Vikingtravels this summer too!

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Sunset-seekers paradise:

At sunset, at the last minute, the sun just seems to plunge down in the horizon. Hear-say has it that there is a green flash on the horizon as the sun disappears – and its true, I actually saw it myself, just as the sun dips below the horizon (probably a scientific explanation for it, but nonetheless cool). People from all around come to Playa Negra to watch the sunset and hang/surf/drink beers so the beach really fills up. Same people every day, no two sunsets being the same.

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Cake hat challenge:

On Christmas Eve, Auntie Zoe gave Mille and me a swim-hat with a christmascake print, with a challenge to take a picture with it on at every swim location. People do give us some strange looks, but we don’t really worry about that since both xmas trees and blinking decorations are still up all around the Caribbean! Thank you, GAZ – this challenge is really a fun one, and the hat is carried with us everywhere we go 🙂

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So, in between all the adventures there is always time to study medical articles, read books, being headmaster of “the travelling Sirkussaeter School of excellence”, or simply enjoying and appreciating life in a hammock gently rocked by the Pacific Ocean breeze –

PURA VIDA !