While I expected to surf during this year's trip to Costa Rica, I assumed it would be at Jaco, where I'd surfed in previous years, especially after a rock had flown up at me on the highway, creating a small crack in the windshield of our rental car and thus creating a need to go Jaco at some point during our two weeks on Palo Seco. It turns out the process of filing for insurance coverage through my dad's credit card was, shockingly, a tedious one, so we didn't return to Jaco until it was time to return the car and head back to San Jose, where we'd spend a few days before traveling home to the cold.
Instead, the opportunity to surf came up a little more unexpectedly. My parents and I had over ten days at the house on Palo Seco, and I decided that was a bit too long without some adventure. I looked up areas nearby and suggested we take a day trip to Dominical, a small hippie beach town about twenty kilometers past Quepos, a small city we'd been to often. The day we picked to go, we delayed departing because it was drizzly, so there seemed no rush to get there.
We arrived in Dominical, indeed a small hippie beach town, around 3pm. We found the local brewery, which was mostly open air but also strangely large for such a small town. Luckily, the weather had cleared up, so it was a pleasant afternoon to sit outside. I left my parents with drinks on the way and ventured down to the water... just to see. On my way to the ocean, I must have walked past at least six surf shops, which piqued my interest. When I got to the beach, I saw exactly what I'd been hoping to see: midsize waves filled with bobbing figures waiting to catch the next perfect swell.
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| The main stretch near the beach |
Most of the surf shops were closed, and it looked like my last hope was closing at 4pm. I peeked in to ask, just in case, and no, she assured me, they were open until 5pm (with sunset being close to 5:30pm). Then, I learned renting a board for the day was just $10... American. And I just so happened to have a Hamilton right there in my wallet. She then offered to hold my stuff in their office, so I threw caution to the wind, texted my dad I'd be gone for about an hour, changed into my suit and rash guard (okay, maybe I did come prepared), and trudged out to the rocky beach with a nine-foot long board.
Honestly, my time at Dominical was probably one of the best surf sessions I've ever had, despite the less-than-ideal conditions. We were only an hour or so away from high tide, so the waves were breaking pretty close to a beach with very rocky sections that were not fun to land on or walk through on the way to deeper water and smoother sands. The waves were probably 4-5 feet. But I got up quickly and had some great rides, even feeling comfortable enough to go a bit deeper than I usually do and to really work on that intuitive feeling of dropping into a wave.
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| Post surf marg |
Plus, I've only ever surfed at beaches with vast stretches of sand that leads to a fairly flat stretch of land speckled with palm trees (and sometimes parking lots and vacation homes). At the break in Dominical, hills covered in jungle dive down to meet the beach, which was narrow at high tide, and people sat among rows and rows of palm trees. Beach goers, Volkswagon vans, and tents for camping were the only signs of civilization from the water.
As I walked back to the brewery, happily exhausted from the waves, I also realized I was proud of myself for having such an adventurous spirit. I've sometimes been told I should be more careful as a woman moving about the world alone, especially in another country, but in both Barcelona and Costa Rica, I have had some of my best moments by shrugging my shoulders at those worries and embracing the opportunities in front of me. I think younger me would be really happy with that.
