Puerto Viejo / Costa Rica · 2014   cloudy sunshine

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   I remember them fondly as some of the better bad days. It had all been pura vida for a little while, until it hadn’t. Suddenly it was more like meh vida. I don’t remember the exact order of events, but it all happened within a few days: I lost my credit card and someone thought finders keepers and went on a generous shopping spree; after a late night or early morning swim I had to remove a whole bunch of sea urchin splinters from my toes with a needle (one stayed in there to become a permanent part of me); and at some point I got sick like few times before and never after. But friends were made over these mini-hardships and once again people helped me out with money when I was penniless (and didn’t even let me pay them back, because “hoy por ti, mañana por mi”).

For better or worse, I never got to sport the uniform of the surfer dude army, uniting locals and aspiring locals, who, armed with lowrider bikes and surfboards, surfed their time away semi-professionally – not really as though there was no tomorrow, but more as though there was always a tomorrow. And as much as the life was pure, it all felt a little too easy, too smooth, too American. So I took off to Nicaragua and the rest is history in the making.

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a glimpse

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glimpse: LIKELIHOOD | Looking up, there was no denying the palmy view; but in the same and potentially last breath, there was the minute chance that death by coconut was looking down on me. The sober statistical truth is that some of us will die extraordinarily – rolling out of bed, eating a hot dog or being a lefty using a right-handed product. Of course it would be silly to fear these statistical no-names that pale in the presence of famous deaths like heart attacks and cancers. However, they don’t need to be shy around total likelihood amateurs like fighting a vending machine, and, obviously, terrorist attacks and plane crashes.

Can such a costa rica ever get boring?

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Punta Uva, Puerto Viejo / Costa Rica · 2014   eternal coast

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places / stories

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Puerto Viejo

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Puerto Viejo / Costa Rica · 2014   time surfing away

Oh surfing, how much I would have loved to love you, but it was never really in the cards for us. What a sweet ride, but what a long wait.

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Puerto Viejo / Costa Rica · 2014   beachalicious

Puerto Viejo / Costa Rica · 2014   overdosing on palms

At every beach the herd instinct had everyone piling up in the same spot while few claimed a piece of Eden for themselves.

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Puerto Viejo / Costa Rica · 2014   outlier

Puerto Viejo / Costa Rica · 2014   smooth ride

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related

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photos | landscapes

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Americas

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wilderness heart

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The glaciers looked like petrified tsunamis, and the psychedelic lagoons like glitches, and that altitude canyon like an abyss in the sky. see more

photos | urban

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Central America

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rusty realms on tomorrow's verge

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yesterday’s heritage decaying gracefully while the future is arriving see more

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elsewhere

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in Central America

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